Revenue Forecast

The revenue estimate for the base year 2023 is $2.20 million, with a CAGR of 13.8% for the study period from 2020 to 2030.

The Impact of the 3 Strategic Imperatives on the Circular Economy of Textiles

Innovative Business Models

Why

• New business models will transform the way the textile industry sources and manufactures products; they will ensure efficient end-of-life product and material management and achieve goal 12 (responsible consumption and production) of the 2030 UN sustainable development goals (SDG).
• The push to create new opportunities and business models and move away from overconsumption is strong. Stakeholder preference will lean toward extended product use and repair; they are likely to choose usership over ownership.

Frost Perspective

• Innovative business models that support sustainable production, consumption, and end-oflife management are expected to play a crucial role in the transition to a circular textile economy between 2023 and 2030.
• A collaborative approach to sustainability initiatives across supply chains and manufacturing, in terms of efficient collection, sorting, recycling solutions, textile reuse opportunities, and partnerships with digital technology providers, is expected to bring significant operational efficiency and competitive advantage and create new revenue streams.

Disruptive Technologies

Why

• Data gaps across the product lifecycle—manufacturing, supply, supply chain partners—exist.
• The low rate of selective waste collection, poor separation processes, and the very low recycling rate result in loss of resources. Technology can help address such challenges by ensuring efficiency, greater circularity, and overall sustainability.

Frost Perspective

• Industry stakeholders are in a hurry to introduce new technologies that will ensure efficient data collection and informed decision-making and tools that measure, verify, and communicate progress with suppliers, supply chain partners, and consumers.
• The end-of-life management sector is seeing the incorporation of fit-for-purpose solutions with technologies that enable high resource recovery, especially in terms of reuse, and high-quality textile-to-textile and fiber-to-fiber recycling

Transformative Mega Trends

Why

• Because of the volume of global production and consumption, the textile industry's processes have had a significant negative impact on the environment, climate, and society.
• The textile manufacturing process often contributes to environmental and climate pressures on a global scale because of the consumption of natural resources (water and land), use of chemicals, waste generation, and the emission of green house gases (GHG) and other pollutants.

Frost Perspective

• In 2019, the EU commission identified textiles as a 'priority product category for the circular economy' with the cross-industry responsibility of implementing sustainable solutions that will ensure transformative changes across the entire value chain.
• Every stage of the textile system value chain—fiber production and retail, use, reuse, collection, sorting, and recycling—requires return and monetization, which will create new growth opportunities for innovative solutions with technologies, new partnerships, and business models.

Scope of Analysis

• Textile Industry Value Chain:
  • Upstream: fiber manufacturing, textile manufacturing, product development and design, product manufacturing, distribution and retail, and redistribution and resale
  • Midstream: consumer use, repair, and repurpose
  • Downstream: textile waste collection, sorting and separation, textile-to-textile recycling, and fiber-to-fiber recycling
• Textiles: cotton and cotton-rich textiles, synthetic (polyester, nylon, and acrylic) and synthetic-rich textiles, and blended textiles (poly cotton fiber)
• Textile End Products:
  • Apparel textiles: clothes, accessories, and footwear
  • Household textiles: bedding, towels, table linens, and upholstery
  • Technical textiles: geotextiles, medical textiles, and automotive textiles
  • Industrial textiles: filtration textiles, protective textiles, and reinforcement textiles
  • Textile-based art pieces
• Textile Waste: post-manufacturing, pre-consumer, post-consumer textile waste

Segmentation

Region

• Americas: The United States (US), Canada, and Latin America (LATAM)
• Europe
• Asia-Pacific (APAC)
• Middle East and Africa (MEA)

Segments

• Collection, Transportation, Separation, and Recycling
• Reuse, Rent, and Repair
• Disposal (incineration and landfill)

Growth Drivers

• The introduction of policies dedicated to textile products, such as the EU Strategy for Sustainable and Circular Textiles, EPR, eco-design requirements, labeling, and standards supporting sustainable production and end-of-life management will accelerate the shift toward a circular economy.
• Greater understanding of the need to reduce environmental impact among textile producers, brands, and retailers will stimulate the development of material recovery.
• The development of fiber-to-fiber recycling technologies dedicated to hard-to-recycle textiles (man-made synthetic, blended, contaminated textiles) is expected to increase the reuse of recovered raw materials across supply chains.
• The increasing demand for more sustainable products, changing consumer patterns, the move toward greater reuse, the growth of the secondhand sector, and the presence of flexible, convenient, and accessible services promote usership over ownership (product-as-a-service business model).
• The development of digital products dedicated to the textiles industry enables real-time data on the impact and helps measure, verify, manage, and model strategies for sustainability and efficient circular economy approach.

Growth Restraints

• Textile production and consumption is a highly globalized linear system with very low or no reuse and recycle rates; significant export of end-of-life textiles sent to Africa, Asia, and Western Europe end up in incinerators and landfills.
• The lack of pan-industry regulations and policies dedicated to sustainability and circular economy (in the scope of material sourcing and production, design, production and distribution of products, use, reuse, collection, and recycling) could result in systemic change while maintaining economic and social benefits.
• Poor data and the lack of accurate calculations regarding impact and material flow make timely decision-making difficult. According to the Fashion Transparency Index 2023, only 12% of the 250 global fashion brands and retailers publish their science-based decarbonization, with only 3% disclosing annual water footprint at raw material level and 30% disclosing their commitment to eliminate hazardous chemicals.
• The lack of transparency across the supply chain (including Tier I, II, III, and IV operations), combined with a high level of material and services outsourcing creates challenges for efficiently reintroducing post-consumer materials and impact measurement and verification.
• The negative impact of textile production on post-consumption regions other than where it was actually procured and used makes it difficult to redirect investments. For example, 85% of primary raw material consumption, 92% of water consumption, 93% of land use, and 76% of the GHG emissions caused by the European textile industry occur in other parts of the world.
• The significant drop in clothing prices (on average 30% over the last 20 years in Europe) will stimulate development of fast fashion that promotes overconsumption, with reduced life span of clothing.