tExtended starts consumer engagement activities
By the end of November 2026, tExtended has started a set of activities designed as Social Innovation Spin-Off, with the aim of raising awareness among consumers about sustainability and circularity of textiles.
The consortium has organized different types of activities, designed based on the expertise of the partners and their network in the local communities, in order to reach consumers and increase their involvement in pre-sorting and returning circular textiles.
LSJH & VTT
LSJH organised a garment remaking workshop for local citizens in Turku, Finland, on 23th October 2025, in third party collaboration with Finnish fashion designer Rolf Ekroth. The goal of the workshop was to engage and inspire its participants in garment remaking. The designer facilitated the workshop by first presenting their previous fashion collections and showing how they have used post-consumer garments, offering inspiration and ideas for garment remaking. After the presentation, the designer, with his assistants, supported the participants on their garment remaking ideas and activities. Participants chose post-consumer textiles provided by LSJH or brought their own. In addition to the workshop, LSJH created short do-it-yourself garment remaking videos with the designer, which were shared on LSJH’s Instagram.
VTT supported the organisation of the workshop and studied citizen engagement and garment remaking through this event, with the expected finalisation of the study in early 2026. The study includes participant observation during the workshop, a survey sent with the workshop registration to assess citizens and workshop participants’ previous experiences on garment remaking and expectations, and a follow-up survey after the workshop to gather feedback.
A final survey is planned to be distributed in early 2026 to explore the workshop’s impact on participants’ garment remaking activities. VTT also interviewed the designer and assistants to gain further insights into the facilitation experience.
Green Liberty
From the autumn of 2025 to the summer of 2026, a series of four workshops will take place across different regions of Latvia, bringing people together to co-create market-tested, production-ready, and socially responsible prototypes of Latvian souvenirs. The goal is to promote circular design practices, raise awareness of circular economy principles by using textile leftovers in high value-added products, and encourage co-creation among the creative, education and social sectors.
The creation of these souvenirs involves design and textile professionals from universities, design schools, social enterprises, reuse and textile waste management companies, souvenir retailers, as well as government institutions and the wider public.
The first joint workshop has been already held, on September 18, focusing on mapping the stakeholders, defining roles, and, of course, getting to know each other and brainstorm on the first souvenir ideas. The next workshop is just around the corner – on November 27 – during which the focus will be more on the materials that can be used in creating the souvenirs, thus concluding with a shortlist of product ideas to be visualised in sketches. In the final two workshops in the first half of 2026, we will focus on souvenir prototyping and finished products, involving the public via social media asking for their feedback.
Between the two workshops, ZALA also took part in the first Latvian Circular Economy Forum on 5 November, to present their souvenir concept and invited participants to get involved by answering questions from the perspective of potential customers.
Carr Communications
In Autumn 2025, Carr has planned a series of workshops in Dublin with a focus on raising awareness with young people about textile waste. As a communication and PR company, Carr has sought external expertise to support the creation of the activities. Therefore, they have partnered up with The Sustainable Life School, a local social entrepreneurship organization that aims to empower individuals at work and communities in addressing the climate crisis through lifestyle changes and collective actions, and looked for the support of local authorities to introduce the workshop to schools and local youth organizations.
The first workshop is scheduled for Spring 2026. In addition to this, Carr is in contact with Change Clothes, a community-based clothing reuse hub that offers community-focused solutions, always based in Dublin, to follow up with a second workshop with the same group of people. The aim is to collect through the first workshop with a brainstorming session some ideas from the participants on concrete things they can realize with textile waste, so that Change Clothes can give a practical workshop with basic skills to create with textiles.
De Kringloopwinkel & Centexbel
De Kringloopwinkel has been working on the development of new channels and concepts to attract new customers for second-hand clothes. This has been created through a different set of activities.
The main focus has been on the creation of a series of thematic pop-up shops in Belgium, hosted in various locations such as shopping malls, offering a second-hand alternative to the shops already present. For example, they have focused on summer clothing and accessories for both and women. In connection with the pop-up shops, De Kringloopwinkel has created a series of different workshops, always linked with raising awareness about the reuse of clothes.
Linked to these activities, De Kringloopwinkel has focused on creating a specific communication campaign, with the goal of developing a vintage look to attract customers to their second-hand shops and promoting the local reuse of items.
In the coming months, Centexbel plans to work more closely with De Kringloopwinkel and create workshops together on the topic of feeding the textiles collected that can’t be resold to textile companies and gain a better understanding of the requirements companies have for second-hand material.
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The activities of the Social Innovation Spin-Off will continue throughout the last year of the project.
Thanks to the combination of technology and co-creation, tExtended has started involving citizens in novel ways to bring the project innovations close to them and raise their awareness and participation in sorting, reusing, and recycling of textiles. The aim is that the partners can continue these activities also after the end of the project, continuing the effort towards involving local communities in the development of solutions to the problem of textile waste.
For any enquiries about further information on the activities described in this article, please contact Claudia Esposito, Senior EU Project Manager, at: cesposito@carrcommunications.ie
