The second Bangladesh Circular Economy Summit will be held in Dhaka on June 11 in an effort to accelerate the momentum circularity in the apparel and textile industries of the country.

Bangladesh Apparel Exchange (BAE) in collaboration with the GIZ Bangladesh and in association with the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Bangladesh will host the Summit.

After the formal opening ceremony, four plenary sessions, three panel discussions and one breakout session will be held in an effort to make the shift from linear model to circular shift in the apparel and textile industries of Bangladesh.

Jahangir Kabir Nanak, Minister of Textiles & Jute, will be the chief guest at the opening session.

Siddiqur Rahman, former President of BGMEA; Thijs Woudstra, Deputy Head of Mission, Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Bangladesh; and Jan Janowski, Deputy Head of Mission, Embassy of Germany in Bangladesh will be joining as special guests.

The four plenary sessions will be on ‘Formalizing the Informal Jhoot Sector’, ‘Closing the Loop of Textile Waste’, ‘Circular Design: Reality vs Challenges’ and ‘Transparency & Traceability in Circularity’.

The presentation on ‘EU Due Diligence and Legislations on Circularity’ will be given by Charles Whiteley, Head of the Delegation, Delegation of the European Union in Bangladesh;  while the presentation on ‘Market Incentives for Eco-design: The Case of Eco-modulation’ will be given by Professor Harri Kalimo, Co-Director of the 3E (Environment, Economy and Energy) Research Center, Brussels School of Governance.

Another presentation on ‘A National Circular Textile Roadmap for Bangladesh’ will be given by Patrick Schroeder, Senior Research Fellow, Chatham House.

There will be also one breakout session ‘Mapping the Way for RMG Circularity’ also at the summit to be organized by the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Bangladesh.

Mostafiz Uddin, founder and CEO of Bangladesh Apparel Exchange (BAE) said circularity becomes an important aspect of fashion sustainability.

"The objective of the Bangladesh Circular Economy Summit is to accelerate the momentum circularity in the apparel and textile industries of the country,” he said.

Irma Van Dueren, Ambassador of the Kingdom of the Netherlands to Bangladesh, said: “By combining Bangladesh's strong RMG industry with the Netherlands’ circular economy knowledge, we can create a win-win situation. Bangladesh benefits from a more sustainable production process, and the Netherlands gains a valuable partner in its circularity journey.”

Dr. Michael Klode, Project Manager, Programme for Sustainability in the Textile and Leather Sector (STILE), GIZ, said, “Climate targets for 2030, decarbonization goals in 2025, graduation from LDC in 2026/2029, it all sounded far away. But it is around the corner. Getting ready for approaches towards a Circular Economy is a matter of consciousness towards Climate goals, but also a matter of business goals and competitiveness.”