A conversation with Maike Demandt, a researcher with the Circular Economy Department at Wuppertal Institut in Germany, reveals noteworthy tidbits for those aiming to be more sustainable in the textile industry. This chat unveils the complexities of sustainability and navigates a detailed model outlining circular business practices for textile producers. Maike is one of the esteemed panelists who will be speaking in the Econogy Hub at Heimtextil on January 9th, 2024 at 2pm, along with Bettina Heller, Textile Lead, United Nations Environment Programme, and Brigitte Zietlow, Research Associate, Umweltbundesamt.
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Previous episodes on Trendease.TV:
– New Sensitivity at Heimtextil
http://www.trendease.tv/episodes/items/new-sensitivity-at-heimtextil.html
(alternative link: https://youtu.be/b7emXg5McuM)
– A Chat with Simone
http://www.trendease.tv/episodes/items/a-chat-with-simone.html
(alternative link: https://youtu.be/R20yDcLqlcc)
– Textiles Matter
http://www.trendease.tv/episodes/items/textiles-matter.html
(alternative link: https://youtu.be/kNWcBGXodYM)
– Next Horizons
http://www.trendease.tv/episodes/items/next-horizons.html
(alternative link: https://youtu.be/xNEsDNRfKsQ)
– Embroidery Will Have You in Stitches
http://www.trendease.tv/episodes/items/embroidery-will-have-you-in-stitches.html
(alternative link: https://youtu.be/NDuA8nDDsZY)
– Valorization of Waste for Innovation
http://www.trendease.tv/episodes/items/valorization-of-waste-for-innovation.html
(alternative link: https://youtu.be/obcyPR-uJzk)
– More can be found at http://www.trendease.tv
Hello I’m Jennifer caly from trendies International and we’re here with Micah deont from The waral Institute to talk about circularity thank you for joining us today thanks for having me can you tell us a little bit about yourself your Masters and your thesis because it sounds very interesting yeah I’m mic
Deon from the wal Institute I started as a junior researcher last year and I studied uh business administration at first and did my bachelor Theus on Corporate social responsibility in the German and Turkish textile industry and uh for my Master’s Degree I studied sustainability management and uh in my
Master theis I looked at extended producer responsibility in the German metc industry what is an extended producer responsibility uh it means that the producers of the products have to take care of the products when they become waste at the end so it’s about being circular in manufacturing yes true so we’re going to
Be talking in a panel at Heim Tech still next week which I’m looking forward to and one of the key topics that is supposed to be addressed is the different vocabulary within sustainability do you have any tidbits or anything you like to share about vocabulary within sustainability and
Textiles maybe things are misused or things that are more common in in popular culture right now what you see as an academic who researches this from day to day yeah there there are so many terms that you use uh but I think your circular economy there are so many
Definitions I think there is a paper with over 100 definitions of circular economy so this little word itself has a lot behind so I think it’s very um necessary to have one clear definition for circular economy but the circular economy action plan of the EU for example defines it so I think this
Definition fits quite well but um yeah also you mentioned Cradle to cradle this is a small part of the circular economy I think upcycling is also one um you one term that is often used but uh I have one colleague that says upcycling is something that’s almost
Impossible I’m yeah I think it’s uh difficult to discuss it because of course because upcycling means that the value of one material gets better and that’s very difficult in reality um but yeah there’s also down cycling and Recycling and I think it’s very necessary to distinguish between down cycling and recycling because for
Example in the textile industry um some companies talk about recycling uh their clothes which sounds great but uh in reality they down cycle it to um like table cloth and everything so it’s not a t-shirt that gets out of the T-shirt but um like wiping wiping or insulation
Material so this would be down cycling instead of recycling so if you have a decorative pillow in the textile industry and it gets a hole in it and you embroider a nice patch over it that’s recycling yeah yeah I would say it’s um more like a refurbishing or something because
There are like 10 R strategies they all start with an r and it’s use repair and everything okay uh yeah so recycling is more like you recover the real material from it so if that pillow would be I don’t know taken um the fibers out of it
Then I don’t know how they do it but they process it and the fibers are used for another pillow I would say okay so that’s recycling yeah and down cycling is if they take those fibers and make it into a product that has less value like uh cleaning cloth or insulation yes
That’s right okay and upcycling would be let’s see if you took that that cushion and you upholstered uh I don’t know a a little sofa in a dollhouse yeah maybe like this so yeah the definition is very difficult but in my opinion I would always also say if
You embroider it and it becomes so nice and so uh not so plain and I in my opinion that would also be kind of up cycling but I think it’s not the official definition but in my opinion the value would get higher if it gets nicer and everything so it’s very
Difficult yeah so the V vocabulary is also linked to the perceived value like the economic value of something yes I I would say so okay it’s very complicated yes but I think maybe in the end the best thing is that manufacturers and producers are trying their best to be
Sustainable in regardless of what the vocabulary is yeah that’s true you’ve pulled up a rather complex model on the screen can you talk us through this yes yeah it looks uh very complicated uh in the first place and maybe also in the second but um yeah so this is the whole
Value chain of um of textile products I would say so you start with the natural fibers at the beginning I don’t know if you see my mouth okay perfect so you start with um the fibers at the beginning and they get into the production where they are pro processed
And everything out of this production um the products get retailed and um then used by the consumers and after the use phase they are collected and sorted and hopefully by circular design and also Cradle to cradle and um recycling the materials can be used again and then the
Circle goes round and round and um but there are so many more strategies and business models to um prolong the life cycle of the Tex app products for example you see uh already in the Texa production you can use uh exess material again so it doesn’t become waste and um distribution and Retail
There is a new market for dead stock and also from the use phase you see that the errors go back and also from the collection and sorting that they go back to distribution and retail for example um if you reuse your clothes for example you can sell it uh online to other
People so it gets distributed again and reused again before it’s um yeah collected and sorted and yeah those uh arrows just show uh in which part of the the value chain of texti products those circular strategies can be applied and um in which phase uh the products get
Back from it yeah and that’s basically our model I see lots of the r words in there yes true and how do we’ve got resources and Emissions at the bottom with a a bunch of red icons how do those work yeah um so we um also put them into the graphic
Because of course uh for to produce uh those fibers and to extract those fibers um you need the raw materials they go into the circle um we we said it from the bottom but actually would be over here but yeah they get into the circle and
Um what comes out of the circle is air pollution water pollution and everything and we want to um make minimize the emissions that come out but also we want to minimize the resources that go in because it’s also connected with um with emissions and everything and water use
Is also a big problem and so this gray Arrow this great circle that that’s the thing we want to minimize in general and by circular economy uh when you use the fibers from the end at the beginning you don’t need new fibers so you U minimize the resources for example and you also
Minimize uh the emissions so I’m going to be a bit controversial because we’re going to be at the world’s largest home textile Fair would it actually be the best for the planet just to continue using what we already have rather than producing more I think from a circular economy
Perspective yes it’s impossible but uh it would be yeah I think it would be the best because then you don’t need to extract new resources you don’t have to get rid of the waste by incineration or land filling which also causes uh environmental emissions and everything but yeah unfortunately I think it’s not
Possible well even if we did that if we didn’t have Trends and you know the the the consumerism of buying things just to buy things if people were buying things because they needed them we would still need to produce more because eventually items degrade over time yes so I guess
The good balance would be to produce but to produce responsibly yes and I think also um sufficiency is one key word uh that we also use uh in in the context of um circular economy because it means that you produce enough so you don’t produce over so there’s no over production but
It’s just enough for a very good living so not just the bare minimum but that you have a good life yeah sufficiency that’s a good word thank you for adding a new vocabulary word to my my uh sustainable vocabulary book like ecogy I I had to ask himim Texel what what is
Ecogy and they said it is Ecology plus economy that’s so you do all of this research and then then what happens um yeah so the research is uh we we have uh several projects and then at the end of the project uh we also do some interviews for example workshops with uh
Stakeholders to get some practical insights and it depends on the yeah on the project what needs to be done but for example um we make some road maps how to transform uh to a circular economy or we do some status quo analysis what yeah what the current state is and then we
Develop some measures how we can yeah also transform to a circular economy so it’s usually a report coming out saying what can be done and if manufacturers are interested in these reports how do they access them um but yeah if you just uh Google Bal Institute papers or
Research reports um then you should get the overview yeah are they available to the public or do people have to pay for them no they are all available to the public because we have this Open Access um there are so many different marks and certifications and things out there as
As an academic do you do you see that there would be value or a possibility that maybe globally we will have one type of Mark or just a few type of marks that could be recognized well that would be the perfect scenario because right now we
Have a jungle of uh yeah of all those labels I think um but uh the for example the Blue Angel um from here in Germany that is already a big Mark that is recognized and that’s also trustworthy so I think if we can put it on another level um at the European
Level that would be great I think it would be yeah I think it uh may be a little bit difficult because the countries have other standards but hopefully with the um EU textile strategy they want to harmonize everything and maybe also um yeah the labeling will get better because also the Ecom modulation
Directive um yeah also harmonizes the the echo design for the products so maybe that’s a way where you can say okay we take the CR criteria from the echo um Echo design directive and then we make a label out of it maybe harmonizing is another great word when talking about sustainability and
Circularity so sustainability and circularity which which one is more of the umbrella do you have circularity and sustainability falls under or sustainability is on top of circularity uh no I would definitely say sustainability is is the umbrella is on top because you can also have social sustainability and um also then the
Environmental sustainability and under that is the circularity so circularity um yeah contributes to the overall sustainability so as an industry when we talk about sustainability we’re we’re using the right word that’s about the the the overall yes okay we’re doing something right there we go yeah
And do you have any advice to to the professionals on how to be more more circular or sustainable um of course comply to the new laws that are coming now but um yeah I think it’s very I can understand that it U may be very difficult to transform
The whole production from from a linear way that that that everyone is doing right now uh to a c cular way but I I think it’s important to see the opportunities because if you do this circular economy you um you’re not getting rid of your materials that you
Already have so you yeah you keep them and you’re not so dependent on your uh suppliers because all the materials you already have uh when you have a circular economy so I think it’s also a step by step so of course you can’t uh transform your whole production in one day but um
You can start with uh different business models for example if you are a t-shirt producer I would say maybe you can try to um yeah try out uh this um leasing models for t-shirts so you don’t sell them but uh you rather lease them to the consumers and you get the t-shirts back
And they just have to pay for the use and not for the product and for this um maybe uh the textiles are longer used in the circle that would be a big paradigm shift to have le leas your duvet yeah well that would be so nice I I really
Want to try this that’s well let’s spread the word don’t don’t buy your textiles lease them yeah right and then everybody wins right hopefully a bunch of the viewers can come to our panel discussion on January 9th at 2 p.m. at he Tech still and the economy Hub but if
Not uh there is the resource of the orbital Institute so they can find your papers online and uh thank you for contributing your your knowledge and also trying to make the world a better place thank you Micah that was a very interesting conversation my two favorite buzzwords are now sufficiency and
Harmonizing and that’s just the tip of the iceberg of what we’ll be discussing at our panel conversation at heex still on January 9th in the eony hub I hope to see you There