The Renewal Workshop Releases Leading Circular Report

CASCADE LOCKS, Ore. - This year's report includes new data on the carbon reduction that results from renewing products as compared to making new ones.

Brands can achieve an average reduction of 51.5% in carbon emissions by renewing an existing product instead of producing a new one.

Renewal is the process TRW created to restore apparel, bags and home goods to standardized conditions enabling more uses over longer periods of time with a lower carbon impact than new ones.

Equally important, this year's Leading Circular highlights the voices of activists who are cutting through the noise on what the industry should be paying attention to when it comes to carbon and circularity.

Dominique Drakeford's essay states how the current approach to circular continues "the colonial control of power dynamics while keeping the veil of 'Doing good for people and planet' as a facade of noble action."

Liz Ricketts essay, She Can No Longer Carry Us, is a first person account of the impact in Ghana of US over production. Her concluding words must be heard. "Just because you do not see and feel the weight of fashion's excess does not mean it is not there closing in on us and destroying the industry we love."

re/make authors Ayesha Barenblat, Elizabeth Cline and Chelsey Grasso address the myth that we can recycle our way out of the climate crisis. "In general, brands have to stop taking the low-hanging fruit of recycling and work towards the reuse and product life extension aspects of circularity." 

"Climate change is the largest existential crisis facing humanity. It is this urgency that frames the Leading Circular 2021 report on Carbon and Circularity." Says Co Founders Nicole Bassett and Jeff Denby. "We are calling on every apparel and textile brand to commit to displacing 10% of new production over the next 5 years and invest those resources into renewal."   

About The Renewal Workshop
The Renewal Workshop is the leading provider of circular solutions for apparel and textile brands. We help brands to decouple revenue growth from resource use and expand their businesses by adopting circular practices. We offer apparel and textile renewal, sales channels for renewed products including white-labeled recommerce sites, circular mapping, data collection, and circular education.