From Waste to Resource: New Podcast Series Explores the Future of Fashion Textile Recycling
Copenhagen, 30 March 2025: Today, Global Fashion Agenda (GFA) has launched the Upstream Circularity Podcast. This limited three-part series explores the technical innovations, systemic shifts, and real-world solutions shaping the future of textile recycling. The release of the first episode, available now on Spotify and Apple Podcasts, coincides with International Day of Zero Waste, and emphasises the urgent need to scale upstream circularity in the fashion industry.
Hosted by Faith Robinson, Head of Content, GFA, the podcast explores the essential roadmap for unlocking the potential of textile-to-textile recycling and establishing upstream circular ecosystems at scale. Each episode features in-depth conversations with industry experts, offering practical insights on how waste can be transformed into valuable resources.
Estimates suggest that of all the materials the global textile industry uses, just 0.3% come from recycled sources, despite the fact that existing technologies have the potential to unlock up to 80% circularity in the fashion sector. With over 520 global regulations now driving circularity, brands and manufacturers must urgently adapt and transition to circular business models.
The series, builds on key findings from the Upstream Circularity Playbook, a GFA publication, supported by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) and the H&M Foundation, designed to support industry stakeholders such as manufacturers, recyclers, policymakers, and brands, in building circular systems in garment-producing regions.
In addition to an extended introductory episode with Federica Marchionni, CEO at Global Fashion Agenda, each episode of the Upstream Circularity Podcast explores a critical step in the journey to establishing circular systems:
Episode 1: Textile Waste Segregation and Traceability – Examines how waste can be efficiently identified, sorted, and traced back to ensure it enters the right recycling streams. Guests include Marina Chahboune, Closed Loop Fashion and Nin Castle, Reverse Resources.
Episode 2: Collecting, Sorting, and Use Cases – Unpacks the challenges and opportunities of textile waste aggregation with insights from Abdur Razzaque, RECYCLE-RAW and Ebru Özküçük Güler, RE&UP.
Episode 3: Product and Systems Design – Explores how fashion brands and industry stakeholders can take post-industrial recycling from theory to reality, featuring Alexander Granberg, BESTSELLER and Karla Magruder, Accelerating Circularity.
Federica Marchionni, CEO, Global Fashion Agenda, says:
“To support the transition to a circular fashion industry, we must implement solutions that transform waste into valuable resources. This podcast spotlights the industry leaders driving progress, providing inspiration and tangible guidance to accelerate change.”
Both the extended introduction and episode one of the Upstream Circularity Podcast are out now, with new episodes released weekly. Available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and on the Global Fashion Agenda website.
As key levers of the circular economy and catalysts of much-needed system change in the fashion industry, it’s easy to assume an element of built-in future-proofing for solutions such as repair, recycling, and resale.
Global Fashion Agenda (GFA) and Chalhoub Group are collaborating to accelerate impact across the fashion value chain.
Fashion companies have spent years improving what happens within their own operations.
