More fashion brands join drive to ‘make money without making new clothes’

Decathlon, eBay, John Lewis and others are part of the second cohort to join the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s Fashion ReModel initiative, which aims to make the fashion industry’s business model more circular.

The cohort, which also includes Colombian company Crystal S.A.S and global group Tapestry, joins H&M and Primark in the effort to embed circularity in fashion’s DNA.

The Fashion ReModel initiative was launched last year at the Global Fashion Summit, with the goal of demonstrating how businesses in the apparel sector can “break the link between revenue and new garment production”, according to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation.

It builds on the foundation’s  “Jeans Redesign” project, through which participants such as H&M tried to reimagine jeans for a circular economy between 2019 and 2023.

Tackling fashion waste

Because of its wasteful business model – with as much as 40% of total production being thrown away annually – the fashion sector is estimated to produce 10% of global GHG emissions, as well as polluting soils and rivers.

The Ellen MacArthur Foundation estimates that the equivalent to a truckload of clothes is being burnt or buried in landfill every second, globally. It hopes that the Fashion ReModel project will demonstrate that business-led action, alongside strong policy measures and better design choices, can lead to the growth of circular business models, which could rise to 23% of the global fashion market by 2030.

Jules Lennon, Fashion Lead at the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, said: “While practices including rental, repair, and resale are already firmly on the agenda of businesses across the globe, successfully implementing them has often proved challenging, resulting in them remaining at a small scale. Brands must now demonstrate that they can take the next step and embed these models into their core operations, driving change towards an industry where clothes are kept in use for longer and their lives are extended to many more people.” 

‘A pivotal moment for our sustainability journey’

For Logan Duran, Vice President of Sustainability at Tapestry, joining the project represents “a pivotal moment in our sustainability journey – one where innovation meets responsibility”. “By quantifying the climate impacts of circularity, we’re not just following industry trends; we’re helping to create the roadmap that others may follow,” he added.

Maeva Lombardo, Sustainability Director at Decathlon – whose former Chief Sustainability Officer Anna Turrell left in February – also commented: “Reuse, second life, and repair are central to our sustainability commitment, making this a natural next step in building a more responsible future and it reflects our shared conviction that industry-wide collaboration is essential to transform our practices in service of the planet.”