Purpose

The purpose of the paper is to instate a glocality perspective for understanding the design, challenges and coping mechanisms in configuring circular textile value chains.

Design/methodology/approach

This is a conceptual paper based on extensive background research conducted with the post-consumer textiles and clothing value chains across Europe, Asia and North Africa. During the research, data were collected from circular textile value chain actors via interviews, case studies and field visits, which were complemented by discussions held with various researchers and multi-lateral organizations such as the International Trade Center, promoting textile circular economy (CE) cross-border.

Findings

We perceive two principal glocality challenges predominantly arising at both value chain and policy levels due to conflict and misalignment of different operating systems, a local one, wherein global north (GN) and global south (GS) are decoupled, versus a global one, where Global North-South acts as coupled links. We further outlined two coping mechanisms, namely orchestration mechanism to address value chain level challenges and harmonization mechanism that can solve challenges at the policy level.

Research limitations/implications

This perspective is deemed to make valuable contribution to CE researchers who are working or are interested in studying the circular transition of the global textile industry.Practical implicationsThe work can pave way to understanding how circular textile ecosystems can be designed and configured to function successfully in practice.

Social implications

The Global North-South view acknowledges a co-opetitive mode of operation, that is competitive coexistence of global and local (glocal) instead of a “winner-takes-it-all” ballgame. By doing so, the unintended consequences created by silo views of textile circularity can be mitigated as stakeholders in the GN and GS can share knowledge, technology and resources, fostering mutual growth in an equitable manner.

Originality/value

The paper unfolds a unique perspective on understanding glocal supply chain configurations and dichotomies in the textile CE context.