Public Funding for Cultivate Cornwall C.I.C.

The project will support our bigger vision of stimulating the growth of the circular fashion and textiles industry. A key challenge in the way of achieving this vision is a solution that allows offcuts from the industry's manufacturing processes to be reused. This challenge is the key focus of this project. We want to apply our design expertise, coupled with the circular expertise of the University of Exeter to explore ideas that could provide solutions to this challenge. Research suggests that of textiles consumed in the manufacturing process 15-25% is disposed of as waste, with these offcuts never being used, this is a huge resource efficiency problem, and this funding will allow our team to explore how circular design could provide the innovative solutions to this complex challenge. Current approaches focus on shredding/respinning into a new textile, while this recycling may provide a solution that fits within the industry's linear business and design model, this project will allow us to explore innovative solutions that are more sustainable, by finding opportunities for waste reduction and reuse. Determining what these solutions will look like is challenging and the purpose of this project will be to explore what solutions there are and, to build our understanding of the commercial viability of the most hopeful ideas. As a challenge we have recognised through our own operations and our work with other businesses across the industry, this is something our team has been grappling with for a while, and this project will allow us to explore new and early-stage ideas that could provide solutions to our challenge. These ideas are unique and untested, so this funding will allow us to develop and improve them while creating space for us to explore this design challenge, generating other potential ideas. Our design team, working in our innovation studio will be able to develop mock-ups so these ideas can be tested and improved in response to new learning and feedback from stakeholders and customers. While our business development team will be able to support the design team in developing a plan of next steps that will develop the idea towards commercialisation. Working with the University of Exeter we will also be able to use their expertise to evaluate the likely environmental and social impact of the ideas.

The project will support our bigger vision of stimulating the growth of the circular fashion and textiles industry. A key challenge in the way of achieving this vision is a solution that allows offcuts from the industry's manufacturing processes to be reused. This challenge is the key focus of this project. We want to apply our design expertise, coupled with the circular expertise of the University of Exeter to explore ideas that could provide solutions to this challenge. Research suggests that of textiles consumed in the manufacturing process 15-25% is disposed of as waste, with these offcuts never being used, this is a huge resource efficiency problem, and this funding will allow our team to explore how circular design could provide the innovative solutions to this complex challenge. Current approaches focus on shredding/respinning into a new textile, while this recycling may provide a solution that fits within the industry's linear business and design model, this project will allow us to explore innovative solutions that are more sustainable, by finding opportunities for waste reduction and reuse. Determining what these solutions will look like is challenging and the purpose of this project will be to explore what solutions there are and, to build our understanding of the commercial viability of the most hopeful ideas. As a challenge we have recognised through our own operations and our work with other businesses across the industry, this is something our team has been grappling with for a while, and this project will allow us to explore new and early-stage ideas that could provide solutions to our challenge. These ideas are unique and untested, so this funding will allow us to develop and improve them while creating space for us to explore this design challenge, generating other potential ideas. Our design team, working in our innovation studio will be able to develop mock-ups so these ideas can be tested and improved in response to new learning and feedback from stakeholders and customers. While our business development team will be able to support the design team in developing a plan of next steps that will develop the idea towards commercialisation. Working with the University of Exeter we will also be able to use their expertise to evaluate the likely environmental and social impact of the ideas.