H&M Group, Primark, and Reformation are among several fashion retailers looking to step up their pursuit of a circular economy – under the tagline of making money without making new clothes.
A new initiative announced at the Global Fashion Summit in Copenhagen on Tuesday – led by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation – aims to unite the fashion industry in making circular business models the norm.
Dubbed The Fashion ReModel, the scheme has already secured the support of H&M Group stable mates Arket, Cos, and Weekday, as well as Arc’teryx, Primark, Reformation and Zalando.
According to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, it is a “demonstration project” and the initiative is expected to identify solutions and overcome challenges as part of a process to decouple revenue from the production of new garments, and advance the long-term journey to make a circular economy for fashion a reality.
Today’s fashion industry is largely structured on “a take-make-waste model”, it said, which results in millions of tonnes of clothing produced, worn, and discarded every year. Clothing production continues to grow with 100 billion new clothes put on the market every year with truckloads of garments ending up in landfills or incineration facilities every second, according to the foundation.
Circular business models such as rental, resale, repair and remaking are designed to keep products in use, and several retailers have been exploring this avenues as part of their focus on operating more sustainably. A recent study from the foundation estimated these circular models could grow to 23% of the global fashion market by 2030.
Jules Lennon, fashion lead at the foundation, said: “Through their participation in The Fashion ReModel, this group of organisations are taking the next step on the road towards a circular economy for fashion.
“In order to challenge conventional linear models and create a new normal, brands must decouple revenue from production by accelerating efforts to redesign the products of the future, as well as rethinking the services and business models which deliver them to customers and keep them in use.”
She added: “The fashion industry is rooted in reinvention and we welcome business-led action towards a world where, instead of being worn once and discarded, clothes can be used many more times and threaded through the lives of more people.”
Leyla Ertur, head of sustainability at the H&M Group, commented: “The Jeans Redesign pushed us to explore what circular design could mean for our product assortment and now The Fashion ReModel is set to do the same with circular business models.
“The opportunity presented by decoupling the fashion industry’s growth from resource use is huge and this project can help us better understand how to further scale these models.”
Dominique Showers, vice president of ReBIRD at Arc’teryx, said her brand wants to build “products to last” and equip customers with “the tools and education to keep their gear in play”.
The Jeans Redesign project, a previous Ellen MacArthur Foundation initiative, ran from 2019-2023 and tasked participants to reimagine the wardrobe staple to be fit for a circular economy. It found that building on the redesign of products, more action was needed to transform the systems those products enter and the infrastructure that delivers and keeps them in use.
Read more about circular economy on Green Retail World
[image credit: Green Retail World]
1 thought on “‘Making money without making new clothes’: H&M, Primark, Reformation in new quest for circularity”
Thank you for the information. What about high-end fashion is their waste being addressed?