Product Circularity, Fashion, Clothing and Textiles (PC4Fashion)

PC4Fashion aims to support stakeholders across the fashion and clothing sector’s value chain to consider issues related to the Circular Economy (CE) agenda in the fashion, clothing, and textiles industry.

Background

The fashion industry accounts for 10% of CO2 emissions, 25% of chemical emissions and is second only to agriculture, as a consumer of water (Charter and Cheng 2021). It is also a self-regulated industry which is in its infancy in terms of policy development, despite being considered one of the most polluting industries with 1.92 million tonnes of textile waste produced every year. Research conducted by CfSD shows that companies across various industries, including the FCT sector are at a basic level of awareness in relation to product circularity.

In July 2024, CfSD launched the PC4Fashion open access online tool that combines benchmarking and guidance content for the fashion, clothing, and textile sector. Future projects will develop the tool further for the sports apparel and clothing sector focusing on the implementation and data requirements of circular policy and legislation.

PC4Fashion is funded by the University for the Creative Arts UKRI/AHRC Impact Accelerator award.