First UPMADE certified industrially upcycled fashion collection in Europe
Reet Aus, PhD, is a sustainable fashion designer who uses industrial upcycling to reduce the fashion industry’s impact on the environment by circulating fabrics leftover from mass production back into production using the design. In mass production, an average of 25-40% of new fabrics are considered pre-consumer waste and end up in landfills. Reet Aus uses a science-based production model UPMADE® and for the first time, she produced a collection from pre-consumer leftover fabrics in Europe.
Cross-border/international
Estonia
Poland
{Empty}
Tallinn, Estonia
Lodz, Poland
Mainly urban
It refers to a physical transformation of the built environment (hard investment)
No
No
Yes
2022-11-30
As a representative of an organisation
Name of the organisation(s): Aus Design OÜ Type of organisation: Company First name of representative: Reet Last name of representative: Aus Gender: Female Nationality: Estonia Function: Founder and Head Designer Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Telliskivi 60a/5 Town: Tallinn Postal code: 10416 Country: Estonia Direct Tel:+372 5645 6633 E-mail:hello@reetaus.com Website:https://www.reetaus.com/
URL:https://www.instagram.com/reetaus/ Social media handle and associated hashtag(s): @reetaus #reetaus #fortheenvironment #upmade #upcycleyourthinking
URL:https://www.facebook.com/reetaus Social media handle and associated hashtag(s): @reetaus #reetaus #fortheenvironment #upmade #upcycleyourthinking
In recent decades, the fashion industry's carbon footprint has surpassed that of aviation and sea transportation. The biggest environmental footprint comes from the production of the garment. In mass production, an average of 25-40% of new fabrics after cutting are considered pre-consumer waste and meet their end in landfills.
Reet Aus, PhD, is a sustainable fashion designer who devised industrial upcycling principles that reduce the fashion industry’s impact on the environment by circulating fabrics leftover from mass production back into production using the design.
She uses a science-based production model UPMADE® for the trademark Reet Aus collection. UPMADE has been developed during Reet Aus's research at the Estonian Academy of Art and in cooperation with Stockholm Environment Institute Tallinn Center.
The purpose of this project was for first the time to produce a UPMADE collection from pre-consumer leftover fabrics in Europe, Poland, Lodz in the Mirafo factory.
The first task was to audit the Mirafo factory and UPMADE certify them. After certification procedures, the design process started and it followed the principle of circular design. All collection items from this project were produced in the Mirafo factory from pre-consumer leftover fabrics following industrial upcycling and the UPMADE methodology. Additionally, to create a fully circular economy and reduce the fashion industry's impact on the environment, Reet Aus studio offers repair, resell and redesign services in her studio. She also takes back all Reet Aus brand garments for recycling purposes.
textile industry
textile waste
circular design
industrial upcycling
sustainable fashion
The sustainable purpose of the project is to reduce the textile industry waste problem.
In mass production, an average of 25–40% of new virgin fabrics are considered pre-consumer waste and they end up in landfills or go to burning. Our project's key objective is to circulate this “waste” material back into production through design in the same facility it was generated. In the past, it has been done in the largest textile industries in Asia. During this project, we tested it for the first time in Europe, in the Polish factory Mirafo.
By circulating pre-consumer textile industry leftovers back into production, which means industrially upcycling, ables to save on average 75% water and 88% energy and emit 80% less CO2 in comparison to traditional production. Industrially upcycled and UPMADE-certified garments also avoid restricted hazardous chemicals and mainly use mono-fibres (cotton) for easier recycling. This project's goal was to get similar results in a smaller-scale factory Mirafo in Poland.
Additionally, all sold and used clothing items (post-consumer waste) can be returned to Reet Aus studio for repairing, redesigning, reselling or recycling to prolong the item's lifecycle and to reduce the textile industry waste even more.
These are all important parts to create circularity in the fashion industry.
Reet Aus’ UPMADE collection produced in Europe was created on the principle of circular design. In the first stage of design, fabric waste from the textile industry and the longevity of the clothes were taken into account.
The aim was to design garments that last both physically and style-wise. Fabrics were chosen on the principle to last and would be comfortable to wear in every season. The used materials are also easy to take care of at home.
To ensure that collection items were ready for production, all items went through test wearing. Reet Aus team members wore items daily to test quality, fit and comfortability. In order to avoid the production of poor items and to generate unwanted waste, the items went into production only if all criteria were met. In other cases, the design was disapproved (change of fabrics, sewing technology, fit etc).
This project collection consists of 8 classical, yet creative and unique style items that can be worn on different occasions (smart-casual to formal) and are made of soft leftover cotton fabric for more comfortable wear.
This project's clothing items were created based on Reet Aus loyal customers' “Arrow Tribe” feedback. To produce only those clothing items that are missed and that are actually wanted to be worn, the Reet Aus team asks for once-to-twice-a-year feedback from their customers. Customers can give feedback on what type of garments and what designs they prefer. The Arrow tribe was also included in this project, all designs were based on their feedback.
The second part is the transparency of the supply chain and item pricing. All products contain information on how much of the fabric is industrially upcycled, in which factory they were produced and what the pricing model of the products is (how much is the production cost and what other expenses are included in the price).
To keep products in circulation for longer, customers can bring them back to Reet Aus studio for repair or redesign. Meaning items buyers can be part of the creative post-consumer redesign. Reet Aus offers a service where customers can bring in used items that they no longer wear and redesign new items from them.
To create a full circle, customers are asked after a couple of months of wearing the items, what is their assessment of the products and how they could be designed even better in the future.
The upcycling model also requires a higher level of trust between the brand and the manufacturer. On the other hand, the mutual interest in maximising the use of leftovers leads towards greater openness, exchange of information and long-term cooperation which is a win–win solution for all involved. The manufacturers can form a long-term partnership with the brand it produces garments for and the brand, in turn, can get more out of their fabric if the manufacturer will also produce an upcycled collection from the fabric waste.
The fashion and textile industry is one of the world’s most polluting industries. The amount of waste created is truly significant, as the European Union (EU) textile industry alone generates around 16 million tonnes of textile waste annually (European Commission, 2017). Much of this waste today still ends up in landfills or is incinerated. This represents a loss from a production effort which uses millions of tonnes of water and kilowatts of energy and countless hours of human labour that could be salvaged.
So textile waste is a huge problem for society as we still don’t have proper collecting and recycling systems in place. The responsibility for the waste is often put on citizens, but the current mass production and poor quality of clothing items do not support textile waste reduction.
The purpose of our project is to ease the responsibility of the citizen. By circulating leftover fabrics back into production, it helps to turn textile waste into a resource and reduce the textile waste problem in textile industry areas. By creating quality, long-lasting clothing items with repair and redesign services, we try to prolong the item's usage time for citizens and by offering a used item resell option, we reduce the possibility of creating new textile waste.
- Estonian Academy of Arts, Sustainable Design and Material Lab DIMA (Tallinn, Estonia) - research of textile industry waste and industrial upcycling, development of UPMADE design methodology.
- The Stockholm Environment Institute Tallinn (Tallinn, Estonia)- production facility auditor for UPMADE certification. UPMADE® Certification gives a manufacturer independent assurance of its capacity to produce upcycled products in correspondence with quality, chemical toxicity and labour standards.
- Reet Aus customers and Arrow tribe community (all over the World) - input for the collection so it would be made for customer needs. They are given the opportunity to repair, redesign and resell items from the collection and reduce post-consumer waste.
- Aus Design (Tallinn, Estonia) (Project lead)- circular and creative design process, communication between stakeholders, sales and marketing of the outcome of the project (Reet Aus UPMADE collection). Educating and creating knowledge about textile industry problems and the community around UPMADE and industrial upcycling. Reducing textile industry production waste.
- Mirafo - UPMADE-certified production facility that provides leftover fabrics and produces the collection. Being part of industrial upcycling helps the production facility waste management and saves the environment from textile waste.
Creativity, circular design, entrepreneurship, production and environmental science came together in this project.
The UPMADE system and certification scheme creates a synergy that results in a circular fashion item. Industrial Upcycling has been a research topic for the Estonian Academy of Arts for 15 years and Reet Aus UPMADE collection is a sample of academic research put into reality.
The implementation of the UPMADE system in the Polish factory through product development made it possible to create a completely new production method, which has a scientific basis.
Creativity solved one of the biggest environmental issues through circular design disciplines.
The outcome of the project is Reet Aus UPMADE collection which consists of 8 industrially upcycled clothing items that are designed following circular design and UPMADE certification principles.
The results of the project based on UPMADE certification methodology calculations:
Amount of new raw pre-consumer fabric leftovers saved by circulating it back to production: 163.85 kilograms
Amount of water saved by industrial upcycling: 1,440,159.6 litres
Amount of CO2 saved by industrial upcycling: 1,692.7 kilograms
Thanks to the project, the production facility Mirafo was able to save 163.85 kg of cotton fabric going to waste. Instead of sending it to a landfill, it was used to create a more sustainable and science-based Reet Aus UPMADE collection. It reduced the fashion industry’s impact on the environment and on society. By providing repair, resell and redesign services, it is possible to reduce the textile industry waste problem even more.
While most debates and circular fashion approaches focus on the problem of used garments—so-called post-consumer waste, less attention is paid to textile waste and leftovers from manufacturing garments (pre-consumer waste). Yet the environmental impact of garment production in the whole garment life cycle can be from 29 to 72% depending on the type of clothing.
The efficiency of upcycling design approach is described by analysing the generation and potential use of various types of fabric leftovers from garment manufacturing. The results of UPMADE projects show that depending on the size of the factory the fabric leftovers and textile waste generated in garment production range from 25–40% of the total fabric used. Experiments show that 50% of that material can be upcycled into new garments and for some types of leftover—mainly spreading loss and excess fabric—it can even be up to 80%.
Implementing upcycling on the industrial level requires transparency to understand the waste created in garment production and create designs that suit the production system.
It is important to consider that the upcycling design process differs from regular design—a garment is designed based on the parameters of the waste materials.
Project stages and methods:
1) Textile and fabric leftover analysis in a garment manufacturing company
- Analyses of the amount and types of fabric leftovers (company ERP data)
- Identification of main causes for fabric leftover generation
2) Development of upcycled garment design
- analysis of leftover material
- testing and experimenting
- assessment of leftover fabric utilization rate
- documenting the design proccess
Output:
Amount and types of fabric leftovers generated in the manufacturing -> Most suitable categories of fabric leftovers for upcycling -> Upcycled garment design methods:
- Design based on cutting leftovers (small cut pieces, end-pits and short roll ends 30 cm to 3 m) and rejected panels
- Design based on longer roll ends (3–49 m) and excess fabric
- Design based on overproduced garments
To be able to implement upcycling design methods the designers need to understand the types of leftovers generated and the reasons why this happens. Fabric leftovers and waste are generated because of technical aspects of the production processes, manufacturing and resource planning and quality issues. Cooperation between brands/designers and the manufacturer is crucial to understand the particularities of the material and being able to design for it. For the efficiency of upcycling it is necessary to integrate the upcycling design into the garment production process, especially when working with cut leftovers.
The industrial upcycling and UPMADE methods are relatively easy to copy to all textile manufacturers' facilities. For the first time, it has been tested in a European factory in Poland. It has proven that it works and can be replicated to find the highest value for pre-consumer textile waste at a relatively low cost by leveraging the existing capabilities and capacity of textile manufacturers.
Upcycling pre-consumer waste makes it possible to work with homogenous and predictable material streams to manufacture the same upcycled garment designs in large quantities. A large amount of textile waste and leftovers can be redirected back into production and upcycled into new garments in-house while greatly increasing the overall circularity of the sector.
Slow fashion production, getting real feedback from customers and producing only needed items can be replicated in all brands' productions. Additionally should be added repairing, reselling and redesigning services to reduce post-consumer waste.
The main purpose of this project is to reduce the textile industry waste problem. As said, in recent decades, the fashion industry's carbon footprint has surpassed that of aviation and sea transportation. The biggest environmental footprint comes from the production of the garments and in mass production, an average of 25-40% of new fabrics after cutting are considered pre-consumer waste and meet their end in landfills.
The second global issue is post-consumer textile waste. In 2020, nearly 19,000 tons of textiles were thrown into household waste in Estonia. Nearly 4,000 tons were collected separately, but not all of which were recycled and it is common for European countries to send their textile waste to the African continent.
In order to reduce the global impact of the textile industry, a true circular economy-based clothing production must be introduced - industrial upcycling must be introduced to reduce the production problem, and repair, redesign and secondary resale opportunities must be introduced to reduce post-consumer waste.
