Meriel Chamberlin

Meriel Chamberlin is passionate about fairness in supply chains, for people and planet; if it’s human made, we can chose to change it. She works with a lifetime of global textile industry experience and practice, uniquely combining knowledge of every stage from raw material to retail, at micro or macro scale, across sectors ranging from corporate and fashion to social enterprise, defence, medical, and sport.

The philosophy of her business, Full Circle Fibres, is to bring entire knowledge, transparency and integrity to a supply chain for apparel, fabrics and yarns, from their inception to a recycling, or end of life nutrient recapture returned to earth, and her focus is on re-shoring our ability to recycle textiles to textiles onshore again.

Graduating from Textile Science in Manchester, and becoming a Chartered Colourist with the Society of Dyers and Colourists, has lead to 25 years in global industry, recently recognised as an Honorary Fellow at University of Melbourne (Mech. Eng) for her work on sustainable medical textiles; her combination of knowledge, experience, know-how is rare. She gains immense satisfaction from sharing this knowledge and acting as a catalyst for sustainable change, both with her business and more broadly advocating & advising for a sustainable local textile industry.

Meriel was awarded a 2023 Churchill Fellowship to research global best practice in commercialised and scalable zero waste textiles. In this old yet ever changing industry, the technical capabilities for zero waste exist now, both old and new. This study includes locations that have never stopped thriving and innovating in this sector, as well as new entrants. It takes more than understanding the technology of a solution for an industry to thrive. How can we, in Australia, use our natural advantages to lead with essential, clean, nature based, and prosperous textile industries of the future?