UKFT member CircKit is an AI-powered circular toolkit for fashion and footwear brands, helping teams to design better products, harmonise fragmented data and meet upcoming regulatory and commercial pressure. Founded by Joe Darwen in 2023, CircKit is led by a team of seasoned industry professionals. Simon Platts, Chief Implementation Office, brings decades of experience as former Director of ESG and Sourcing at ASOS. Joining them is Sarah Foster, former CEO of the environmental consultancy Beyondly.
Joe Darwen said: “Circularity is no longer a ‘nice to have’. A new report by the Apparel Impact Institute points to a potential 34% drop in profits by 2030 for brands that do not act on their climate footprint. This is no longer just a sustainability issue, it’s a profitability one too. As the report notes, de-risking supply chains and decoupling profitability from climate-volatile inputs can materially reduce exposure to risk over time and build resilience.”
CircKit helps brands become circular by design, turning sustainability from a retrofitted reporting exercise into a decision advantage at the start of product creation. It provides an automated Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and reporting engine bringing together product and supplier data. This effectively reduce the burden and cost of reporting by replacing manual data cleansing and reliance on external consultants. It also helps compress reporting cycles from years and months down to a 60 to 90 day window.
Joe explained: “Because impact data and compliance outputs are generated at scale and made available in real-time at the design phase, teams can reverse-engineer product impact and outputs, or ‘design with the answers in front of them’. This enables better choices on materials, construction, durability, and end-of-life pathways, while also preparing brands for legal requirements such as Extended Producer Responsibility and Digital Product Passports.”
“The business case is two-fold. First, measurable savings in time and money on reporting and data wrangling. Second, a step-change in strategic capacity for time-poor Sustainability and CR teams, freeing them to focus on higher-value strategic initiatives and innovation, in direct collaboration with other departments like Design, Buying and Sourcing, rather than chasing information across systems.”
CircKit also comes in at a time where brands are facing a wave of regulation in the UK, EU and North America, such as mandated impact reporting (including carbon, water and energy), Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR) and Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR). “As CIO, Simon Platts, often stresses, focusing only on intake margin misses the true cost. It’s time for leadership teams and CFOs to enter the chat, to support circularity and sustainability initiatives as strategic levers for profitability and resilience, not just as side-gigs,” said Joe.
Since its inception in 2020, CircKit has participated in several accelerators such as the Turning Innovation Catalyst Manchester and Edinburgh’s AI deep search accelerator at Bayes Centre.
Joe said: “These programmes helped the team sharpen go-to-market positioning and storytelling, strengthen legal and governance foundations, and build confidence in the robustness of the product databases, AI/ML models, and modular suite of tools, alongside securing essential enterprise-level data protection and cyber security readiness.”
“Since then, CircKit has continued to accelerate, forming partnerships with pioneering brands and scaling new business, including a key endorsement from the European Commission with being appointed as the official technology partner to the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) Culture and Creativity Fashion Adaptor NEB programme, supporting SMEs across the 27 EU member states and Horizon countries, including the UK, Turkey, Canada, and South Korea.”
CircKit is now working to become a global standard for AI-driven compliance, circularity and sustainability in fashion. It remains focused on helping brands avoid risk, move faster and unlock the commercial advantage of circular models through better design decisions and audit-ready data. Or as CircKit likes to say, to ‘unf*ck fashion’.”
Discover CircKit online:
Circkit on joining UKFT:
“CircKit joined UKFT to be at the heart of the UK’s most influential fashion and textile network, collaborating with like-minded innovators to drive the industry’s transition toward a circular economy. By connecting with UKFT’s diverse membership, CircKit aims to support their member brands in navigating complex new regulations while championing the commercial and environmental benefits of circular design.”
