The closer textile recycling gets to genuine circularity, the harder it is to fund, new Systemic Bankability report finds
The first framework to ask the financier's question of textile-to-textile recycling shows why the sector is stuck in the missing middle, and which instruments already working in other sectors could move it.
New York City / Amsterdam, October 6, 2026 — Accelerating Circularity today published Systemic Bankability of Textile-to-Textile Recycling, a framework that scores 13 textile-to-textile recycling technology variants against 12 risk factors that decide whether commercial capital will fund them in a developed-market, European-leaning policy context.
Textile-to-textile recycling is stuck in the missing middle. The technologies exist, but the capital to deploy them at scale is not available. Many reports identify the missing middle. None has looked at it from a systemic bankability perspective. The method is adapted from the framework developed by the Clean Air Task Force, Princeton University’s Andlinger Center, and Mercator Partners for clean energy infrastructure, which faced the same financing gap first.
The framework reaches three findings. First, only mature routes can be financed on commercial terms today, and they address a small share of the post-consumer textiles stream. Only three of the 13 variants carry none of the risks that commercial lenders or insurers would refuse at any price: mechanical recycling, on post-industrial and post-consumer feedstock, and industrial polyamide depolymerization. Mechanical recycling, the only unblocked route that runs on post-consumer textiles, can address at most 6.6 percent of that collected stream.
Second, for almost every other route, the binding constraints sit around the technology: demand, the cost gap, the transfer of first-plant performance risk, and coordination between adjacent steps of the textile recycling process. Third, the capital grant, the instrument most used in the sector, does not alone resolve any of these blockers at the systemic level.
Underneath the findings runs a clear pattern: the further a route reaches toward genuine circularity, through blended feedstock, post-consumer garments and drop-in output, the more blocked it is today.
"The barriers to textile-to-textile recycling at scale are commercial rather than technical, and the instruments to fix them already work in other sectors," said Edd Denes, CEO of Accelerating Circularity. "This framework shows every party around the financing decision where the risk actually sits, and who is in a position to move it."
The report proposes interventions that address the systemic bankability blockers. Several already exist in workable form in other sectors, including technology qualification in offshore energy, pooled first-plant cost records and public cost-overrun facilities. For brands and retailers, volume-firm, multi-year offtake is the highest-impact action they can take without waiting for policy.
Accelerating Circularity is turning the findings into action, starting with a pre-competitive coalition that will set shared priorities and launch joint initiatives on the systemic blockers to scaling circularity. The report findings will also be presented at Textile Exchange 2026 in Vancouver on October 15, in the session "The bankability gap: What textile-to-textile recycling needs to get funded."
The full framework is available at acceleratingcircularity.org/systemic-bankability-of-textile-to-textile-recycling.
Notes to editors
About the author
Olga Melekhina authored the report as a Responsible Leadership Fellow with Accelerating Circularity, supported by ESMT Berlin, where she earned her MBA in 2026. A former finance lawyer, with deep experience of structured project finance transactions in energy and infrastructure.
Accelerating Circularity spokespeople
Edd Denes is CEO of Accelerating Circularity and previously served on its board as Treasurer. He brings more than two decades in financial services and technology transformation, including at JP Morgan and major UK and European banks.
Kirsi Roine is Senior Director of Business Operations at Accelerating Circularity. A former Chief Customer Officer in the textile fiber sector, she works on closing the coordination gaps across the value chain that hold textile-to-textile recycling back.
About Accelerating Circularity
Accelerating Circularity is a nonprofit do-tank focusing on textile-to-textile recycling at commercial scale through a collaborative, stakeholder-led approach. Operating via its US nonprofit and European foundation, it orchestrates the shared infrastructure that enables supply chains to realize the value embedded in used textiles and keep materials circulating.
Media contact
Hanna Gavrylova, hanna@acceleratingcircularity.org
Edd Denes, Kirsi Roine and Olga Melekhina are available for interview.
