Collective Action for a Circular System
Photo Credit: CNN Style, Chinese Artist Wan Yunfeng
On this episode of Unspun, Lewis Perkins, President of the Apparel Impact Institute (Aii), sits down with Lauren, Danielle, and Catherine to discuss the genesis of circularity and what needs to change for it to advance in the fashion and home industries.
Perkins got his start with circularity when he worked at Mohawk Industries, where at the time the carpet industry was facing major backlash for their contribution to global landfill waste. The carpet industry was looking towards efficiency and optimization of materials, both of which are necessary for circularity.
Collections and sorting are major obstacles to circularity for both the home and apparel industries. Synthetic materials utilization is also present in both industries causing unique technological needs to sort and recycle materials.
The circularity landscape is packed with organizations of all kinds working to eradicate linearity from our consumption model. A number of non-profits and multi-stakeholder initiatives are leading the way. Accelerating Circularity, the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, and Fashion for Good are just a few of the organizations working in this space to convene efforts to develop the necessary infrastructure to collect and sort materials. The Closed Loop Fund is among the major investment firms making innovations from companies like Evrnu and other fiber technologies possible.
“INCREASED COLLECTIVE ACTION IS CRITICAL NOW.”
Early efforts in circularity were focused on mapping the system and the players, and discovering how individuals, companies, brands, etc. fit in the larger landscape of the system. Now the industry is starting to assess and optimize the system, and this is where collective action is essential. To get to a place of collaboration, the industry has to agree on the destination and the data, and start to seek solutions with a more holistic and interconnected approach.
Moving away from a siloed approach
One of the obstacles to collective action can be a siloed approach to environmental and social considerations in sustainability frameworks and strategies. Lewis suggests this is often because there might be different employees working on social and labor, circular design, or carbon impact etc. because of the functional roles they play at a company. Nonprofits can also exacerbate this challenge by coalescing change through initiatives focused on specific action areas, making it hard to address issues as interconnected.
“SUSTAINABILITY HAS MOVED FROM BEING A DEPARTMENT TO BEING ACROSS ALL DEPARTMENTS AND ALL FUNCTIONALITIES WITHIN THE SYSTEM.”
The Fashion Conveners, a global coalition of nonprofits, has brought together organizations, each of which represent a different component in the journey, to create collective action for the industry. Perkins has seen increased partnerships come out of this collective. Four of the partners of Fashion Conveners—Aii, Sustainable Apparel Coalition, Textile Exchange, and ZDHC—have formed the alliance to work toward joint implementation of interconnected programs.
Fostering partnerships
“I WANT TO BE ABLE TO PARTNER AND PLUG INTO EXISTING WORKSTREAMS ON THE GROUND.”
Finding the right partnerships and collaborations are important to Aii. Perkins explained that Aii conceptualizes programs before seeking out on the ground partners that can collaborate on or even co-create the programs. The organization does not use the top-down, Western approach that often causes more harm than good. Instead, they recognize the importance of equal partners in creating solutions.
To learn more about Perkins’ experience in circularity, from the obstacles he’s identified to the solutions he’s contributing to, and how he is looking to the young generation for inspiration, tune into the latest episode of Unspun.