Scottish textile businesses can now apply for support from a £2m Circular Textiles Fund, administered by Zero Waste Scotland and backed by Scottish Government, to help reduce the environmental impact of textiles. The fund aims to support the development of circular supply chains in Scotland and help businesses achieve net zero. Register your interest by 29 July 2022.

The funding will go directly to businesses across the textiles industry in Scotland, from fashion to upholstery and industry.

Manufacturing textiles consumes finite resources and releases greenhouse gas emissions, while Zero Waste Scotland’s latest Carbon Metric report shows textiles make up 4% of waste by weight but account for nearly a third (32%) of the carbon impact of Scotland’s household waste.

The Circular Textiles Fund can help businesses in Scotland to implement innovative circular projects to drive Scotland’s circular economy, in which resources are valued and kept in circulation for as long as possible.

Who can apply for the Circular Textiles Fund?

Applications are open to textile businesses looking to implement a circular business model or project in Scotland. Individual applications and collaborative projects are both welcomed.  Applications will be assessed against their ability to:

• Accelerate a circular transition in Scotland
• Deliver economic and inclusive growth
• Reduce waste
• Reduce carbon impact
• Innovate

Round 1 projects must be delivered by 31 March 2023.

What is available?

The minimum funding which can be applied for in one application is £25,000 and the maximum is £500,000. Full details on eligibility criteria can be found in the fund Guidance notes.

The first of the two-stage process is completing your Expression of Interest by 29 July 2022. Businesses will find out if they have been invited to the second stage of the application process by 1 September 2022.

ZERO WASTE SCOTLAND: CIRCULAR TEXTILES FUND

The Circular Textiles Fund focuses on five key areas:

• Reducing consumption – measures that encourage more responsible consumption of textiles, such as clothing and textile rental, reuse, and repair.
• Design for circularity – supporting organisations to improve how clothing and soft furnishings are designed to maximise the end-of-life potential. This could include specifying preferred materials, reducing the use of mix materials, reducing chemicals used that can affect the ability to reuse and recycle products, material labelling, and adjustability for resizing.
• Supply chain management and specification – supporting organisations who procure textiles, be it uniform, bedding including mattresses, soft furnishings to specify materials and designs that can be easily reused, repaired and have a reduced impact. This could include closed loop pilots for low-impact materials for bedding (including second-life fabrics), uniforms that can be altered for reuse, and diversion from incineration of uniforms by smart design.
• Clothing care and chemical reclaim and management – Supporting organisations to develop chemical reclaim processes and prevent plastic shedding. This could include overcoming the challenges of flame retardant chemicals and banned substances, and implementation of new inert methods or systems for end-of-life processing.
• End of life (reprocessing) – Supporting organisations to maximise the potential of waste textiles. This could include material sorting technologies to better sort and grade for reuse, creation of new products from waste, tonnage being moved up the waste hierarchy, and reprocessing of problem materials.