Design research agency FranklinTill has compiled a list of principles to help designers, makers and brands avoid greenwashing when sourcing textiles.
By making it easier to identify textiles that have a greater positive impact on people and planet, FranklinTill hopes to enable a shift towards regenerative materials.
"We can only move towards a regenerative approach to textiles by understanding the full lifecycle of our materials," said co-founder FranklinTill Caroline Till.
"As designers, makers, brands and manufacturers, we need to think of materials not as static and linear, but as dynamic, evolving systems, to holistically consider the full impact to the wider ecosystem they are a part of."
FranklinTill has curated an exhibition setting out its nine principles The defining characteristic of regenerative materials, according to Till, is that they restore and nourish the ecosystems they are part of.
"Sustainability, by its very definition, is all about maintaining the status quo, while regeneration seeks to actively heal and put back better," she said.
FranklinTill first unveiled its nine principles of regenerative design in an exhibition at the Heimtextil trade fair in Frankfurt in January, with a second show planned for the Techtextil fair in April.
In an online exclusive, we are also unveiling them here. Read on to see all nine, with captions written by FranklinTill and examples of material innovation in practice:

Designer Fernando Lapos...