FAQ

CIRCULOSE® is a high-quality recycled dissolving pulp made entirely from discarded, cotton-rich textiles. It is designed as a replacement for virgin wood pulp used to produce MMCF fibers such as viscose and lyocell.

Circulose is a Swedish textile-to-textile recycling company that produces CIRCULOSE® — a high‑quality recycled dissolving pulp made entirely from discarded, cotton‑rich textiles. Our mission is to scale circular fashion by turning textile waste into a valuable raw material that replaces virgin resources in fibers like viscose and lyocell.

We work with forward‑thinking brands that want to make a lasting impact on the world. Our strength lies in connecting the value chain — from waste collectors to fiber producers to brands — to create real, measurable change for our customers and society at large.

Altor, our current owner, acquired Renewcell’s bankruptcy estate in 2024, brought in a new leadership team and founded Circulose. The name is based on the patented material innovation the company is known for globally: CIRCULOSE®.

Fashion needs solutions that work at industrial scale and fit seamlessly into existing supply chains. CIRCULOSE® is designed to do exactly that. Our material integrates directly into current viscose and lyocell production systems and is available at commercial volumes (since 2023). Our facility in Sweden is the world’s first commercial-scale chemical textile recycling plant, enabling scaling beyond pilots and capsule collections.

We operate a license-based model where brands partners pay a fee to access:

• CIRCULOSE®
• Integration support
• Traceability tools
• Use of the CIRCULOSE® trademark

This model also addresses the premium amplification effect that slows down adoption of next-generation materials.

Developed with Fashion for Good and Canopy, our pricing model reduces the price friction of adopting circular materials during the scale-up phase. To access fibers made with CIRCULOSE®, brands pay a license fee covering services and trademark rights. This reduces the premium of the physical fibers, enabling CIRCULOSE®-based fibers to move through the supply chain at a price close to conventional materials. The main benefits are that this shifts investment decisions from buyer/product level to the corporate level, mitigates premium amplification across the value chain, and enables an improved form of volume commitment — more binding than letters of intent, but more flexible than traditional take-or-pay offtake agreements.

We work with forward-thinking global brands committed to scaling circular materials. Each partner has committed to replacing a meaningful share of their MMCF fibers with CIRCULOSE® in the coming years. See our brand partners here.

Fiber producers integrate CIRCULOSE® directly into their existing lines to create viscose and lyocell with recycled content. They are key to scaling circularity, and we work closely with them on integration, testing, supply-chain coordination, and traceability. See our fiber producer partners here.

We offer a suite of services designed to help our partner brands transition smoothly to CIRCULOSE® at scale. These include supply chain integration, traceability, fiber conversion support and communications support — all tailored to each brand’s specific needs. Our approach focuses on accelerating adoption while actively coordinating the value chain to help reduce overall costs for brands.

The CIRCULOSE® Material Library, available to brand partners on our website, showcases a growing range of material options containing viscose and lyocell made with CIRCULOSE®. The library gives brands a clear view of the variety of materials already developed, making it easier to discover and source circular alternatives.

Today, we use mainly post-industrial waste. As collection and sorting systems mature under EU legislation, post-consumer waste will become the primary feedstock.

Fashion faces both a waste problem and a resource problem. Enormous volumes of textiles are discarded every year while the industry continues to rely heavily on virgin raw materials. We address both challenges by turning textile waste into a valuable input that replaces virgin resources. We envision a future where textiles never become waste — where every fiber stays in circulation at its highest value.

Success means that next-generation materials become a standard part of textile production, where waste is routinely used as a raw material and virgin inputs are no longer the default. Closing the price gap is critical to achieving this, and our pricing model is designed to make circular materials competitive at scale.