Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - TCBL (TCBL – Textile and Clothing Business LabsTransformative Business Models for the Textile Clothing Sector)

Teaser

\"TCBL is transforming the Textiles and Clothing industry, bringing 5% of production capacity back to Europe and reducing the sector’s environmental footprint by 20% by 2025. As the industry shows the first feeble signs of recovery, significant opportunities are emerging...

Summary

\"TCBL is transforming the Textiles and Clothing industry, bringing 5% of production capacity back to Europe and reducing the sector’s environmental footprint by 20% by 2025. As the industry shows the first feeble signs of recovery, significant opportunities are emerging based on new production and distribution technologies, innovative organisational models, and new creative energies. In parallel, customers are showing increasing attention to ethical and environmental sustainability in the clothes they wear. If these opportunities are adequately captured through business model innovation, these trends have the promise of radically re-structuring one of the globe’s most consumption-oriented and environmentally unfriendly industries.
This process is driven by TCBL Business Labs that freely experiment the implications of potential innovations and their concrete impacts on business operations. The Labs – a growing network that includes a broad range of structures, from materials research laboratories to design collaboratives and social community centres – explore innovation potentials from varying mixes of three perspectives – design, making and place – and engage with other labs, the local community, and T&C businesses through concrete projects.
TCBL Associate Enterprises capture these innovation potentials and apply them in pilot actions – Business Cases – that accompany their shift towards more innovative and competitive business models. This process is supported by federated knowledge, learning and business services that are aggregated through the TCBL Open Platform.
The governance model and exploitation plans for the TCBL network and its different communities of Associates aim to ensure the long-term sustainability of the TCBL ecosystem, including the continued success of the yearly series of #TCBL conference events.
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Work performed

\"The first 36 months of TCBL have operationalised each of the main ecosystem elements – Business Labs, Business Systems, Knowledge Spaces, and Business Services – and activated ecosystem dynamics through:
• Launch and development of six Business Pilots with TCBL Associates: Short Runs, Independents, Natural Fibres, Eco-friendly Production, BioShades, and Digital Heritage
• Co-design and development of seven Lab Projects / Services: Fabricademy, TCBL Trends, Open Source Design, Waste Not, TCBL Café, Workplace design, and Second Life
• Engagement of third party Business Services in the TCBL Open Platform: Thela supply chain management, Sqetch brand-producer matchmaking, Wave open innovation, Circular Fashion labelling, Remokey recycled fabric tracing, Reverse Resources leftovers marketplace, Provenance blockchain history, and LITA.co social impact investment.

The value-based TCBL community is growing through yearly open calls, and now counts:
• 35 Business Labs
• 227 TCBL Associates (primarily T&C businesses)
• 30 Advisors
• 15 Associate Service Providers
• 15 Startups

The final year of TCBL is being dedicated to testing the ecosystem governance model’s value and financial flows in order to finalise the legal structures and agreements that will carry the network forward after the period of EU funding ends.

The role of individual Work Packages is summarized below.

WP1: KNOWLEDGE SPACES (LEAD: DITF)
This activity manages the TCBL Open Platform (http://tcbl.eu/), with the main project website and the vDiscover semantic engine linking to a range of services through Single Sign On and other cross-platform facilities for data sharing, gamification, AR, etc.

WP2: KNOWLEDGE EXCHANGE (LEAD: OBU)
This activity operationalises the Knowledge Spaces by harvesting knowledge with the TCBL Associate Advisors and producing useful knowledge products such as the TCBL_zine (http://zine.tcbl.eu ), the TCBL Handbooks (https://issuu.com/tcbl), etc.

WP3: BUSINESS LABS (LEAD: WAAG)
TCBL Business Labs are at the heart of our business model innovations, exploring from the perspectives of Design, Make and Place. The original network of 18 Labs interacts on http://labs.tcbl.eu/, growing to 26 Labs directly interacting with local T&C businesses.

WP4: T&C BUSINESS PILOTS (LEAD: MIRTEC)
WP 4 engages T&C businesses through yearly Calls for Expression of Interest, bringing in 136 Associate Enterprises to date. They interact with the Labs through concrete Business Cases to form innovative trans-European value chains.

WP5: BUSINESS PROCESS SUPPORT (LEAD: SKILL)
The Business Services are all integrated into the TCBL Open Platform and include business process based collaboration, designer-producer matchmaking, supply chain management, and new services coming in with the Associate Service Providers.

WP6: SCALING UP AND SUSTAINABILITY (LEAD: ISMB)
This WP manages the high-level ecosystem organisation and cloud platform, as well as exploring issues key to the long-term viability of the TCBL network: process evaluation, value modelling, and governance.

WP7: BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT (LEAD: IMEC)
WP7 explores the market space and potential for business development generated by TCBL. It tracks market and policy trends on the one hand, and develops business opportunities on the other through the Startups and Associate Service Provider programmes.

WP8: COMMUNICATION AND DISSEMINATION (LEAD: PRATO)
Communication is central to TCBL, with a multiple-platform web and social media strategy, a strong use of publications and videos, an extensive series of local events and scientific and sector dissemination, and the wildly successful yearly #TCBL events.

WP9: PROJECT MANAGEMENT (LEAD: PRATO)
Project management has ensured strong commitment and an effective use of resources towards project objectives, appropriately managing risks and opportunities. The Advisory Board of world class experts participate in #TCBL and provide strategic guidance.

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Final results

The interactive and creative processes in TCBL aim to gradually build an integrated business ecosystem covering the entire T&C value chain while branching off to related sectors. The initial configuration of 18 Business Labs and 78 Pilot Businesses is scheduled to develop to include 50 Labs, 240 Enterprises, 75 Advisors, 35 Associate Services, and 15 Start-ups. Ecosystem growth is sustained by rolling Calls for Expression of Interest in the TCBL Associates Programme, which selects and labels community participants coherently with the TCBL principles.
TCBL is thus expected to have a widespread impact on the T&C industry in Europe, shifting consumer goals, expectations, and even engagement in the processes of designing and making clothes. This in turn will have both social and environmental impacts, as well as significantly improving the prosperity of Europe’s diffused systems of production.

Website & more info

More info: https://tcbl.eu/.