From Waste to Value: The Realities of Textile Recycling Today — Where We’re At, Where We’re Going, and a Roadmap to Getting There
Each year an estimated 100 billion garments are produced, of which 92 million tons end up in landfill, and according to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, only 1% are recycled into new materials. If the fashion industry could achieve a closed-loop system, nothing would ever go to the landfill. Instead, clothes would be endlessly recycled and made into new garments. The problem, however, is that we currently can't do that — at least not at scale.
Though the technology for recycling fibers into new fibers does exist and has been successfully executed, many challenges stand in the way of making textile-to-textile recycling a viable solution to the industry's waste. While industry professionals agree that recycling is a crucial and urgent part of the circular agenda, industry buy-in is slow. Investments in the textile recycling space are largely seen as risky due to the amount of capital needed and the extended timeframe to commercialization.
In true chicken-and-egg fashion, brands and manufacturers are stalling on committing to use recycled materials until they are cost-competitive with virgin fibers. However, this lack of demand signaled by the brands deters investors from financing the innovation needed to scale commercialization.
So, where do we go from here?
For textile recycling to become an impactful reality, the gaps between logistics, technology, investment, and infrastructure must be closed. How can we move the industry and push past initial concerns to overcome the obstacles of scaling the circular textile economy?
In celebration of National Recycling Day, tune in on Youtube Tuesday, November 15th at 9am PT/12pm ET for a panel discussion presented by For Days with Evrnu's CEO & Co-Founder, Stacy Flynn; Kristy Caylor, CEO & Co-Founder of For Days, and Caroline Brown, Managing Director of Closed Loop Partners about the realities of textile-to-textile recycling today and the future of circular thinking. In a conversation led by SFF's Founder and CEO, Brittany Sierra, hear these industry leaders discuss where we're at, where we're going, and the roadmap to getting there.
ABOUT THE PANELIST.
Caroline Brown, Closed Loop Partners Managing Director
Caroline is a Managing Director at Closed Loop Partners, a NY based investment firm focused on the development of circular economy solutions. In this role she oversees the fashion investments across all asset groups and also co-leads the growth equity vertical across fashion, material innovations, supply chain technologies, food & agtech. Prior to investing, Caroline spent 25 years in the apparel industry and held global CEO roles for leading brands such as Donna Karan / DKNY and Carolina Herrera. Caroline started her career working with Giorgio Armani for over a decade.
Kristy Caylor, For Days CEO & Co-Founder
Kristy Caylor is an entrepreneur, fashion innovator, and sustainability visionary. As the CEO and Co-Founder of For Days, she brings to the company a unique understanding of the circular economy and an extensive career in fashion. For Days is a closed loop clothing platform that is connecting brands and customers in a unified circular economy. For Days aims to eliminate landfill waste for the $1.5T fashion industry.
Previously, Caylor co-founded Maiyet, where she built a global artisan supply chain, launched Maiyet on the Paris runway, opened retail in New York, and sold the brand to major retailers including Barneys, Bergdorf Goodman, Neiman Marcus and Saks. Caylor spent her early career launching and growing businesses for Gap, Inc. including Banana Republic Petites, Banana Republic Japan, and was instrumental in leading Gap’s Product (RED) division. She is a member of the CFDA, has worked with the Lexus Fashion Initiative, Cradle to Cradle’s Fashion +, the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, and the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Consumerism. Caylor has been profiled and featured in leading publications, including the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Vogue, W and Elle. Caylor was named one of the 100 Most Intriguing Entrepreneurs by Goldman Sachs and was honored in the Glossy 50: Fashion Digital Front Runners. For Days was named as one of Fast Company’s World Changing Ideas and received an Innovation by Design Award.
Caylor holds a BS in Industrial Engineering from Northwestern University and an MBA from the University of Southern California.
Stacy Flynn, Evrnu CEO & Co-Founder
Stacy Flynn is CEO and a founding partner of Evrnu, a textile innovations company. An accomplished sustainable systems expert, Stacy is committed to developing innovative fiber technologies that reduce textile waste and preserve natural resources.
Under Stacy's leadership, Evrnu is working to solve the most pressing challenges facing the global textile and apparel industry. In 2019 Evrnu debuted NuCycl™, a technology that transforms garment waste into a resource by recovering the raw materials for reuse. A future where textile producers, brands, retailers and customers reimagine their relationship with nature is now becoming a reality.
Evrnu has been recognized as an organization making notable contributions to the circular economy as well as being an honoree in the 2020 Fast Company World Changing Ideas.
Stacy is a TEDx and keynote speaker and a passionate voice of authority advocating for materials reuse for sustainability in textiles. She is an Unreasonable Impact Fellow, along with a cohort of CEOs that are advancing other world changing ideas. Prior to founding the company in 2014 with her business partner Christo Stanev, Stacy worked as a global textile specialist for nearly two decades in roles at DuPont, Eddie Bauer and Target.
She holds an MBA in Sustainable Systems from Presidio Graduate Institute and a Bachelor of Science degree in Textile Development and Marketing from the Fashion Institute of Technology.
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