Accelerating Circularity: Capital grants alone will not unlock textile-to-textile recycling (report)

“Textile-to-textile recycling is stuck in the missing middle: the technologies exist, but the capital to deploy them at scale is not available,” according to a report published in October 2026 by the Accelerating Circularity association, with Olga Melekhina (ESMT Berlin).

The report adapts a "systemic bankability" framework originally designed for clean energy by the Clean Air Task Force, Princeton's Andlinger Center and Mercator Partners. It combines two elements: eight technology familes, split into thirteen route variants; and twelve risk factors, each scored green, yellow and red.

The aim is to show developers, lenders, insurers and public funders which specific barrier blocks each route. A single red factor is enough to keep a route out of commercial finance.

According to the research…