Circularity is a buzzword in the world of sustainability, and this wasn’t more evident than at the POC Conference in November. Nicholas Lambert, head of circularity at Primark, talked us through how he is guiding Primark to a more sustainable and circular model in its fashion category.
With a background in buying and the product world, now Nick aims to connect this world with that of sustainability, especially ahead of the legislation that is due.
They evaluate: “What do we need to do as a business and as an industry?” Nick said. It is a long term journey, he said, and there are no easy fixes.
Primark Cares is a strategy the company launched three years ago. For two reasons, explained Nick: “Firstly because it’s the right thing to do and secondly, there is a wave of legislation facing industry so it needs to be futureproofed, and ESG and this strategy is a big part of this.”
Primark has set out ten public commitments, bucketed into three themes: product, planet and people.
One of the ways they do this is with a focus on durability and recyclability, something which Nick noted is poorly defined for clothes, “What does this look like and how can it be implemented into a business of our scale?” Nick asked.
“We have also set an ambition all of our clothes to be made from recycled or more sustainably sourced materials by 2030,” he continued.
“We recognise that we’re not experts, no one can be. You have to work in lockstep with a number of organisations and partners to make a strategy like this happen,” Nick said that Primark have been working particularly closely with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, WRAP, and Recover.
“I work in a small team, part of a much broader team numbering over 200 in total, including in sourcing regions, which means we have a broad skillset of expertise to move the strategy forward. But how do we translate this expertise for the broader commercial teams?” Nick asked.
A year ago now, Primark released its Sustainability and Ethics Report 2023/2024, with the next one due out in the coming weeks for 2025.
In last year’s Report, Primark made a public target that “100% of our clothing will be made from recycled or more sustainably sourced materials by 2030. We are at 55% now, but that does represent a huge amount of work in our supply chain,” said Nick.
Pinpointing circularity
Out of Primark’s cotton clothing units, 46% comes from sustainably sourced cotton, either organic or recycled, or cotton from its sustainable cotton programme. This work has been done with Cotton Connect, which has now trained over 300,000 farmers in more sustainable farming techniques. This gives the farmers, often women in India, better access to the open market to improve their livelihoods.
But Nick explained that the main reason his main focus for speaking at the Conference was to talk about what circular products means for Primark as a business.
He said that he may well be preaching to the converted for this particular audience, but went on to give a little overview of what circularity means.
“Circularity means the transition away from the linear economy of a take and make waste model, towards an economy where we reduce waste and where waste can be turned back into a resource,” Nick explained. “We’re really trying to focus on design as a foundational stage – how do we design clothes with the future in mind and the end of life in mind?”
The starting point for this was for Primark to introduce circular design into its business. Something which was guided by industry voices, such as the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, which highlighted that “a circular economy begins with good design.” And Wrap: “80% of a product’s environmental impact is influenced by decisions made at the design stage.”
Nick said, “That’s what me and my team tried to unlock. But it can be different depending on item of clothing that we’re looking at, so we have to decide what’s the best outcome for each product?”
He continued, “Circularity is at the heart of the commitments we have made: durability, recyclability, sustainably sourced materials.
“What we’ve been working on is trying to wrap that up into a single framework which we can apply to lots of different types of clothing and then turn that into tangible results.”
Primark released its Circular Product Standard 18 months ago now; “We can put theoretical standard out there but how do we generate real impact from that?” asked Nick.
A group effort
They are now working closely within the business to train people on what circularity and circular design is, to put theory into practice.
“When we talk about a circular product in the standard, there are three fundamental criteria that we have aligned to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s vision for a circular economy for fashion.”
- Materials that we use – ensuring they are made from safe, renewable and recycled inputs;
- Durability – this is subjective as it can be both physical and emotional, so it is working on delivering objective measures;
- Recyclability – hardest to define right now. ESPR defines it as a desirable goal but not what it is yet; what are the common ideas and concepts to imbed as a business?
Next these concepts need to be translated Tinto practical concepts with the product team to implement.
They began with cotton, since it is the most valuable to a textile recycler. This meant using mono-fibre of cotton in base fabric of t-shirs or jeans. Cotton is still the most scaled form of textiles recycling today, but different technologies will continue to develop to cover other textiles.
Nick said that you need to ask the question: “Why are we using a blend of fibres in a t-shirt? Is it necessary? Is it performing a function? Or is it something that we’ve never challenged so could instead move to 100% cotton to enhance potential recyclability?”
On top of the base fabrics such as cotton, you may also have elastane, polyester thread or a nylon care label amongst buttons and zips, which all serve function and can’t be gotten rid of. Primark is trying “to capture the under the iceberg elements,” said Nick, and ensure these elements fall under the 5% total disruptors threshold, common for textile recyclers.
Design elements such as prints can be hard to recycle, with different recyclers have different capabilities as to the accommodation of prints. So circular design stipulations try to avoid prints, and instead use cotton embroidery or stitching.
The next key area is durability. “We test all our garments to an extended washing framework of 45 washes; we have a progressive pass rate in that, way above where the industry has historically been in garment testing,” said Nick.
This helps Primark assess where it is today and where do it needs to make improvements to meet the 45 washes criteria.
“We are not all there yet but certainly starting to make some progress,” Nick commented.
Alongside the Circular Product Standard Primark released 18 months ago, it also launched its first circular collection.
“This demonstrated we could put theory into practice to the world and buyers and suppliers to generate momentum behind the initiative,” said Nick.
Primark also launched its first foundational training programme internally last summer. This allows its colleagues in its offices to get a better understanding of what circularity is, by orientating them in the basics.
It also launched a bespoke category-by-category training programme with the Circular Textile Foundation to reverse engineer different products to understand what it takes to make a product more circular and create a blueprint of what better looks like in really tangible practical terms, explained Nick.
Next, it begun to embed circular design in some of its campaigns, e.g. its Lion King collection. Nicked added, “This made the perfect meeting point between circularity and the licensing world.”
The items in this collection were made use more recycled and sustainably sourced materials, but Primark also wanted to see if it could incorporate circular design into a licensed campaign. In the end, it was able to move seven of the items in the collection towards circular design as a starting point.
Nick explained this was by no means job done; “It’s a proof of concept that we can embed circular design into a design-led licensed campaign.”
For its Lion King collection, the marketing team created a video to promote the reuse of a single item of clothing, passing it onto friends family and next generations.
The collection had an embroidered rather than printed graphic; “a small subtle shift, but gets the product team thinking differently about how they can incorporate sustainable design,” said Nick.
‘So what’s next for circularity?” Nick asked.
“Primark is continuing to scale circular design in our core product categories, that’s denim and jersey which probably accounts for about a third of our business. So we are focusing on t-shirts and jeans to carry circular design for now,” continued Nick.
It is also looking at rest of its business: hoodies, nightwear, knitwear – “what does it take for us to embed more circular design in those areas?”
Nick is working closely with Primark’s buying teams on how to find a way forward to embed circular design in those ranges too.
Circular ecosystem
Circularity is not just one thing; circular design is part of it but doesn’t encompass it all. “There is a lot more we need to do,” said Nick.
The circular ecosystem is complex and there are a lot more intervention points that need exploring, such as consumer behaviour and circular business models. While still conceptual at scale, these are on Primak’s agenda.
“Repair is really important part of this for us. We launched repair workshops called Love it for Longer, essentially providing free customer education,” detailed Nick. The workshops run in multiple stores, and anyone is free to join. Through these, Primark employs local talent to help customers learn what they can do to keep clothes in use for longer – “Empowering customers with a needle and thread,” said Nick.
Another project is Primark’s Swap Shop which launched this year, a concept which will roll out over the coming year.
Yellow Octopus is Primark’s partner in the world of takeback, for which it has boxes in all of its stores, but again, there is still work to be done to scale up clothing collection.
Primark’s Worn Well vintage concession is now in ten of its stores across UK and Ireland, the company’s first foray into pre-loved clothing. Similarly with its preloved vintage music tee concession in some of its stores.
“This all gets our business used to the world of pre-loved clothing, which is fundamental to a circular economy,” noted Nick.
Finally, in collaboration with the University of Leeds, Primark launched its durability framework a couple of months ago, which is starting the conversation with the industry on what durability means in fashion.
