Zero Waste Europe (ZWE) has set four essential criteria for mapping zero waste fashion business models. It has urged decisionmakers and the fashion industry to look beyond product circularity and eco-design.
- These come from ZWE's new report, Beyond Circular Fashion – a new business model for the fashion industry.
- The document maps the state-of-play of today’s fast fashion business model, which is based on overconsumption, resource depletion, social exploitation, fossil-based fibres, and greenwashing.
- Published in the context of the EU Textiles Strategy, the report states that existing approaches and initiatives to making fashion fair and sustainable, while an important step forward, are insufficient in addressing harmful business models.
The Way Out: To reverse the current trend and pave the way for business models that fully comply with the circular economy and planetary boundaries, the report identifies four essential criteria that must be simultaneously met:
- Design for physical and emotional durability;
- Demand-driven production to phase out unsolds and discounts;
- Full supply chain transparency and traceability post-sale;
- Extending the use-phase after first ownership.
A Follow-Up: The new report follows in the footsteps of ZWE’s earlier New Energy for Europe manifesto published in November 2022.
- The manifesto urged the European Union to replace the current economic growth model with a new project based on wellbeing, sufficiency and resilience — with special attention paid to the need for resource use reduction and efficiency to respect planetary boundaries.
What They Said:
With this report we are establishing guidance for businesses to become truly sustainable, ending overproduction and consumption to respect planetary boundaries. This will help scaling up sustainable business models and ZWE intends to empower pioneers in this field.
— Theresa Morsen
Waste Policy Officer
Zero Waste Europe
