Blue Cast: Rematters’ Romain Narcy on ‘Connecting the Dots’ to Boost Circularity
Blue Cast is a podcast series from the TENCEL™ Denim team. Each episode features a conversation with a special guest from within the industry or the fringes of the denim community. The following is a recap of episode 503.
Currently, less than 1 percent of textiles get recycled, according to Ellen MacArthur Foundation. Consultancy Rematters is looking to change this.
The idea for Rematters was born during the pandemic, driven by founder Romain Narcy who is also a partner at Ereks Garment. The manufacturer—which also runs laundry facility Blue Matters—decided to leverage its technical and textile engineering expertise to help overcome the industry’s circularity gaps. This consultancy, launched in 2023, is in line with Ereks’ goal and efforts to become a circular company by 2030.
“We want to maximize our impact,” Romain told Lenzing’s Tuncay Kilickan during the latest episode of our Blue Cast podcast. “My goal is to maximize this less than 1 percent recycled textiles, how to reach the 100 percent—that’s the moonshot.”
Rematters is essentially a tech company that advises companies on setting up textile recycling centers. As an example of the work it does, the firm’s first client was a Swiss-based collector that wanted to branch into sorting. Part of Rematters’ support was telling the collector which streams different garments could flow into based on fiber content. Romain noted that collecting and sorting are impactful in ensuring that the right material is available for the right recycling process.
“We all come from a linear business model,” said Romain. “So usually, you know your suppliers and you know your clients, but you don’t know one or two steps ahead. And that’s the case with collectors and sorters. They collect end of life textiles, but they don’t know what to do once it’s recycled. At this fiber stage, they have no access to the other supply chain because it was completely out of their scope. We are here to connect these dots.”
Another area of work for Rematters is conducting trials, including chemical recycling tests. It is also acting as a connector between different technology companies.
The holdup in expanding textile recycling is not technology, but adoption. There are added costs associated with recycled materials, and they must be blended with virgin fibers like cotton or TENCEL™ to protect product quality. Spinners and weavers also face lower productivity when working with recycled materials.
What can change the landscape for circular textiles is regulation, including extended producer responsibility that holds brands liable for the full life cycle of their goods. “We need to drive the demand, and to drive the demand, we need the regulation,” said Romain.
Another hurdle in Romain’s native Türkiye is a ban on textile waste imports. Rematters is working to raise awareness for circularity with domestic ministries, but it is also looking to collective action like the Denim Deal in the Netherlands to help change regulation.
Sharing predictions for the next decade, Romain said, “I’m optimistic by nature. So I think that we will have better garments, we will have garments with recycled content, recycled content will become the norm on the market, whatever the source of the recycled content—chemical, mechanical—but we will have a change of mindset.”
Listen to the episode here.