Giving Compass' Take:

• Bard MBA alum Nicole Pamani recently spoke with Isaac Nichelson, CEO, and co-founder at Circular Systems, on how the companies circular innovation and production processes are helping redefine the sustainable fashion industry. 

• How can philanthropists support sustainable fashion and circular innovation strategies? 

• Here are some trends to watch out for in the eco-fashion movement. 

Agricultural waste from food crops either is traditionally left to rot or is burned, contributing to greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution. About 270 million tons of banana waste are left to rot annually, and in India, 32 million acres of rice straw are burned.

Circular Systems’ Agraloop, in contrast, sees food crop waste as a valuable resource, a feed stock for natural fiber products. Winner of the 2018 Global Change Award, the company aims to unlock value for the textile and fashion industry, for farmers and for the planet.

Bard MBA alum Nicole Pamani recently spoke with Isaac Nichelson, CEO and co-founder at Circular Systems, about how the company’s circular production processes are helping to redefine the meaning of sustainable materials in the fashion industry. They discussed how Agraloop functions like a mechanical sheep, and how the COVID-19 pandemic is causing us to rethink the way we produce products.

Nicole Pamani: Tell us the Agraloop story.

Isaac Nichelson: Agraloop is the world's first regenerative industrial system for textile production. It originated from the mind of Yitzac Goldstein, whose natural systems thinking drives him at the core. It’s recently been described by our friend Nick Tipon from Fibershed, one of the world's experts in regenerative farming practices and fiber systems, as essentially a giant mechanical sheep.

A sheep consumes a lot of biomass left over from food production, basically agricultural stubble. That biomass goes into its belly, where the sheep breaks it down and turns it into nutrition. Finally, the sheep fertilizes the field, trampling it in ever so perfectly, which improves the fertility cycle.

Read the full article about future fashion industry by Nicole Pamani at GreenBiz.