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European Clothing Action Plan

Welcome to the September ECAP news. In this issue:
  • Love Not Landfill – London clothes bank launch;
  • Consumer clothing campaigns – practical communications materials;
  • CottonUP guide – free introductory webinars;
  • Meetings for municipalities – sharing knowledge and experience;
  • Fibre to fibre recovery – trials;
  • Design for Longevity – knowledge and tools for designers and developers;
  • Public procurement masterclass – the circular procurement of workwear.
Love Not Landfill - London clothes bank launch
On 13th September 2018 the first Love Not Landfill clothes banks launched into prime locations across London to help capture more unwanted clothing, especially from younger consumers. This included TOPSHOP Oxford Circus with an incredible weekly footfall of approx. 400,000, Ealing Broadway Shopping Centre with a weekly footfall of approx. 288,000 and Beyond Retro shops.  Promotion of the campaign included social media which resulted in an amazing impression uplift on Instagram from 200 to 82,000  and Twitter from 0 to 240,000.  The team also completed a number of TV and radio interviews on the day.

The team are now working to secure more prime locations and building momentum for the Love Not Landfill pop up shop launch in November 2018, so watch this space.
Consumer campaigns - practical communications materials 
ECAP has created a consumer campaign pack filled with ready-made, practical communications materials, ideas and guidance. It draws on the experience of WRAP’s Love Your Clothes campaign in the UK and features a range of editable artwork files to allow you to personalise messages for your campaigns. This includes social media and infographic templates, animated gifs, posters and flyer templates, and more.

Packs have been created for use in Denmark, Italy, Germany and the Netherlands.  They include statistics and guidance about consumer behaviours in those countries although can be used by any organisation in any country.

It was also great to see collaboration with @milieucentraal with the launch of a Dutch Love Your Clothes campaign in July 2018.

We are still looking for partners in Denmark and Germany to help them make use of the materials and deliver a consumer campaign on clothing.
 
Would your organisation be interested? Get in touch.
Dutch Postcode Lottery Green challenge - they did it! 
We are pleased to announce that Reverse Resources, one of ECAP’s external partners has been successful in the Dutch Postcode Lottery Green Challenge.

This is one of Europe’s largest competitions in support of sustainable entrepreneurship.

The final, which took place on the 13th September 2018, saw Reverse Resources win second place. The prize money will enable Reverse Resources to further develop their software platform and expand their research into the level of textile waste created within the fashion supply chain.
 
Under ECAP Reverse Resources is now preparing to launch the recycler phase of their software. This new platform will allow fabric recyclers to communicate and send requests directly to suppliers to increase efficiency in the trading process of textile scraps. Pilots have demonstrated a significant increase in earnings for factories and recyclers, and shows potential to help lower the costs of recycled yarn in the future.
 
Reverse Resources is working in partnership with MADE-BY to engage apparel brands, retailers and manufacturers to test solutions to better segregate, track and re-use pre-consumer leftovers to support a more efficient and circular supply chain. We are still looking for more participants in this area, so please get in touch if interested.

Go here for more information.
CottonUP guide - free introductory webinars
Sourcing more sustainable cotton is essential for any fashion brand or retailer with ambitions to reduce the apparel sector’s social and environmental impacts. It’s also a key objective of ECAP via the work MADE-BY is leading to support the switch to more sustainable fibre sourcing.
 
Researching the most appropriate sourcing approach for your organisation’s sustainability priorities is time and resource intensive. Therefore the partners in the global Cotton 2040 initiative have launched the CottonUP guide.  This guide aims to unpick the complexity of sustainable sourcing and support businesses with fast-tracking cotton sourcing strategies across multiple standards.
 
In addition to the CottonUP guide, Cotton 2040 partners Forum for the Future and MADE-BY are running  webinars to showcase how the CottonUP guide can help your organisation understand the business case and main sourcing options for sustainable cotton. Also how to develop a sourcing strategy and integrate sustainable cotton into your supply chain.
 
Two webinars are currently scheduled on the 9th and 11th October 2018. 
Book a place
Meeting for municipalities - sharing knowledge and experience
With the Revised Waste Framework Directive 2018, member states now have a mandatory requirement for the separation of additional waste streams including textiles by 2025.
 
So how can municipalities meet these new obligations?
 
Rijkswaterstaat is organising meetings for municipalities in the coming months. The aim of these meetings is to disseminate knowledge and experiences that were gathered in the ECAP textile collection report and share views between municipalities how to improve their own collection of textiles.
 
A meeting has been arranged for the UK. If you’re interested in hosting a meeting for municipalities in your country, please get in touch.
 
By the end of the year Rijkswaterstaat will also publish web-based guidance for municipalities on collection of textiles so watch this space.
Fibre to fibre recovery - early trial insights
Trials that involved substituting recycled fibres for virgin fibres in clothing ranges are underway and RWS have now gathered information and lessons learned from the participants. A summary is available here.

Moodstreet
 
Moodstreet, a children’s clothing brand aims to use the ECAP fibre to fibre trials to learn about different recycled materials and make this a part of their collections for 2018.
 
Next to finding the right suppliers, the focus has been to design the garments in such a way that customers (retailers and end users) become enthusiastic about recycling.
 
Engaging the retailers is key to the success of this project. Therefore, it is important to develop material that helps the retailers sell the new products to consumers making them enthusiastic about the recycling proposition.
 
Although the story is well received by some retailers, others still need some more guidance in the implementation of sustainability, leading at this stage to orders of small quantities which are not big enough to produce so a special approach is needed.

Moodstreet decided to produce a film which was made specifically for the ECAP project to explain sustainability and recycling to children, with the exciting potential to be used as educational material.
Design for longevity - tools for designers and developers
The Design for Longevity platform has been live now for a year with articles published daily. The platform offers inspiration, knowledge and tools for designers and product developers helping them to adopt a more circular approach within their design processes.
 
The platform has been a great success and now has over 1.4K registered users. To take advantage of these free resources you can register at any time.
 
We’d also love your feedback. If you could either complete our short survey or let us know your thoughts by emailing us.  We are also interested in talking to a few people about their use of the platform. If you're interested please get in touch.
Procurement masterclass - circular procurement of workwear
Our first masterclass on the circular procurement of workwear will be taking place on the 26th of September 2018. The masterclass will be in London and has been designed for contract managers operating under the Greater London Authority including the fire brigade and police. In the masterclass Rijkswaterstaat explains how to introduce circular workwear in your organisation and the role procurers can play to stimulate circular solutions in their tenders. Other masterclasses are planned in Malmö and Rotterdam.

If you have any interest in a masterclass, please contact us.
Keep up to date with ECAP,  @ecap_eu, and find out more on our website.
 
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