Extending the life of fashion with Laura Coppen
In 2019, we outlined our vision to become a fashion platform with a net-positive impact for people and the planet in our sustainability strategy, do.MORE.
At the core of the strategy are measurable and science-aligned goals across the categories of planet, product and people, which we have set out to complete between 2023 and 2025.
Throughout 2021, delivering on our sustainability targets remained a top priority for us. This can be seen in our second standalone Sustainability Progress Report 2021 where we share our learnings and insights with the progress we’ve made over the last two years.
We’ve built important foundations regarding some dimensions like carbon footprint, packaging, ethical standards, reskilling, circularity, and assortment, while we’re still in testing mode on others.
Our goal is to lead change and move the fashion industry forward.
In this article we talk with Laura Coppen, Head of Circularity, who is the interim sponsor of the goal of extending the life of fashion, about the work she and her team are doing to introduce new business practices for circularity at Zalando beyond our pre-owned fashion category.
As the current sponsor of “Extending the life of fashion,” which achievements are you most proud of and why?
When it comes to circularity, what I’m most proud of is our innovative strategy within the fashion industry. It’s a holistic approach that considers the entire life-cycle of a product — from design, manufacturing, right through to how products are used, introducing new business models like care and repair services and resale, and onwards to how products are eventually — and lastly — recycled.
Keeping our customers front and center, we’ve researched ways to implement circular business practices while, at the same time, ensuring that there’s a profitable business opportunity that can deliver future revenue streams.
For instance, when customers adopt a circular model instead of throwing away a product we offer customers repair or resale services, so products can be reused by someone else and loved again.
We’re really proud of launching our “Care & Repair” service in Berlin — a digital one-stop shop connecting customers’ damaged products, such as a hole in a pair of jeans or a broken shoe sole, with a local tailor or shoe repairer. Taking an approach like this means that, in the long term, there’s an opportunity for customers to connect with local businesses to extend the life of their garments.
We think holistically about the customer, the businesses, and startups we work with, in making sure we implement practices that have the lowest negative impact on the environment and for people.
What is the Circularity team currently working on to push our sustainability products further?
After launching “Care & Repair” in October 2021, we learnt a lot from our customers. We discovered what works and what doesn’t and we’re taking those insights to update and improve the user experience. By listening to our customers, we’ll relaunch the service to make it even easier and convenient to care for your items.
Our sustainability design criteria is now well-established. So, for example, when you see the green sustainability flag on the fashion store, it means external industry bodies have certified that that product fulfills at least one sustainability attribute.
The great news is we’re now taking the next step and launching circular design criteria. This will show customers which products are designed with safe, recycled, and renewable content with the aim to last longer and be robust enough to stand the test of time — for example to be resold and reused, and lastly, that products are designed to be recycled. A more sustainable product isn’t necessarily recyclable, but with the circular design criteria we aim to make that product aspect more visible.
It’s been achieved by working collaboratively with a Berlin start-up called circular.fashion and by using the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s Circular Design Guidelines, alongside aligning with other brands and retailers. A huge amount of work has gone into this over the past year and it’s one of our major activations for 2022.
What’s a future milestone that you’re excited about reaching and why?
I’m excited about the future milestone when Zalando is recognised as a leader in the circularity space; when our competitors look at us and say “wow look at what they’re doing, this is game changing, they are proving that circularity works for their customers and for their profitability.”
I think that would be brilliant. It’s a bold ambition, but we’ve got to aim high.
One of the crucial elements to delivering circularity is collaboration. We can’t shift from a linear to a circular economy by ourselves. It requires teamwork across the board from regulators in the EU commission, to brand partners, influencers, and customers. It requires start-ups that have solved some of these problems; who’ve entrepreneurially accelerated the topic and can help us build their solutions into our business. Collaboration across all these different players is what’s required to make circularity successful.
Circularity can influence customer behaviour and build new revenue models. And I think that is a phenomenal business opportunity.
