Business networks and communities

The role of the facilitator in business communities

Circular textile and clothing systems depend not only on new technologies and business models, but also on facilitators who connect the actors needed to make them work. Drawing on experience with four FABRIX facilitators in Athens and Rotterdam, this entry shows what the role of a facilitator is, why it matters, how it takes shape in different organisations, and how similar connective work could be recognised in other contexts.

Who is a Facilitator?

Facilitators operate between actors, the networks those actors form, and the institutional settings in which they work. Their activities include transferring knowledge and resources between actors who might not otherwise exchange them, making introductions, translating between different professional languages, and coordinating repeated interactions. Research on innovation, entrepreneurship and sustainability transitions describes comparable roles using terms such as intermediary, broker, and orchestrator. These terms all draw attention to the connective work required for collaboration.

As such, a facilitator is defined less by their organisational form than by their position between other actors. A facilitator may be a company, municipality, trade association, research institute or non-profit organisation. Businesses and policymakers may also perform the role alongside their main activities. A facilitator’s position can therefore be a permanent one, a temporary responsibility or a function that an organisation takes on when circumstances require it.

Effective facilitators understand, articulate and respond to the needs of a community or a shared problem. Their work may begin through a particular project, but its value lies in whether it builds relationships, capabilities, and communities that continue afterwards. Developing trust is important, which often requires continuous personalised support and face-to-face interaction alongside digital communication.

Facilitators in textiles and clothing (T&C) sector

The textile and clothing (T&C) sector is a complex and demanding environment for collaboration, making facilitators particularly valuable. At the same time, the conditions that create this need also make facilitation difficult.

One major challenge is structural fragmentation. Nowadays, the T&C sector typically consists of global value chains that stretch across long distances and involve complex, often opaque relationships. Activities range from raw-material sourcing and textile and garment design and manufacturing to wholesale and retail. When a T&C system is circular, it must also involve waste collection, sorting, repair, reuse and material processing. Actors performing these resource looping activities may have different customers, use different terminology and work under different regulations. Some actors have little reason to interact within the conventional linear system. Facilitators can help bridge these divides by identifying complementary needs, translating between actors, and creating opportunities for sustained collaboration.

A further challenge is the loss of local production capacity. Decades of offshoring have moved manufacturing away from many European cities, contributing to shortages of skilled workers and affordable small-scale production facilities that might support a transition to closed loop systems nearer to designers and consumers. Facilitators consequently work in value chains with missing links. Part of their role may be to identify capabilities that still exist, connect local actors to expertise elsewhere or help rebuild capacity locally.

Reflecting the diversity of these tasks, facilitation in the T&C sector may be performed by industry groups, trade unions, consultancies, public authorities, incubators, cooperatives and other organisations (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Actor types in T&C sector

Facilitators in FABRIX

FABRIX made facilitators the focus of its first open call in Athens and Rotterdam. The project sought organisations capable of engaging local stakeholders and supporting the development of local circular and regenerative T&C systems. FABRIX’s mapping identified concentrations and emerging clusters of T&C activity in both cities. Interviews nevertheless showed that support systems remained fragmented. Long-term partnerships were uncommon, material sourcing was often informal, and businesses frequently depended on networks they had built themselves. This placed the focus on relationships and coordination ahead of the project’s subsequent call for individual businesses.

Two facilitators were selected in each city. Together, they illustrate how the same role can be performed from different organisational positions. In Rotterdam, Remake Society is a circular textile atelier and social enterprise. It works with companies to repair, repurpose, redesign and refurbish textiles while providing vocational training and employment pathways for people facing barriers to the labour market. Its facilitation connects textile waste streams, businesses, educational partners, policymakers, and skilled makers. Tekkoo is an innovation agency based at BlueCity, Rotterdam’s circular economy hub. It helps businesses, public bodies and partnerships turn sustainability ambitions into pilots, business models and collaborations across value chains, supporting circular ventures move from prototypes towards production.

In Athens, FABRIX selected the Institute of Commerce and Services (INEMY-ESEE), the official scientific branch of the Hellenic Confederation of Commerce and Entrepreneurship. The institute studies developments affecting commerce and small and medium-sized enterprises and contributes evidence to the confederation’s policy positions. It therefore connects research and policy expertise with an extensive network of commercial organisations. Ten Million Hands combines a social mission with commercial tools that promote responsible consumption and production. It connects consumers and businesses through education, information and practical services.

The four facilitators bring different areas of expertise and focus: practical production and social inclusion, innovation and business development, research and policy advocacy, and consumer and business community-building. Each organisation may work across several of these areas as local needs and relationships evolve. What connects them is their ability to bridge gaps between actors, knowledge, and resources.

The FABRIX platform is intended to support facilitators in carrying out and developing this relational role. It provides a shared digital space for identifying organisations, making networks and capabilities visible, accessing relevant information, and coordinating community-building activities. This can help facilitators work more strategically while complementing the local knowledge, trust and relationships developed through their in-person work.

Recognising facilitators in your ecosystem

Two conditions are particularly important when identifying and supporting facilitators in other cities or sectoral contexts. First, begin by looking for actors already performing facilitation. Their local knowledge, networks, and communities can be mobilised effectively. As facilitators are rarely identifiable through business registers or job titles, speaking with local businesses and practitioners is often the most reliable way to find the people and organisations doing this work. Second, support facilitators beyond a single project cycle. Short funding periods can constrain the patient, relationship-based work required at ecosystem level. Projects and policymakers should therefore consider how networks, responsibilities, and resources will be sustained after the initial funding ends.

Contributed by Erasmus University Rotterdam.