Month: December 2020

About Wayne Hubbard

Briefly describe your background, interests & areas of expertise?

I have a background in waste and resource management, and latterly have become passionate about accelerating the development of a circular economy in London. I have worked for a variety of local government bodies including the Greater London Authority where I headed up the waste policy team, before joining the London Waste and Recycling Board in 2010– which has now become ReLondon.

What does circularity in the textiles industry mean to you?

I’m primarily interested in reducing the volume of clothing in circulation, as industry statistics suggest that there are currently at least 80 billion items of clothing in circulation globally – enough to clothe us all several times over. The climate impact that clothing production and consumption has is huge, and could be tackled by more circular approaches like sharing, renting and repairing. And for those times when we actually need to buy new clothes, we need to develop a fully recyclable way of making them so we can use the fibre in today’s clothes to make tomorrow’s.

What does your company/organisation do to bring about circularity (core relevant activities/commitments, highlight short and long term goals, if relevant).

ReLondon’s Business Plan highlights the circular economy as a key tool to address the climate emergency and particularly its role in reducing consumption-based emissions. Our mission is to make London a global leader in sustainable ways to live, work and prosper by revolutionising our relationship with stuff and helping London waste less and reuse, repair, share and recycle more. A city like London has a far bigger carbon impact than just its territorial emissions would suggest: we could all reduce our energy use, swap in sustainable sources, and cut back our transport-related emissions significantly, but that would still leave the emissions associated with the food, textiles, plastics, electricals and other materials such as metals and concrete that we use (and throw away) every day. So ReLondon works with businesses, citizens and local government in the capital to find achievable ways of reducing our consumption of raw materials and build circularity and resource efficiency into everything we make, buy and use. Our programmes aim to save 126,000 tonnes of CO2e a year by 2025 and contribute 15% of the additional recycling needed to be on track for London’s recycling target of 65% by 2030. Overhauling the way we think about and manage waste has the potential to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by almost 3.5 million tonnes a year in 2050.

What made your decision to join the CAP?

Fashion and textiles make a sizeable contribution to London’s total consumption and are a significant proportion of the waste that Londoners create – we can’t create a circular economy without creating a circular textiles industry. The Circular Advisory Panel is an excellent way of creating momentum through collaboration – so I wanted to be a part of it, to see where we can help mobilise change and collaborate most effectively in a city context.

How important is this Circular Advisory Panel approach for preparing a company like WA for the market (i.e. a business starting out with the sole purpose of enabling circularity but entering the market in ‘linear times’)? What do you think it will bring to the company?

See answer above! I hope that I can bring some insight from a city perspective – which is where the majority of global consumption takes place. I think the panel more widely will keep everyone’s ‘eyes on the prize’ and keep circularity in our sights alongside commercial viability.

What do you believe the biggest hurdles/opportunities for transitioning to a new circular business mindset will be, for WA, for the industry?

I think that there is an awful lot of goodwill in the minds of citizens – but we somehow need to convert that into action in partnership with business and government to create the conditions for system change. Awareness of the impact of fashion on the planet is at an all-time high, but so far we’ve seen many brands tinkering around the edges, experimenting with small-scale pilots or introducing schemes which pay lip service to environmental concerns; the challenge now is to make change on a scale that will genuinely reduce the industry’s contribution to the climate emergency.

Name 3 things you think businesses will be doing differently in a circular future.

Recycling, sharing and repairing more.

We strongly believe collaboration is at the core of enabling circular economy and we are delighted to join as founding partner another valuable initiative which brings together leading circular partners across textile and apparel industry. Eon has launched Global Partner Network which will unlock the fashion industry’s vision of a circular economy at scale by enabling brands and retailers to manage, direct and track the flow of garments across the value chain by connecting with those products using Eon’s Internet of Things platform. Eon’s Internet of Things platform powered by Microsoft Azure transforms the concept of a “Digital Passport” for physical products into viable reality by using the CircularIDTM Protocol and creating a digital system of record for products across their lifecycle, giving brands unprecedented visibility into the journey and value of their products over time plus a transformational system for tracking and communicating with those products. The Eon Partner Network will enable brands digitizing products on the Eon platform to provide participating circular business partners with instant access to connected product data crucial for enacting circular processes like re-commerce and recycling. With Partner Accounts on the Eon Platform and accompanying devices for product scanning (RFID, NFC, QR code), these network partners will have the ability to immediately digitally identify and authenticate products that are connected on the platform and to drive their circular practices by accessing deep beyond-the-label data such as original sale price, images, key features and material content. Joining as founding partners, together with us, this industry’s first Global Partner Network are other leading circular businesses: The Renewal Workshop, Trove, Reflaunt, Lenzing, Hallotex, Recurate, Optoro, Evrnu, Save Your Wardrobe along with Salvation Army Trading Company and Waste Management. Additionally, network partners will have the ability to contribute to the ongoing enrichment of products’ digital passports by tying metadata to product lifecycle events (location, resale price and channel etc.), creating a continuous picture of a garment’s value in real-time and powering the re-monetization of a single product across multiple lifecycles. “Making a circular system economically and operationally viable for the fashion industry hinges on the brands’ ability to communicate with their circular business partners about their products – and to connect, track and manage the products themselves. Eon’s Internet of Things platform delivers the enabling technology brands need to connect their products. Now, the Eon Partner Network unlocks the communication about those products between brands and their circular business partners – powering fully functional circular systems and enabling both brands and partners to capitalize on the ongoing value of their products and materials far beyond the first point of sale.” – Natasha Franck, Eon Founder & CEO The Eon Partner Network makes the promise of a digital system of connected products viable at scale using a functional language for communication and exchange of data between products digitized via the Eon platform. For more information, please visit Eon Global Partner Network    About EON Eon is the leading Internet of Things (IoT) platform powering Connected Products across fashion, apparel and retail. Eon powers product digitization to bring end-to-end intelligence and connectivity to the product lifecycle – laying the foundation for circular business. Eon’s mission is to power our circular commerce. For more information, please visit www.eongroup.co

We recently announced our participation as a founding Partner/Member signatory of Textiles 2030, a new collaborative voluntary agreement for the UK textiles sector. Created and managed by WRAP, Textiles 2030 will be the most ambitious national voluntary agreement for clothing and other textiles in the world. The ten-year programme aims to transform UK clothing and home fabrics to reduce their impact on climate change. Textiles 2030 will take the UK from a make-use-dispose culture to a circular one where goods are produced sustainably, used longer, and then re-used or recycled into new products. Central is the Target-Measure-Act approach, which requires clothing and textile businesses to set targets, measure their impact and track progress on both an individual business basis, and towards national targets and public reporting. In this way, Textiles 2030 will reduce lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions in line with the global goal of a 1.5°C trajectory, cut the water footprint of products and deliver a UK-wide circular textiles road map. Ahead of its launch in 2021, WRAP ran a pre-launch campaign and organized a live webinar to introduce Textiles 2030 to the industry. It already secured major high-street names and sector bodies including British Retail Consortium, British Heart Foundation, Cancer Research UK, Charity Retail Association, CTR Group, John Lewis Partnership, Next, Oxfam, Primark, Sainsbury’s, Salvation Army Trading Company, SOEX (UK), Suez, Ted Baker, Textiles Recycling Association and Tesco. We welcome with enthusiasm this industry initiative, we look forward to collaborating with other leading businesses for sustainability across clothing and home textile retail, supply, re-use and recycling on fast-tracking the UK circular economy. “With circularity still in its infancy, the need for a joined up and holistic approach, bringing together key stakeholders to co-develop the UK circularity roadmap is greater than ever. We’re extremely excited to see the nationally focused approach and vision of Textiles 2030 to facilitate and support the implementation of a circular textiles future in the UK.”  Cyndi Rhoades, Founder of Worn Again Technologies For more information, please visit WRAP Textiles 2030  About WRAP WRAP is an environmental charity that works with governments, businesses and individuals to ensure that the world’s natural resources are used sustainably. It’s the charity leading The UK Plastics Pact, a world first initiative, as well as Love Food Hate Waste, the Courtauld Commitment, Sustainable Clothing Action Plan and Recycle Now. WRAP works collaboratively and develops and delivers evidence-based, impactful solutions to reduce the environmental cost of the food we eat, the clothes we wear and the plastic packaging we use. Founded in 2000 in the UK, WRAP now works throughout the world and is a Global Alliance Partner of The Royal Foundation’s Earthshot Prize. For more information, please visit www.wrap.org.uk