The truth on resale sustainability: what’s real and what’s false?

Resale and circularity have become sustainability’s newest buzzwords, and they seem to be cropping up everywhere, from Lululemon, to Hugo Boss and Steve Madden. In fashion, resale has evolved from being a side business that many brands were afraid to touch, to a golden opportunity they can’t seize fast enough.

Campaign imagery from Vestiaire Collective

To prove the point, consignment company Thredup reported 275% YoY growth in brands adopting resale from 2020-2021. Furthermore, a 2020 report by McKinsey and the Global Fashion Agenda found that, for fashion to meet climate goals, resale — along with repair and recycling — needs to account for a much bigger slice of the industry.

Resale is only one part of the solution. The missing link in the broader circularity strategy is the solution for products in need of repair, and what happens when the secondhand products don’t sell? The default solution of 'donating' prompts another complex set of problems...

Other big questions remain – what should the infrastructure look like to collect, sort and repair or recycle textiles, for example, and who is responsible for building it?

Photo: Picture Alliance/Getty Images

The upside - This shift would suggest sustainability is catching on…finally. Second hand purchases have a lower impact than buying new, (Hugo Boss claim that buying pre-owned is up to 44% more sustainable when it comes to carbon emissions). Buying second hand is always better, and widespread resale could mean less fast fashion overall.

But, while brands are quick to shout about their shiny new resale platforms, they don’t seem to have much to say about how they expect resale to improve their total environmental footprint. Resale suggests extending the life of clothing, but it doesn’t account for what happens to clothes when they are discarded, or guarantee that clothing is made more sustainably in the first place.

Essentially, promoting resale is always a good thing because one of society’s biggest issues is awareness of the environmental impact of fashion. The more people are aware, the more brands will engage, and the more circular the economy will become.

If you ask us, rental platforms play a key role in a more circular future too.