Date

15 November 2022

CircularInnoBooster Fashion and Textile (F&T) is a COSME project of the European Union that aims to transform companies in the fashion and textile industry into sustainable, circular, and regenerative ones.

The goal of the project - now completed - was to identify 30 companies and provide them with training and financial support in order to apply the principles of circularity in their business.

The project applied a progressive and innovative approach, taking into account a holistic and systemic perspective of the circular economy based on regenerative business design principles, human process designs and community participation models. The aim was to use circularity in its broadest sense, balancing the environmental, social and economic dimensions.

It presented a cross-border perspective to implement interregional cooperation, assisting companies in knowledge transfer and best practices of sustainable and circular fashion and textiles.

CircularInnoBooster focused on diverse participants, from freelance professionals of the industry to innovative start-ups and SMEs that wanted to transform their companies.
CircularInnoBooster relied on leading industry experts to organize capacity development and support activities for SMEs, designers and start-up companies in the fashion industry. The goal was to cover the entire value chain from raw material to the final product, including its use once its useful life has concluded, closing the circle of the value chain. The circular design is both innovative and demand-driven, engaging community advisory groups to co-create and participate in project outcomes. This way, companies become innovative, drive the emerging market and create the new sustainable fashion and textile economy.

To achieve this goal, CircularInnoBooster launched CirCoAX, the circular collaborative and cooperative co-design accelerator. It provided expert mentors and a business support scheme, including technical and financial support, to help participating partners in the emerging expansion of innovative applications, products, processes, new models, new brand building strategies or sustainable circular fashion and textile concepts.

Under the pillars of cooperation and sustainability, the 30 transnational partnerships that have benefited from the funding and mentoring of the CirCoAx by CircularInnobooster project have achieved the goal of scaling up their proposals and turning them into international benchmarks thanks to this acceleration programme that has put the focus of the media and investors on the innovative ideas they are working on to mitigate the climate impact of the textile industry.

With a 2-year duration, it had a budget of € 1,128,000, co-financed by the European Commission at 75%, the project was composed of an international consortium led by IED Istituto Europeo di Design, together with Texfor, Circulab, Finnova and The Circular Project with HumanNation.

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