TEXTILES.ORG
Founded in 2004, Enviu is a nonprofit organization that develops circular business models to address global environmental and social challenges. It engages with governments, recruits entrepreneurs and raises funds worldwide, with offices in Nairobi, Kenya; Bangalore, India; Jakarta, Indonesia; and Rotterdam, Netherlands.
Enviu aims to “divert 5,000 tonnes [approximately 5,512 U.S. tons] of textile waste in the next five years,” according to its website.
The company has four key programs: Enviu Textiles, Enviu Agrifood, Enviu Zero Waste and Enviu Mobility. In India, Kenya and Bangladesh, Enviu Textiles is developing models to build circular textile value chains. Enviu Textiles includes the initiatives The Good Felt, Second Spin, Re-Mined and Qilín.
Through The Good Felt, low-quality, polyester-heavy clothes rejected by recyclers are collected and converted into nonwoven felt sheets that can be used in fashion accessories, acoustics and soundproofing panels.
The Second Spin program coordinates the collection of end-of-life hotel linens that are recycled and turned into yarn, paper, ropes, home textiles and other products.
“Through our partnership with Second Spin, we’re not only reducing textile waste but also creating a culture of responsibility among our staff and guests. Initiatives like this go beyond checklists — they become part of our property’s identity,” says Prashanth Rajkumar, the general manager at the hotel Citadines OMR Chennai in Chennai, India.
Re-Mined is a circular denim business model that turns postconsumer denim waste into new denim fabrics. Discarded denim is sorted, shredded into feedstock for processing into fiber, blended with virgin cotton fibers and waste fibers from denim mills, and turned into new denim fabrics that are sold to apparel manufacturers and brands.
Qilín is the company’s digital platform that connects buyers and sellers of secondhand clothing, reducing textile waste.
So far, Enviu Textiles has diverted 1,003 metric tons (approximately 1,106 U.S. tons) of textile waste from landfills.
In April, Enviu and the Circular Apparel Innovation Factory received the Collaborative Sustainability Initiative Award from the Clothing Manufacturers Association of India for their textile waste recycling efforts through the Closing the Loop program, which includes The Good Felt and Second Spin.