The Challenge of Incorporating the Circular Mindset in Fashion
How IMPT! Is Adjusting Its Design, Services, and Business Model — and How Other Companies Can Follow Suit
As a Certified B Corporation and fashion company committed to continuous improvement in sustainability and minimizing negative impacts, IMPT! seeks to know more about the circular economy and how the company can align its operations to reduce the production of waste. So we are developing a more circular mindset in our operations to incorporate responsibility for our clothes after the user cycle.
As the Ellen MacArthur Foundation explains, the circular economy is a systems solution framework that tackles global challenges like climate change, biodiversity loss, waste, and pollution. In our current economy, we take materials from the Earth, make products from them, and eventually throw them away as waste, in the linear process. A circular economy, by contrast, avoids waste. The circular economy is based on three principles, driven by design: eliminate waste and pollution; circulate products and materials (at their highest value); and regenerate nature.
It’s estimated that the fashion industry creates 92 million tons of textile waste annually — an amount that continues to increase decade by decade. And less than 1% of old clothing is recycled to create new clothes. The acknowledgment of the need to address this is not new for consumers or brands, but considering how to act is a challenge, especially in fashion.
Models and Examples of Circular Fashion
Some examples of circular fashion models are:
- circular production chain models, which seek to use renewable, recyclable, and biodegradable materials: products made from safe and recycled or renewable inputs;
- product-as-a-service models that focus on displacing functionality by selling services provided by a product rather than its proprietary right: reloved/renting fashion models;
- sharing economy models that exploit resources and skills to make goods (used or not) available to the community: peer-to-peer fashion rental models and clothes sharing models
- shelf life models that seek to extend the lifetime value of products: repair services and resell services; and
- models for recovering the intrinsic value of products, components, and materials in the final stage of use: upcycling fashion and products made to be made again.
There are a lot of good practices and examples of circular business models that serve sustainable design solutions. But without demand, they are likely to fall short of their goal. Shifting society to seek more of these new products, services, and solutions remains a challenge for fashion businesses.
Our Effort to a Circular Fashion at IMPT!
The IMPT! team first learned about the circular economy concept during a RIO+B program workshop by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation in 2017 — we found it mind-blowing! As we envisioned a bright future without waste, we also saw our limitations in our existing fashion business model. But after that moment we committed to create high-quality products made to last generations if possible.
But we also understand that lasting quality is not enough; our products also must be stylish over time. It’s difficult to achieve! We have some good examples of atemporal clothes and styles that we can get inspiration for in the design. So we have been trying and testing how to incorporate design aspects and aesthetics that remain stylish over time.
We are also already committed to having at least 20% of our products made from safe and recycled or renewable inputs. But we still do not mitigate the risk of some potential textile waste after the lifecycle of the user. So now we want to take responsibility for our clothes after the user cycle and implement a circular mindset strategy by 2024.
For this, our strategy is divided into four fronts:
- Building what our community values: Understanding and listening to our community of clients and users about the clothes’ quality, lifecycle, and their intentions to return, resell, and repair their products. Also, understanding the style value of clothing for them over time.
- Structuring a return logistic and new services: Creating a system for IMPT! to receive products after their lifecycle or once the user is done with it. Offering repair/maintenance services, and the option to return or resell the products received, after repair/maintenance, for the last owner.
- Creating a marketplace for used or reloved IMPT!’s products: Structuring a marketplace on our website for used or reloved clothes and accessories, with the possibility to share a percentage of the sale with the last owner of the product.
- Turning potential textile waste into art with Black artists: Reuse all potential textile waste from our local production and from returned products that can’t be repaired. IMPT! will work with Black artists who can turn the textiles into the creation of artworks, collectibles objects, and exclusive upcycled products to be sold. Also, we will have an atelier for the production and operation of this strategy.
Until 2024, IMPT! will work on the best way to implement these strategies in the core of our business model while also focusing on revenue growth or cost reduction opportunities. We envision that these strategies will open new possibilities for the evolution of our positive impact and business model and serve as an example for other companies.
B The Change gathers and shares the voices from within the movement of people using business as a force for good and the community of Certified B Corporations. The opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the nonprofit B Lab.
