Between a quarter and almost half of the fabric used in clothing production never makes it into the final product. These materials, known as production waste, are generated during cutting, overproduction, or due to fabric defects and can account for 25 to 42 percent of the total material used.
For Estonian designer and researcher Riit Aus, these statistics represent not just waste, but a design flaw embedded in the fashion system itself.
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«"Industrial waste represents a significant and realistic source for large-scale industrial recycling," Aus said.
Long before the concept of circularity became an integral part of sustainability advocacy, Aus was exploring how waste could be systematically repurposed. Her curiosity was sparked during her fashion studies, when she began to question where the industry's environmental impact actually comes from and what role designers could play in reducing it.
«"As I delved deeper into the industry, I realized that the biggest environmental impact isn't the design stage itself, but the manufacturing process," she said. "This understanding has fundamentally influenced my approach.".
Building on this understanding, Aus shifted her focus from clothing design to exploring how design decisions can impact factory systems. Instead of viewing leftover materials as inevitable byproducts, she explored their potential for reuse in production.
«"I started studying production systems to find ways in which design could minimize the environmental impact of the production process.".
Ultimately, this research led to the development of Upmade, a certification system that integrates industrial recycling into existing production processes. The model focuses on redirecting production waste, including unused fabric rolls and other surplus materials, back into the production process to create new garments.
Cutting waste is often cited as the main cause of textile waste, but Aus notes that waste is generated at several stages of production.
«"Upmade can operate in optimized production conditions because much of its textile waste is generated not by cutting inefficiencies, but by overproduction, defective fabrics, and other characteristics of large-scale production," she said.
Thanks to the Upmade system, these materials can be systematically collected and reused in production processes. According to the company's research, up to 80 percent of the plant's production waste can be redirected for industrial recycling.
«"The remaining fabric rolls are ideal for industrial recycling, and the trimmings are suitable for mechanical recycling," Aus explained.
Unlike many sustainability initiatives that focus on new materials or downstream solutions, Upmade is unique in that it integrates into the production process. The system functions as a certification system built directly into production processes, documenting material waste and tracking its use throughout the entire manufacturing process.
Factories implementing Upmade are motivated by both environmental and commercial considerations.
«"This allows them to use fabric that would otherwise be waste, sell more of their core service—tailoring—and helps them create more stable, long-term relationships with customers," Aus said.
Traceability plays a central role in the system. Upmade's digital platform integrates with existing enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, allowing manufacturers and brands to track materials and production data in real time.
«"Upmade's digital platform, integrated with the plant's ERP system, provides transparency and traceability of material movement in real time," Aus said.
The system performs waste analysis and product life cycle assessment at the individual product level, generating environmental impact data that can be directly fed into digital product passports.
This level of transparency may surprise brand partners, many of whom have limited understanding of industrial waste streams.
«"Many brand partners were surprised by the amount of waste generated during the production process, as brands typically don't have access to this information," Aus said.
According to Aus, disclosing these realities is a necessary first step towards improving efficiency and building closed-loop systems.
As the European Union prepares to implement digital product passport requirements under the Ecodesign Regulation for sustainable products, many brands are discovering how little detailed supply chain data they currently have.
«"Most brands lack transparent supply chains, meaning they often can't share information at this level of detail," Aus said.
Tracing the origin of materials remains a challenge, especially for brands that source their products through wholesale suppliers.
«"If a brand buys fabric from a wholesaler, it's often impossible to trace the material back to the original manufacturer or determine details like the region where the cotton was grown," she said.
Complicating matters is that conducting life cycle assessments at the garment level requires detailed, regional data on raw materials, water consumption, and production resources—information that also needs to be validated.
«"Conducting a life cycle analysis requires very detailed, region-specific information, starting from the raw material level, and this data also needs to be validated, which makes the process quite expensive," Aus said.
For Australia, these requirements reinforce the need to rethink the product development process from the earliest stages.
«"The principle of iterative design needs to be implemented from the design and development stages of a product," she said. "When this approach is implemented early, it becomes much easier to obtain the necessary information from manufacturing.".
While industrial recycling is often presented as a temporary solution, Aus argues that it should become a permanent feature of garment production.
«"Industrial waste recycling should be integrated into production systems on a permanent basis, rather than being seen as just a temporary solution," she said.
She believes a fully closed-loop system would combine multiple strategies: smarter product design, industrial waste management, recycling infrastructure, and product take-back programs.
«"Industrial waste processing will be integrated into production, transforming production waste into new products. The remaining waste will be sent for recycling," she said.
The model, she adds, is already viable.
«"Systems like these aren't science fiction," Aus said. "We're already applying these principles to our own brand.".
However, broader changes in the industry still depend on one fundamental shift.
«"It all starts with transparency.".
This article was published in SJ's Sustainability Report. Click here to read more.