The Positive Impact
Textiles touch almost every environmental system on the planet — and almost none of the data survives past the factory gate. The fashion and textile sector accounts for more global greenhouse gas emissions than international aviation and shipping combined. Its yearly water consumption is the equivalent of 86 million Olympic-sized swimming pools, and every second, a garbage truck's worth of textiles is landfilled or incinerated somewhere in the world. Only 1% gets recycled.
Left unchecked, industry emissions could reach 2.7 billion tonnes of CO₂e by 2030. Supporting the industry to reduce emissions both upstream and downstream will take a unified effort coupled with accountability.
Capturing the EPR actions could result in 11-55 times more emissions mitigation than landfill diversion alone. By adding DPPs that can address this "wicked problem" at scale plus capture accurate metrics, we have a real opportunity to make a profound positive impact for the environment and the people working across these interrelated industries.
An estimated 72–94 million people work in upstream garment manufacturing alone — plus hundreds of thousands more across collection, sorting, resale, repair and recycling once a product leaves the factory. Every one of those B2B touchpoints is a place where product-only data can be captured, trusted and shared.
Capturing verifiable data is crucial to the success of a circular economy. As the EU moves toward mandatory DPPs under a suite of regulations including ESPR, brands will be held accountable for upstream and downstream data collection - and accessible, trusted data is how we can build equitable, impactful systems.
Data is both item-level identity and batch-level. GCN has built the infrastructure to capture that data at scale: verifiable, interoperable and connected all the way from fibre to feedstock, so mitigation and social strategies can be shared and built on evidence instead of estimates.
At that scale, a single-scan QR Code as a DPP tool cannot keep up. QR codes can only verify one product, one line of sight, one scan at a time. To deliver the impact these interconnected, global industries need easy access.
GCN's platform is designed, in particular, for MSME brands and value chain actors. To help meet their regulatory obligations, we need to capture verified data across tens of millions of workers, factories, retailers, EPR providers, sorters and end-of-life solution providers at-scale.
That's why GCN chose RFID as the technology and the UN Transparency Protocol (UNTP) to help scale a collaborative, global circular economy and support the estimated 125,000+ MSME textile-product brands selling products in the EU and around 4,000 brands selling workwear - all who are required to meet emerging standards. Workwear is a particular focus, to share verifiable Substances of Concern data with downstream operators for efficient, safer, certifiable next-gen products. GCN helps all value chain actors to benefit through Circular Rewards to help build an equitable, financially sustainable circular economy.
