About the Project

Background

In order to tackle the social and environmental problems caused by the mainstream fashion industry, the CREATE consortium prepares and tests a new learning program that sees women (of different age, education level and nationality thus culture) co-creating and producing a sustainable capsule collection. Sustainable capsule collections are a new sustainable way of working that allows the designer to recycle textiles or wasted clothing to produce new garments.

The environmental and social cost of the clothing and textile industry has increased dramatically in the late years globally and is expected to continue this linear course in the future. The Ellen MacArthur Foundation estimates that every year some USD 500 billion in value is lost due to clothing that is barely worn, not donated, recycled, or ends up in a landfill, with a huge waste of resources and increase in pollution. Every second one truck full of textiles is landfilled or incinerated, while it is estimated that around 150 billion garments are produced annually (Sustainable Apparel Materials, 2015). Less than 1 % of used clothing is recycled into new garments. The poor working conditions are endemic in the industry, and the environmental impact throughout the product life cycle is high. Thus, increasing the use of recycled textiles not only contributes in lowering the overall pollution level (across the globe) but also contributes to lowering a variety of human rights violations, connected to the complex, globalised industry.

In response to this and in an effort to mobilise fashion as a force for inclusion and prosperity for all involved in the industry and its value chains, the CREATE project is carried out by 5 diverse partners with European and global reach. The multi-sectoral consortium will offer expertise in innovation and design, learn more about women empowerment and create a new way to tackle waste in the fashion industry, while offering new upskilling possibilities to the participants. The vision of the partners is to address environmental and social issues in the fashion and textile industry, like the environmental and social cost of the clothing and textile industry, the waste of resources and the impact of waste caused by fashion and the poor working conditions which are endemic in the textile industry.

 

Mission and Objectives

The CREATE project’s overall purpose is to produce learning materials and train people for unlocking the potential of female entrepreneurship to create inclusive employment opportunities for marginalised groups through the production of sustainable, zero-waste fashion “capsules”. It will further foster women’s ability to deal with change, act with a critical and responsible stance and motivate them in taking part in lifelong learning possibilities.

At the consortium level the partners decided to activate this transnational cooperation in order to:

  • promote the exchange of expertise among organisations active in different fields (fashion sustainability, new inclusion methods, empowering women and migrant woman, use of cultural heritage as a mean for inclusion and innovation); 

  • offer an innovative and efficient collaborative model – that foster woman empowerment and their professional skills, at the same time; 

  • work cooperatively to overcome prejudice and foster the acceptance of migrants and other cultures at a European level;

  • capitalise on the different expertise and share with stakeholders at the EU and Global level new practices using circular economy, circular fashion and inspire others to follow suit.

The project contributes directly to one of the ILO recommendation listed in the report on the Latest labour market developments, published on January 2021, such as “[...] (c) ensuring that hard‐hit groups (notably young people, women, the low-paid and low-skilled workers) are supported in finding decent work opportunities and that they do not suffer any long-term scarring effects”.