New York, April 28, 2020 — The winners of Fast Company’s 2020 World Changing Ideas Awards were announced today, honoring the businesses, policies, projects, and concepts that are actively engaged and deeply committed to flattening the curve when it comes to the climate crisis, social injustice, or economic inequality.
The Swedish fashion innovator re:newcell was selected as a finalist in the Consumer Products category. With its breakthrough recycling process for textiles, re:newcell has demonstrated that recycling clothes at scale finally works. re:newcell closes the loop on fashion by turning worn-out clothes into a pristine biodegradable raw material for fashion called Circulose®. This spring, H&M was the first fashion brand to launch a garment made with re:newcell’s branded Circulose® material in retail.
“I am incredibly proud of the team at re:newcell for smashing through milestone after milestone on our mission to close the loop on fashion worldwide. Fast Company’s recognition highlights that fashion’s impact is a pressing global problem and that our product Circulose® is a World Changing Idea that can make fashion sustainable.” says Patrik Lundström, CEO of re:newcell.
Now in its fourth year, the World Changing Ideas Awards showcase 26 winners, more than 200 finalists, and more than 500 honorable mentions—with Health and Wellness, Corporate Social Responsibility, and AI and Data among the most popular categories. A panel of eminent judges selected winners and finalists from a pool of more than 3,000 entries across transportation, education, food, politics, technology, and more. The 2020 awards feature entries from across the globe, from Vancouver to Singapore to Tel Aviv.
Illustrating how some of the world’s most inventive entrepreneurs and companies are addressing grave global challenges, Fast Company’s May/June issue celebrates, among others, an electric engine for airplanes that eliminates emissions from flights—and expensive fuel from the tricky financial calculus of the airline industry; a solar-powered refrigerator that finally frees people in remote villages from daily treks to distant markets, transforming the economics of those households; an online marketplace that connects food companies with farms to buy ugly and surplus produce to fight waste; and an initiative to offset all of the carbon costs of shipping, creating a new model for e-commerce sustainability.
“There seems no better time to recognize organizations that are using their ingenuity, resources, and, in some cases, their scale to tackle society’s biggest problems,” says Stephanie Mehta, editor-in-chief of Fast Company. “Our journalists, under the leadership of senior editor Morgan Clendaniel, have uncovered some of the smartest and most inspiring projects of the year.”
About the World Changing Ideas Awards: World Changing Ideas is one of Fast Company’s major annual awards programs and is focused on social good, seeking to elevate finished products and brave concepts that make the world better. A panel of judges from across sectors choose winners, finalists, and honorable mentions based on feasibility and the potential for impact. With a goal of awarding ingenuity and fostering innovation, Fast Companydraws attention to ideas with great potential and helps them expand their reach to inspire more people to start working on solving the problems that affect us all.