• Local and circular initiatives are often small and fragmented. • Little is known about how to effectively scale local circular supply chains. • We present 17 factors for scaling across 8 established amplification processes. • We contribute factors to increase the size and transformative impact of initiatives. The fashion and textiles industry operates a global supply chain that causes harm to the environment, emitting pollution and generating waste across all stages of production, consumption and disposal. The implementation of a local circular economy would reduce impact, shorten import and export distances while retaining the value of materials through practices like reuse and recycling. However, current local and circular initiatives operate in a system that is incomplete to provide sufficient support structures for their operations, meaning they are often small, fragmented, and at risk of cessation. To address this, five focus groups with fashion industry stakeholders were conducted where factors for scaling at a local and national level were discussed. Data analysis revealed 17 factors for scaling, two of which were unique to scaling nationally. These offer ways for local circular clothing supply chains to stabilise, speed up, grow, replicate, transfer, spread, scale up and scale deep. The results provide a new insight on how to increase the scale and transformative impact of local circular initiatives emerging in towns and cities across the UK. The research is useful for the industry and policymakers in informing the development of purposive interventions that seek to step beyond current niche and fragmented solutions and build circular systems that can overtake the current linear, energy intensive, pollutive and waste generating system. Significantly, this will facilitate a shift away from global production and distribution, to grow more locally and systemically robust initiatives at the local and national scale.
Baz et al. (2026) studied this question.