Business development
What is circular economy?
Circular economy is about creating closed loop systems, designing products to prevent waste, keeping resources in use at their highest value, and supporting natural regeneration. Focusing on the textile and clothing sector, this entry explains the concept and shows why FABRIX treats coordination across value chains and places as central to putting circular economy into practice.
What is circular economy?
A circular economy strives to organise production and consumption so that fewer newly extracted resources enter the economy, products and materials remain useful at their highest possible value, and waste and pollution are prevented by design. Where natural materials can safely return to the environment, their circulation should also support the regeneration of natural systems. Circular economy is one pathway towards sustainability, which has broader environmental, economic, social and cultural dimensions.
This differs from the linear take-make-waste model, in which resources are extracted, turned into products and eventually discarded. A circular approach asks questions throughout a product’s life: Does this product need to be made? Can the need be met with an existing product or service? Can it use fewer, safer or secondary materials? Can it last longer, be repaired and pass through several users? What systems will keep it and its materials away from incineration and landfill when one period of use ends?
Circular strategies are often organised through an R-ladder, which ranks options according to how much material value they preserve. Different versions of the ladder use slightly different terms, but they follow the same general principle where preventing resource use is preferable to extending a product’s life, and extending its life is preferable to breaking it down for recycling. At the top of the ladder are strategies such as refusing unnecessary products, rethinking how a need is met, and reducing resource use. The next priority is to keep existing products in use through maintenance, repair, reuse, sharing, and resale. Refurbishment, remanufacturing, and repurposing can give products or components another useful life. Recycling recovers material when these higher-value options are no longer feasible, but it often requires substantial energy and chemicals and may produce material of lower quality. Energy recovery through incineration preserves very little material value, while landfill preserves none.
The aim of referring to the R-ladder, therefore, is to choose the highest-possible value strategy that is technically, environmentally, and socially appropriate in a particular context.
Circular economy in textiles and clothing sector
Today, the dominant structuring mode of the textile and clothing (T&C) sector combines intensive resource use with rapid production cycles and short product lives. These outcomes are shaped across the entire value chain, including (fossil fuel-derived) fibre production, dyeing and finishing, design, manufacturing, retail, use, collection, sorting, and end-of-use treatment. The central challenge in a circular transition is to replace a system rewarded for selling increasing volumes of short-lived products with one that creates value through quality, use, care, circulation, material recovery, and regeneration.
In practice, this begins with designing products for more than one life. Garments need sufficient physical durability to withstand repeated use, cleaning, and repair. They should also retain their functional and emotional value so that people want to continue using them. Components should be accessible and easy to replace or disassemble, while harmful substances should be avoided. Fibre blends and coatings should be minimized where they prevent materials from being sorted or recycled at the end of use.
Circularity in T&C also requires business models that reward use and value retention rather than sales volume alone. Repair, resale, take-back, rental, and product-as-a-service models can create value beyond the initial transaction. On-demand and made-to-order production can reduce unsold stock, while systems for collecting and sorting used textiles can direct products towards appropriate reuse, repair, or recycling routes.
Place-based networks may help shorten some material loops, improve traceability, and make repeated collaboration easier. They would also help to support greater coordination needed in decision-making across designers, manufacturers, retailers, consumers, repairers, collectors, recyclers, municipal agencies, and policymakers. At the same time, local actors need compatible capabilities, shared information, suitable infrastructure, viable incentives, and sufficient demand. Circularity is rarely something one firm can deliver alone, and hence must be addressed simultaneously at product, industry, and regional or societal levels.
Circular economy in FABRIX
FABRIX applies circular economy principles to local T&C systems, using the R-ladder as one way of understanding how products and materials can retain value. Its place-based perspective draws attention to businesses involved in production, repair, materials processing and waste management, activities that are often overlooked in descriptions of post-industrial cities.
FABRIX treats circularity as both a relational and a spatial challenge. Closing a local loop requires knowing where relevant actors, materials, skills, and infrastructure are located and whether they are connected. Being located close together can make interaction easier, but actors must still recognize complementary needs, develop trust, and establish workable arrangements for exchanging materials, information, and services.
Organisations selected through FABRIX’s second open call illustrate how circular strategies are already being applied in practice. One entrepreneur (Studio Haering) collects abandoned festival tents for upcycling while another (3Quarters) has worked with event posters, balcony awnings, and lifeboats. Some start-ups use residual material streams from businesses in the local region and develop natural textile dyes or textiles as safer and more environmentally friendly alternatives. Localisation can also take different forms. A business may source waste nearby, manufacture locally, work with local craftspeople, or connect its activities to collection and repair infrastructure in the city.
The FABRIX platform is intended to help organisations and facilitators make these relationships and capabilities more visible. It supports users in exploring the local network, identifying potentially complementary actors, and learning about capabilities and circular practices. The platform cannot create collaboration or close material loops by itself, but it can help actors find one another and provide a shared basis for developing partnerships.
Contributed by Erasmus University Rotterdam.