Leverage Points for Change

Our work to date has resulted in an understanding of BC’s textile waste problem, and these tangible leverage points to take action towards circularity.

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Increase industry collaboration in collection, sorting, recycling, and design for environment.

 
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Invest in circular fibres development, recycling technology and collection infrastructure.

 
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Educate consumers, designers and brands about their role in a zero-waste fashion future.

 
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Set a level playing field that supports the reduction of apparel waste.

 
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Make circular fashion business models mainstream. 

 

Our Impact to Date

From 2017-19 we partnered with Vancity, The City of Vancouver, Metro Vancouver and the Vancouver Economic Commission to convene 25 businesses and organizations from textiles-related sectors to collaborate on the issue of regional textile waste. 

We mapped the regional textile system through participant and network interviews, and secondary data sources, and produced the white paper ‘Unraveling Apparel Waste in the Greater Vancouver Region’. This study revealed a systems map of apparel waste flows in the Lower Mainland, establishing critical baseline data. This foundation positions us well to identify and act on opportunities that disrupt the conventional take-make-waste process.

 

Past Participants

 

Building a Green Economy

Together, we built towards a greener economy with five key vectors for change emerging from our previous work. 

  • New Association. Formation of a new association of all sorter-grader facilities.

  • New Business Venture. FabCycle now provides textile waste collection service.

  • New Cross-Sector Partnerships. One example: a participating business and academic partner forged a new relationship of collaboration. 

  • New Direction. Reshifting focus to developing new markets for post-consumer textiles.

  • New Platform. Leverage Lab formed a partnership with SPEC to host the next lab and build future Labs.