1. Introduction 1.1 Background and motivation The consumption and production of textile products is extremely globalised, and involves producers and consumers across the world (European Topic Centre Waste and Materials in a Green Economy 2019). Across Europe, an average of 26kg of textiles is consumed per person per year (European Topic Centre Waste and Materials in a Green Economy 2019), with the number in Sweden being around 13kg per year per person (Naturvürdsverket 2016). On the other hand, the production of clothing has doubled in the last few decades, and the average number of times a garment is used has decreased by 36%. Furthermore, less than 1% of all materials are recycled into new garments, with a total of 75% of all materials processed in the fashion value chains are lost in landfills (Ellen MacArthur Foundation 2017, Global Fashion Agenda and The Boston Consulting Group 2018). From an EU consumption perspective, the supply chains of clothing, footwear and household textiles are the fourth highest pressure category in terms of the use of primary raw materials and water. Furthermore, it is the second highest for land use, and fifth highest pressure category in terms of greenhouse gas emissions (European Topic Centre Waste and Materials in a Green Economy 2019). While some environmental and societal problems are already being addressed by the industry, most of the efforts are focused on reducing the impact of the current linear system. Some of the examples include using more efficient production techniques or reducing the impact of materials (Ellen MacArthur Foundation 2017). However, systematic change towards circularity is crucial to facilitate the reduction of environmental and climate pressures and impacts while sustaining economic and social benefits (European Topic Centre Waste and Materials in a Green Economy 2019). As the production stages have the highest environmental impact (Roos et al. 2016), the aim in transitioning towards circularity should be on keeping fibres, textiles and garments at their highest value during use and re-entering phases (Ellen MacArthur Foundation 2012; 2017). By doing so, closing and slowing the resource loops will be facilitated, thus making a connection between post-use and production (Bocken et al. 2016). Furthermore, some of the key actions identified to access and maintain clothing by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation (2017) are related to emphasising the advantages of durability, and further boosting clothing utilisation through policy and extended producer responsibility. Therefore, a strategy such as fashion remanufacturing facilitates recirculating materials for added value, and highlights the importance of exploring alternative solutions related to operations, business models and structures for remanufacturing (Pal et al. 2018). The following work is resulting from Re:textile’s project focusing on the investigation of remanufacturing form a holistic perspective, and includes local stakeholders in Sweden, forming a collaborative network. The project has been carried out in three sub-studies, aiming to examine the implementation of remanufacturing activities for slowing the resource loops from different stakeholder perspectives in the whole value chain.
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Remanufacturing of deadstock and customer claims apparel
