The Ellen MacArthur Foundation unveiled its transformative initiative, “The Fashion ReModel,” during the Global Fashion Summit in Copenhagen, May 2024. This project is designed to showcase how businesses can capitalize on economic benefits by decoupling revenue generation from the production of new clothing, thereby promoting circular fashion business innovation.
The Foundation projects that this initiative will play a pivotal role in advancing circular business models within the fashion industry. By integrating corporate actions, supportive policies, and innovative design approaches, these models could potentially make up 23% of the global fashion market by 2030.
Jules Lennon, Fashion Lead at the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, remarked: “Brands and retailers joining The Fashion ReModel is a strong signal that industry leaders are ready to take the next step towards a new normal for the fashion industry, with circular business models at its heart.
“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.”
This initiative brings together participating brands to navigate obstacles and define practical roadmaps for embedding circular fashion business innovation into their strategies. The goal is to craft a robust framework for widespread adoption of circular economy principles.
Logan Duran, Sustainability Vice President at Tapestry, emphasized: “At Tapestry, we recognise that the future of fashion lies in evolving the traditional link between growth and new resource consumption. Our participation in The Fashion ReModel 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.”
The project unites longstanding participants, including Arc’teryx and Primark, with new contributors like the H&M Foundation, which joined earlier this year. Additionally, the Foundation unveiled a consortium of domain experts specializing in finance, supply chains, and other critical areas to support this movement.
Maeva Lombardo, Sustainability Director at Decathlon, noted: “We are delighted to announce our participation in The Fashion ReModel. Joining this project offers a fantastic opportunity to accelerate our business model transformation towards essential circular solutions for the apparel industry. 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.”
This collective action sets a pathway for the future of the fashion industry, embedding sustainability and circularity at its core through meaningful, collaborative innovation.
