We are on an important journey to becoming a circular business, by maximising the value of products and resources and enabling them to be reused and repaired as much as possible before they are finally recycled.
What is circularity? • What does this mean? • Design for circularity at Monki
Black dresses
Designed for circularity
Up:cycle
Pre-loved 🧡
Second Hand
Wear. Love. Recycle
The Jeans Redesign project
Collab with Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s
Jeanious Hacks
Better for more than just your pocket
What is circularity?
The vision of a circular economy for fashion according to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, a non-profit organisation working towards a transition to a circular economy, is that products are designed to be used more, made to be made again, and made from safe and recycled or renewable inputs.
↪ USED MORE
In a circular economy, products and materials are kept in use at their highest value at all times. Reuse is the preferred option wherever relevant.
↪ MADE TO BE MADE AGAIN
From the outset, products are designed and manufactured so that they can be reused, remade, recycled, and - where relevant, and after maximum use and cycling - safely composted.
↪ MADE FROM SAFE AND RECYCLED OR RENEWABLE INPUTS
In a circular economy, substances that are hazardous to health or the environment are designed to allow safe material circulation and ensure that no pollutants are released into the environment.
What does this mean?
Moving away from a take-make-waste model, a circular economy aims to drastically reduce the need for virgin materials through reuse, remaking and recycling. Eventually as a last step, by sourcing the remaining virgin materials from renewable sources using regenerative production practices.
By creating a circular eco system to help us reach these goals we work with 3 different areas.
↪ PRODUCTS DESIGNED FOR CIRCULARITY:
Products that are made to last, from recycled, renewable, regenerative and responsibly sourced input (e.g. materials) that can recirculate (e.g. reuse and recycle) multiple times.
↪ CIRCULAR SUPPLY CHAINS:
Fueling systems that recirculate products and materials and support circular production processes and material flows.
↪ CIRCULAR CUSTOMER JOURNEYS:
Make it easy for our customers to experience and engage in a circular fashion where products are used more, repaired, reused and recycled.
Design for Circularity at Monki
We share EMF's vision for circular economy for fashion. To make the transition we need to design products that last longer, are easier to recycle and made from safe, more sustainably sourced or recycled materials.
↪ DESIGN FOR LONGEVITY / DURABILITY:
Preserving the value of a product as long as possible is one of the key pillars in a circular economy. Design for durability is about choices that will make a product last for a long time. There are two sides to durability. One is physical and the other is aesthetic and emotional. When you make longer-lasting products you need to make sure they don’t lose their appeal when fashion trends and tastes change or evolve.
↪ DESIGN FOR RECYCLE:
To already think about the product end-to–life, at the design stage, is a very important aspect of circularity, so that materials can recirculate as new fabric and to reduce dependence on virgin resources. Selecting components that can be recycled in an easy way is crucial.
↪ DESIGN FOR INCREASED USE:
Maximising the products’ utilisation is another way to optimise product value. In this case, consideration is given to how a garment can either be used more by a single user and/or increasing the number of users per product. This can include working with multiple purposes for the same garment. So for example, transformability such as reversibility or fit-adjustable products.
As part of the H&M Group, we also have access to the Circulator tool. This takes into account customer needs, a product’s purpose, choice of materials and processes (environmental footprint, durability and recyclability), and design strategy (physical and non-physical durability, increased use of product, repairability, waste avoidance, and recyclability or design for recycling). You can read more about circularity and the Circulator Guide and Tool here.
You can read more about our work with circularity and climate on the H&M Group site here: https://hmgroup.com/sustainability/circularity-and-climate/.