Circular Economy transition in the textile and fashion industry: development and use of a new specific tool to assess circularity performance of companies

Although the textile and fashion industry significantly contribute to the global economy and employment, its impact on the environment and climate is destructive. The overconsumption of resources like water, land and energy, together with the polluting production processes and the excessive waste coming from both industry and consumers cause big concern. The implementation of Circular Economy practices like reuse and recycling can play a key role in mitigating these damaging impacts and convert the current linear economic system into a more sustainable circular one. In this context, to help companies keep track of their sustainability performance, circularity indicators have been introduced in literature, and the present thesis aims to present a newly developed circularity measurement tool specific for the textile and fashion industry. This could help define and improve the circularity performance of companies in the sector, contribute to increasing their awareness about their impact and hopefully pave the way for a more sustainable way of thinking and producing.