A sheep-feed trial, a textile recycling network and a model for financing farm improvements were among the projects recognized at Textile Exchange’s 2026 Climate and Nature Impact Awards.
The organization announced five winners Oct. 14 during its annual conference in Vancouver. Textile Exchange CEO Claire Bergkamp and board chair Marci Zaroff presented the awards at the Rocky Mountaineer Station, honoring work across raw material production, waste recovery and investment.
Theory and Congi Farm won the Collaboration for Global Impact Award for a wool project involving Theory parent Fast Retailing, environmental technology company Sea Forest and Italian mill Botto Giuseppe.
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At Congi Farm in New South Wales, Australia, 2,000 Merino sheep received SeaFeed for 120 days. Textile Exchange put the resulting reduction in methane from digestion at 43 percent, equivalent to about 54.5 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions avoided. The trial measured that part of wool production’s climate impact, leaving the finished garments’ footprint unassessed.
Wool from the project was used in Theory’s spring 2026 Regal Wool collection.
“The results of the pilot were encouraging, but perhaps even more important were the lessons we learned together regarding implementation, measurement, traceability, cost, and scalability,” Gonzalo Pertile, Theory’s vice president of sustainability, said in a statement.
The Textile-to-Textile Ecosystem Award went to the Circulose Recycling Ecosystem, commending the brand commitments and fiber-producer partnerships supporting the Swedish company’s industrial restart.
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