Upaya Social Ventures and The Biomimicry Institute Partner to Tackle Textile Waste in India
Partnership aims to tackle India’s growing waste crisis, with the country generating an estimated 7.8 million tonnes of textile waste each year.
Initiative will back local innovators and enterprises developing new solutions for low-value textile waste.
Aims to turn textile waste into a source of jobs, livelihoods, and economic opportunity for communities on the frontline of environmental impacts.
Bangalore, India | July 14, 2026
Upaya Social Venture’s Dignified Jobs Accelerator and The Biomimicry Institute’s Nature of Fashion initiative have announced a partnership to develop a regional pilot for textile waste decomposition in India.
The two organisations will partner to tackle textile waste in India, with the aim of scaling local innovations and technologies to develop a regional pilot. The Biomimicry Institute’s Nature of Fashion initiative will contribute its expertise in material decomposition, while Upaya’s Dignified Jobs Accelerator brings deep networks across India, alongside its investment and market experience.
This partnership with Upaya Social Ventures marks the fourth decomposition pilot for the Nature of Fashion initiative. Now in its second phase and fifth year, the initiative works with partners including The Or Foundation in Ghana, Circle Economy in the Netherlands and the Beneficial Design Institute in Germany to learn from nature’s decomposition processes to rethink the lowest tier of mixed textile waste, turning mixed fabrics into either valuable industrial feedstocks or biocompatible outputs that can safely re-enter natural systems.
The partnership comes as the global waste crisis reaches a critical inflection point. Every year, the world generates 92 million metric tons of textile waste, and much of it ends up in India, which has become a terminus for fast fashion. But as textile waste flows into and around India increase, waste solutions such as landfilling, informal dumping and low-value downcycling are also failing—leaving communities and ecosystems to bear the brunt.
The Dignified Jobs Accelerator, an initiative of Upaya Social Ventures, has long-standing work at the intersection of enterprise, dignified work, and climate resilience making them an ideal partner for the Nature of Fashion Initiative. For 15 years, Upaya has backed businesses that create dignified employment in underserved communities, helping turn promising ideas into sustainable ventures.
By bringing together Nature of Fashion’s nature-inspired approach with Upaya’s experience in generating dignified jobs in circular sectors, this partnership has the potential to demonstrate how textile waste can be transformed from a liability into a catalyst for local livelihoods and climate resilience in the region.
Shruti Goel, CoCEO of Upaya Social Ventures said:
“At Upaya, we believe that the people closest to a problem are often closest to the solution. Across India, waste workers and waste enterprises are already playing a critical role in managing the country's growing textile waste challenge. Through this partnership with the Nature of Fashion initiative, we hope to support new innovations that can strengthen livelihoods, create dignified jobs, and unlock greater value from textile waste. We are excited to explore what is possible when environmental innovation is designed with communities at the center.”
Amanda Sturgeon, CEO of Biomimicry Institute said:
“The Nature of Fashion initiative has always been rooted in a simple conviction: that nature knows how to handle waste, and we can learn from it. Our partnership with Upaya Social Ventures brings that conviction to India, one of the world’s most urgent frontlines for textile waste. What excites me most is that this partnership doesn’t just ask what we can do with the waste; it asks what we can build for the people living alongside it.”
Rachna Chandrashekhar, Associate Director & Head of Accelerator, Upaya Social Ventures:
"The transition to a circular economy will be driven by the innovation that entrepreneurs bring – transforming today's waste challenges into sustainable economic opportunities. Our role as an accelerator is to identify promising businesses and equip them with the capital, partnerships, and strategic support they need to grow their impact. By combining the Nature of Fashion initiative's deep technical expertise in textile decomposition with the Dignified Jobs Accelerator's experience in accelerating mission-driven businesses, this partnership has the potential to unlock solutions that not only tackle textile waste but also create dignified livelihoods across the circular economy.”
Asha Singhal, Director of the Nature of Fashion Initiative said:
“Fashion's sustainability story is incomplete if we ignore what happens to textiles at the end of their life. Biomimicry teaches us that meaningful innovation begins by understanding how a place already works before deciding what it needs. That's what makes this partnership with Upaya Social Ventures so significant. Across India, the people working with textile waste every day already possess the knowledge, ingenuity, and lived expertise needed to transform the system. Together, we're excited to support a just transition for India's textile economy, one that builds on local innovation and ensures the value created, and the dignity of this work, stays with the communities and entrepreneurs who are already driving change.”
ABOUT UPAYA SOCIAL VENTURES:
Upaya Social Ventures is a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization building an inclusive economy by providing investment and support to early-stage businesses that create dignified jobs for people living in extreme poverty. Upaya believes that a dignified job is the most powerful tool for breaking the cycle of extreme poverty. Since its founding in 2011, the organization has worked alongside entrepreneurs, funders, and impact investors to build businesses that create meaningful employment for India's most vulnerable communities, enabling more than 110,000 dignified jobs across India. Upaya's Strategic Plan 2030 sets an ambitious goal: enabling the creation of 300,000 dignified jobs in India by 2030 through responsive capital, catalytic partnerships, and evidence-based insights.
Upaya’s Dignified Jobs Accelerator is an enterprise acceleration platform that discovers, validates, and scales market-based solutions creating dignified jobs at scale. Since 2017, the accelerator has supported 144 businesses across India through tailored technical assistance, catalytic partnerships, and access to capital—helping entrepreneurs grow solutions that address pressing social and environmental challenges, including circular economy, climate resilience, and inclusive livelihoods while creating dignified employment for underserved communities.
ABOUT THE BIOMIMICRY INSTITUTE:
The Biomimicry Institute is a 501(c)(3) non-profit, with a vision for a nature-positive, inclusive and regenerative world inspired and guided by nature’s genius. We are embarking towards a 10-year vision to dramatically scale biomimicry’s impact on today’s most pressing challenges.
The Biomimicry Institute is proud to work on the Nature of Fashion: Design for Transformation initiative over the last 5 years, a Laudes Foundation-funded project that positions decomposition as the missing piece of fashion's sustainability mission. The initiative works with regional innovators who are transforming textile waste into biocompatible materials that can reintegrate into Earth's natural systems or become valuable building blocks for other industries.
MEDIA CONTACT:
Madlin D’silva
mdsilva@upayasv.org