The transition to a circular economy is often associated with recycling and waste management. However, speakers at the Global Sustainable Development Congress (GSDC) 2026 challenged this perception, emphasizing that circularity is fundamentally about redesigning how resources are produced, used, and valued across society.
During the workshop “Building Partnerships to Evolve the Circular Economy,” experts from academia, industry, and international organizations discussed how partnerships, international standards, and systems thinking are essential to accelerating the circular transition. Representing Rantai Tekstil Lestari (RTL), Basrie Kamba, Chair of the Executive Board, shared lessons from building Indonesia’s multi-stakeholder platform for sustainable textiles alongside Bunga Goib of World Resources Institute Indonesia and Professor Adrian Kuah, ISO International Expert from James Cook University.
Circular Economy Requires Systems Thinking
One of the central messages from the workshop was that circularity cannot be achieved through isolated initiatives. Rather than treating it solely as a waste management issue, speakers described the circular economy as a redesign of human activity that aligns with the logic of natural ecosystems—prioritizing relationships, renewal, and responsible stewardship of resources.
This requires shifting the focus from downstream waste management toward upstream decisions, including product design, resource use, business models, and collaboration across entire value chains.
As highlighted throughout the discussion, circularity is ultimately a “team sport” that depends on coordinated action among governments, businesses, academia, financial institutions, development partners, and communities.
Building Effective Partnerships
Drawing from the experiences of both the Indonesia National Plastic Action Partnership (NPAP) and RTL, Basrie Kamba highlighted four key principles for building successful partnerships that can drive circular transformation.
- Start with a shared vision.
Partners must first align on the problems they seek to solve and recognize that while circularity may appear complex or costly, it is increasingly becoming essential for long-term business resilience. - Bring together the right stakeholders.
Effective collaboration requires diverse perspectives, bringing together government institutions, universities, industry associations, businesses, and international organizations to address challenges that no single actor can solve independently. - Build governance based on trust.
Transparency and good faith are fundamental to encouraging collaboration—even among competitors. Trust enables organizations to share information, participate in pilot projects, and work toward common objectives. - Translate global ambitions into local action.
Global frameworks and international expectations, including evolving regulations and standards, need to be interpreted in ways that respond to local industry realities while improving productivity and competitiveness.
Indonesia's Textile Circularity Challenge
The discussion highlighted the scale of Indonesia’s textile challenge.
Indonesia generates approximately 2.7 million tonnes of textile waste each year, a figure projected to increase to 3.5 million tonnes, while less than one percent of textiles are currently recycled.
Speakers also identified several barriers that continue to slow the transition toward circularity, including:
- The absence of industrial-scale textile sorting infrastructure.
- Limited financial support for textile recycling initiatives.
- Dependence on expensive imported technologies instead of locally adapted solutions.
- Consumer behaviour challenges and limited regulatory enforcement.
Within this context, RTL was presented as a non-profit multi-stakeholder platform connecting 46 individual members and 43 business associations to strengthen collaboration and support the development of a more resilient circular textile ecosystem.
ISO 59000: Building a Common Language for Circularity
Professor Adrian Kuah highlighted the newly published ISO 59000 series as an important milestone in advancing the circular economy globally.
Rather than focusing on individual projects, the standards provide a common framework that enables organizations to understand, implement, and measure circularity consistently across industries and countries.
The standards cover key areas including:
- ISO 59004 – Principles and vocabulary for the circular economy.
- ISO 59010 – Guidance for implementing circular approaches across value chains.
- ISO 59020 – Measuring circularity through input-output analysis.
- ISO 59014 – Guidance on secondary materials and worker health and safety.
- ISO 59001 (under development) – Management systems for organizational implementation.
Together, these standards establish a shared language that can support collaboration, improve measurement, and strengthen confidence in circular economy implementation.
Beyond Recycling: Retaining Value
One of the strongest messages from the workshop was that recycling alone should not be considered the ultimate goal of a circular economy.
Instead, speakers encouraged organizations to focus on value retention—keeping products and materials at their highest possible value for as long as possible.
The ISO framework describes this through three complementary strategies:
- Narrowing the loop by reducing resource consumption.
- Slowing the loop by extending product life through maintenance, repair, and reuse.
- Closing the loop by recovering materials to reduce reliance on virgin resources.
Panelists also emphasized that the most important principle may be the first “R”: Refuse. As one speaker observed, the planet already contains enough textiles to clothe the next six generations. Preventing unnecessary production and consumption therefore offers far greater impact than relying solely on downstream recycling.
The discussion also cautioned against a growing “circularity bubble,” where organizations claim circularity based only on conventional environmental practices. Genuine circularity requires a whole-of-system approach that considers the full lifecycle of products and materials.
Looking Ahead
The workshop concluded with a clear message: the transition to a circular economy is not only a technological challenge but also a collaborative one.
Building partnerships, adopting common standards, strengthening policy frameworks, and improving resource traceability will all be essential to creating circular systems that deliver measurable impact.
For Indonesia’s textile sector, these insights reinforce the importance of continued collaboration across the value chain. By bringing together diverse stakeholders and contributing to global conversations on circularity, RTL remains committed to supporting a more resilient, connected, and future-ready textile ecosystem.
