Accelerating Circularity Awarded $1.2M Walmart Foundation Grant
The Walmart Foundation has awarded Accelerating Circularity a $1.2 million grant for circular textile-to-textile systems trials using discarded textiles generated on the East Coast of the United States.
The grant was awarded to validate circular systems models through trials that aim to move spent textiles through the key nodes of circular systems: collecting, sorting, preprocessing, and chemical and mechanical recycling through fiber, fabric and garment making through to brands and retailers.
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Accelerating Circularity is collaborating with product digitization company Eon, leveraging its CircularID Protocol to support the implementation of circular product passports. Validated systems can help with the uptake of new circular business models and employment opportunities for each of these new or expanding businesses.
Accelerating Circularity’s 2020 research on spent textiles, collectors, sorters, preprocessors and recyclers showed opportunities and gaps. The organization said it will create links through multi-party collaborations as part of newly identified circular models.
Accelerating Circularity said circular systems success requires industrywide collaborations and that it has already engaged organizations and individual companies throughout the supply network, and will recruit new participants that recognize that working together is essential through open calls. These will include brands and retailers that want to offer circular products to their customers, cut-and-sew manufacturers that can make circular products and others who have technologies and processes that will support circular systems.
Accelerating Circularity is a collaborative industry project developed to advance the textile industry’s move from linear to circular. It was founded in 2019 with a mission to establish systems that will use the embedded value and resources in existing textiles for new products, reducing the millions of tons of textile waste annually going into landfills and thereby supporting the reduction of the industry’s GHG emissions.
To date, Accelerating Circularity has established working partnerships and collaborations throughout the industry and developed practical research on and actionable recommendations for functioning circular systems. Funding for Accelerating Circularity is provided by Walmart.org, Target Corp., VF Corp, and Gap Inc.
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