Design the Future of Fashion, Canada’s Circular Design Toolkit
A practical guide for brands, designers and manufacturers to create products built for longevity, repairability and recyclability, adapted for Canada, developed with WRAP International.
What this toolkit offers
-
From durability and disassembly to recyclability and material choice.
-
Worksheets, checklists and decision-making frameworks to embed circular design thinking across your organisation.
-
Featuring leading brands, manufacturers and educators from Canada and internationally (e.g., Arc’teryx, Tentree, Roots) that illustrate real-world circular design in action.
-
Grounded in the global Circular Design Framework (Textiles 2030) but tailored for Canada’s infrastructure, regulatory context and market realities.
-
Help design teams shift from linear thinking to circular results — longer use, fewer returns, easier repair/disassembly and recyclability built-in.
Developed by credible partners
This Toolkit is delivered through a collaboration between Fashion Takes Action (FTA) and the Canadian Circular Textiles Consortium (CCTC), in partnership with WRAP International and supported by Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC).
It builds on WRAP’s proven Circular Design Framework and adapts it to reflect Canada’s manufacturing, reuse, repair and recycling infrastructure, making the global principles relevant for Canadian brands, product-developers and educators.
Toolkit Structure: The Four Adapted Pillars
-
Design for Longevity
Durable materials, timeless styling, maintenance & repair-friendly construction.
-
Design for Disassembly
Modular design, material separation, clear labelling, enabling dismantling and recycling.
-
Design for Recycling & Recovery
Selecting mono-material assemblies where possible, avoiding blends, planning for end-of-life recovery.
-
Policy & Legal Frameworks
A breakdown of Canada’s Competition Act, Bill C-59, and how we compare to EU and global regulations.
Why Canada needs its own toolkit
Many Canadian brands and manufacturers lack consistent understanding of circular design; what it is, how it works, and how to implement it.
Canada’s textile recycling and reuse infrastructure remains uneven, standards are fragmented and national definitions vary, making global frameworks difficult to apply without localization.
Educators and emerging designers need accessible, Canadian-relevant resources that bridge theory and practice.
This Toolkit closes the gap by bringing global best practice into the Canadian context, aligning design decisions, business models and system-level opportunities.
