In recent decades, the fashion industry has experienced increasing production levels, together with the reduction of profit margins and the increase in negative environmental impacts, which has led to Chile, for example,You have started work for its inclusion in the Rep.Although clothing production doubled between 2000 and 2015, its use decreased by 36% in the same period.This trend led to the world fashion industry to produce around 2.100 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) in 2018, 4% of the world total.And it also brought down prices and caused the loss of income due to excessive, shortages and returns, which implied that the benefit margins of the world's clothing retailers decreased by an average of 40% from 2016 to 2019 to 2019.This was aggravated in 2020 due to the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused the industry to suffer a 90% decrease in profits.
This is indicated by the recent report of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation Circular business models: redefine growth to create a more prosperous fashion industry, which states that the time has come to explore a new way of doing business in fashion.And in that scenario, he says, circular commercial models represent a significant opportunity for a new and better growth in the fashion industry because they decoupling the income currents of the production and the use of resources.
“Circular commercial models represent a significant opportunity for a new and better growth because they decoupling the income of production and the use of resources, maximizing environmental benefits.As a key part of the transition to a circular economy, circular commercial models have an opportunity for the fashion industry, for design, decoupling its production income flows, that is, to obtain more income with fewer new products.This means a lower need for raw material production and, therefore, lower GHG emissions, pollution and pressure on biodiversity, ”says the report.
According to the analysis of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, there are four business models that have the potential to unlink the income currents of the production and use of resources: rent, resale, repair and remodeling of clothing.Together, they currently represent a 73 market.000 million dollars, but is expanding.Since 2019, and despite the Covid-19 Pandemia, seven rental and resale platforms have reached valuations greater than one billion dollars and these commercial models are expected to continue growing as customers adopt new ways of accessing thefashion, motivated by factors such as affordability, convenience and environmental awareness.
Therefore, they affirm, the rent, the resale, the repair and the remodeling have the potential to grow of 3.5% of the world fashion market at 23% by 2030, which represents an opportunity of 700 billion dollarsWith the potential to provide a third of the reductions of emissions necessary to put the fashion industry on the 1.5ºC path raised by science to deal with climate change.
“This would be equivalent to a reduction of around 340 million tons of equivalent CO2 (CO2E) annually by 2030, more than the annual emissions of GHG of Thailand or France.In addition to reducing GHG emissions, it has been shown that commercial models that increasingly decoupcontamination associated with virgin fiber processing, ”says the report.
This emission reduction was calculated in detail.In the case of the resale, for example, if after 20 uses a dress that is not seasonal is used 20 times more, and then it is resolved once again, the same number of uses as three dresses can be achieved,which saves almost 50% of CO2 emissions compared to the linear model.In the case of rent, if a model reaches 100 uses, CO2 emissions can be reduced by up to 40%, considering the additional emissions that this model would have for cleaning, drying, transport and logistics.
But nevertheless booming sectors such as rent and resale have great potential, they do not always reach the environmental benefits of decourageing the income and use of income income and the use of resources, says the report.“There are a series of barriers to achieve this decoupling and successfully develop circular commercial models.One are the performance indicators and the incentives associated with customers.A company that measures its success for sales volumes could encourage the return of products to resell, rebuild or recycle them offering coupons for new products that, while promoting circular commercial models, also grow the central linear commercial model, ”he says.
Another is product design.“Offering clothing,” he adds - through a rental model, which is not designed to support many uses and cleaning cycles, will increase the chances of this model being economically and environmentally unfeasible.A third are supply chains.Currently, these are optimized for predictable and unidirectional production and distribution, but circular commercial models require effective supply and global supply networks that facilitate services such as cleaning, repair and remodeling ”.
