The CLIC® Chronicles: How Zalando is moving the fashion industry towards circularity

An interview with Laura Coppen, Head of Circularity, Zalando

Every second, a lorry load of clothes is burnt or dumped in landfill¹. Three in every five items of clothing end their lives this way², and many will have been worn just a handful of times.

The rise of fast fashion has created a shift in consumer behaviour, with cheap, low-quality items often being seen as disposable. The proliferation of cheap, low-quality clothing – it is estimated that more than 100 billion items are produced each year – is a main driver behind the fashion industry’s environmental impact. The sector is now the fourth largest carbon emitter after transport, agriculture and energy.

But demands for change are growing louder, and major industry names are taking action to reverse the “wear it once” trend. At the recent World Economic Forum summit in Davos, we caught up with Laura Coppen, Head of Circularity at multi-national fashion giant Zalando, to learn about the company’s innovations in circularity, and see how Zalando is working to promote sustainable production across the wider industry.

Your career has focussed on making the fashion industry more sustainable and more circular. Why is this so important to you?

I’ve worked in the fashion industry for 15 years across the world in places such as Hong Kong, Shanghai, Kenya, Sweden and now Berlin. I was shocked to see the sheer scale of what the fashion industry produces when I worked in global production. I couldn’t imagine that there were enough people out there wanting to buy all these products.

Clothing production has doubled since 2002. Customers are buying 60% more, and products are being kept for half as long. The industry is flooded with cheap, low-quality clothing that won’t stand the test of time because they simply weren’t designed to. We’ve designed a system for overproduction and overconsumption which has a hugely negative impact on people and the planet.

At the same time fashion is really important. It’s a dynamic, global industry employing millions of people and it has purpose as it helps people create personal identities.

Back in 2014, I was keen to find an alternative model for the industry and I started learning more about a circular economy. Along the journey, it has become evident that it is incredibly complex to achieve a system shift at this scale, from linear to circular. As we learnt from the Circularity Gap report, we are also in decline, from 9.1% in 2018 to 7.2% circular in 2022. The shift requires a radical change in customer’s behaviours whilst proving that a business can make money by producing less, or by having alternative business models that drive revenue like reselling or renting. And businesses must have the right infrastructure in place, because no one company can do the linear to circular shift alone.

But there’s so much opportunity to ensure job creation through different business models: like repairing, recycling infrastructure and resale. And if we do this right, we not only reduce our environmental impact but we will have a positive social impact.

Read also: The CLIC^® Chronicles: Rethinking textiles for the circular economy

For consumers, what would a truly circular fashion industry look like?

It has to start with reducing the amount of products that enter the market. Tackling overproduction is key. Product design and manufacture hold 80-90% of the environmental impact and 45% of emissions, so reducing the amount of products is a good start. We need to design better products using the circular design principles – eliminating waste and pollution, keeping materials in use for longer, and regenerating natural systems. Circularity also needs to embed human rights. We must ensure that we create jobs that can provide dignified livelihoods for those working in the sector.

For customers we need to introduce alternative models that will empower choice – so they can buy second-hand, rent and repair their products easily. Extending the life of products is crucial to the circularity transition.

Furthermore, we need to offer clear information on buying better products. With our private label redeZIGN products, customers can scan the QR code and learn more about the product origin and material, as well as access care videos.

There’s a misunderstanding by many organisations that circularity is all about recycling. That’s only a part of it. Products should be made with quality from the design stage and they should be built to last. Consumers are becoming more savvy about their wardrobe value, and see the obvious benefit of making money from items they no longer want. So for customers it’s about buying less, buying better, and also maximising your existing wardrobe. To quote Orsola di Castro, “the most sustainable option is what you already own.”

Read also: The CLIC^® Chronicles: 10 ways to build a circular economy and the companies leading the way

Zalando’s work with Berlin-based start-up ‘circular.fashion’ includes working towards making clothes that are fully recyclable. Where do you think the incentives are most likely to come from for creating the infrastructure needed to make this a reality?

We absolutely need collection, sorting and recycling infrastructure at scale. 73% of products end in landfill and incineration, and only 1% of textiles get recycled back into high-quality materials. Designing for recycling is incredibly complex. This is something we are doing with our ‘redeZIGN for circularity’ collection where we design long-lasting products that are made of recycled or renewable materials.

Recycling infrastructure is still nascent. How you get it to scale is a sticky question – carrot or stick? Businesses need to be forced to deal with products that could become waste. Extended Producer Responsibility³ (EPR) is one way, but it needs to be harmonised across the EU.

At Zalando, we are investing in recyclers. We believe we need to accelerate the recycling infrastructure worldwide. We’ve invested in Infinited Fiber, a Finnish start-up producing a premium-quality, circular, textile fibre that reduces the world’s reliance on virgin raw materials, and Ambercycle, a US start-up dealing with polyester. Upcoming regulations will require a minimum of recycled content in products, so this also makes sense from a long-term return on investment perspective. The aim is to increase the share of recycled materials that enter the market and reduce reliance on virgin material.

Read also: The CLIC^® Chronicles: Patagonia, an outdoor brand with a mission. An exclusive interview here

Zalando sells a wide variety of brands. How does sustainability feature in your selection process?

We sell over 6,000 brands. They have to meet our minimum sourcing standards, which gives us a level of control on who we sell and who we do not, and we’re updating these to ensure that we raise the bar in the industry. We’re not afraid to off-board brands that fail to meet our standards as a last resort, but our biggest lever is to encourage brands to develop more sustainable collections and to put systems in place for them to make credible claims for customers. Through our private labels and our redeZIGN collection, we have been trialling and testing our circular design criteria, so we’re able to share insights from our work.