On November 21st, 2022 at 17:00 CET, we kicked off our CIRCULAZE Virtual Trend Tour series by taking a look at circular solutions in the Fashion and Textile industry with start-ups The Hurd Co., Werewool, and reverse.supply. Joining us for the keynote was 4P Capital’s Xavier Sarras
From the CIRCULAZE short- and long-list, inspiring start-ups in the Fashion & Textile industry joined us on Monday November 21st to highlight their Circular Economy solutions.
Moderated by:
Keynote by:
The Startups:
Founder/s:
Taylor Heisley-Cook, David Mun, Charles Cai, & Michael Gurin
Located In:
Los Angeles, CA, USA
What to wear is not only a question of style (nor mood or weather), but of environmental consciousness. Materials like rayon, viscose, modal, or lyocell are traditionally made of wood pulp, purified cellulose. That requires trees. According to The Hurd Co., the fashion industry cuts down 200 million trees – every year! To avoid deforestation the Californian start-up invented a material from agricultural waste called agrilose in 2019, mainly using hemp. The plant is harvested for CBD and protein as well as traditional hemp fiber, but most of it is thrown away or burned. The Hurd Co. uses 70% of this waste for their pulping process needing half as much water and 350 times less energy than the conventional process. Additionally, they hand byproducts to partner facilities to make biofuels and bioplastics. A closed-loop that started as a thesis paper and now targets the big players in fashion, allowing consumers to make more sustainable choices.
Founder/s:
Theanne Schiros, Chui-Lian Lee, Valentina Gomez, Allie Obermeyer, & Helen Lu
Located In:
New York, USA
We ask a lot from our clothes. That they’re waterproof, comfortable, colorful, and machine washable. However, we rarely ask if they’re eco-friendly. To address our long list of requirements, textile producers have long used toxic dyes, coatings, and production processes. These are damaging our planet’s biodiversity, polluting fresh water and producing harmful microplastics – all for our fast fashion whims. The brilliant team of scientists at Werewool are reversing this polluting cycle, and redesigning textiles for a circular economy by following in nature’s footprints and harnessing proteins, the building blocks of life, from the natural world. By copying and extracting protein molecules from nature’s most colorful organisms, these bright minds can create bright fabrics that are sustainable and fit the fashion bill. If it’s good enough for the animal kingdom, why not us too?!
Founder/s:
Max Große Lutermann & Janis Künkler
Located In:
Berlin, Germany
With the help of their white-label re-commerce platform, reverse.supply enables the customers of fashion companies and marketplaces to easily sell back their already used but still good items via the companies’ webshop and thus make an important contribution to extending the life cycle of a product. After entering the most important information and a picture, the items are sent to their Recommerce Hub and then checked for condition and graded. Based on this, a purchase price is suggested to customers in the event of a potential sale. When the item is purchased, it is sent directly to the new buyer*s and the seller receives the proposed purchase price. Everything is very simple without price negotiations, long waiting and additional effort.