The circular retail revolution
- What does it really mean to be circular?
A zero waste, or circular model, is one of sharing, reusing, repairing, refurbishing and recycling with the aim to be as resourceful and minimising as much waste as possible.
Building a company around circularity is a difficult and an often-expensive accomplishment. For this reason it has not historically, at least until recently, been a priority for most companies. Take a furniture manufacturer for example. In order to be circular, they would have to ensure that all their 'eco boxes' are ticked throughout.
For example, all raw materials would have to be ecologically sourced. This is difficult since the process tends to be managed via multiple third party suppliers which they have little control over. Also, all waste and offcuts should be reused, packaging as well as transporting would need to be eco friendly (electric vans for instance) and the energy used in the factory or workshop should be sustainably powered (solar or similar). On top of that, there are the lifestyle choices of the employees to account for.
Some larger companies try to get around it by offsetting their carbon footprint. Normally because it is not possible for them to actually ever achieve zero waste (take oil companies for instance). However, thanks to the shift in consumer demand, recently many companies have been making the push to circularity.
- Why is it a problem?
Waste is an epidemic. As a society we throw away far too much.
Take fast fashion as an example which is both wasteful to produce and millions of tonnes of it end up in landfill every year (there is a desert in Chilli known for it). Technology improves so rapidly that this year's phone leads to next year's waste. We are yet to figure out a good way to recycle nappies, and there's a lot of them, allegedly over 300,000 a minute end up in landfill, then there are wet wipes etc... We could go on.
It can also be difficult to know what and where to recycle in the UK - with different or confusing recycling rules based on where you live. There are also costs associated with the collection of bulky items, resulting in fly-tipping (with around 22 million pieces of furniture ending up in landfill every year!).
- What is the solution? General trends for a consumer, small and big
As a result of the demand, there have been a number of ingenious and innovative ideas and companies popping up to fill the gap.
There are refill stations where you can go and buy your weights worth of shampoo, dish soap, oats, pasta - you name it.
For electronics, more of us are heading to electronics repair workshops to learn how to reuse our old electronic devices - a great way to extend their lifetime. The resale of used electronics is also becoming popular with the option of buying used laptops from stores such as Music Magpie and Backmarket. On top of this, many mainstream phone companies now offer buy-back schemes in exchange for a new phone.
Food waste is being combated by smart companies like Toast beer, which turns bread offcuts into beer and Biobean, who recycle ground coffee into sustainable products. You also have tech companies like Too Good to Go, who offer smart solutions for unsold food. We are even learning to embrace the humble wonky veg with Oddbox designing their entire business model around it.
Fast fashion is luckily being addressed too, with the eco-trend making it OK, and even desirable, to wear used clothes. Many of the big names are now offering in-house repair workshops and you of course have the option of well stocked online marketplaces like Vinted, or in person options like Brick Lane vintage market or Pick'n'weight where used clothes can be purchased via weight.
In our space, the furniture industry has seen a large push towards vintage and used. Stores like Vinterior are leading the way online and large vintage furniture shows such as Hackney Flea market in East London and Sandowns market in Surrey (which are both brilliant and both open several times throughout the year) are available for those who prefer to shop in person.
On top of this, upcycling has really taken off, with a host of amateur furniture refurbers taking on and restoring un-loved pieces to their former glory (check out our 'upcycling heros' article).
It is of no illusion that some of these trends will been boosted as a result of the recent global financial crisis. People are looking to spend less and make their money work harder and go further. This combined with the overarching consumer eco-consciousness trend is a powerful force for good and positive change.
- What is Zenkki doing?
We launched our furniture service Zenkki Subscribe a couple of years ago as a response to the demand for more flexible and sustainable ways of living, combined with the sharing economy boom. Our hope is to service people who have short term furniture needs so that instead of buying short-lived, cheap flat pack furniture, they can access more high quality options through us only for as long as they need it.
We have since also launched Buyloop, where we help make furniture truly circular.
Our carefully curated furniture comes as both new and used pieces, and with the option to resell with us later. The returned pieces are then cleaned, refurbished and added as a new “loop”. (Loop 1 products are brand new through to Loop 4, used). It is unique as (as far as we know) there aren't any furniture retailers out there who take responsibility for their items not just to the point they land at the customers homes, but forever! (Albeit IKEA is now offering a buy back option in certain locations, which is wonderful!)
The Buyloop concept is currently new but in the future, we hope to be able to refurbish items so that a loop 4 item may become a loop 2 again, using replacement parts etc. This way you can create an almost never ending circle of re-used and refurbished furniture, shared by everyone.
On top of that we look to only use furniture that meets our certified standard, which is:
- easy to clean and maintain with replaceable parts
- durable and robust,
- easy to assemble and disassemble
- sustainably sourced and manufactured
- contemporary, timeless designs
- innovative, unique and forward thinking brands and pieces
- Conclusion
We all have a part to play in making the world around us waste free. It can start with something small like composting your food waste or getting better at recycling, selling your old clothes instead of binning them, taking more care with what you purchase or even by taking the hugely inconvenient leap to reusable nappies and ditching the wet wipes for washable towels (maybe you can tell that this author has recently become a father!).
Change is happening all around us and the more we all play a part in it the faster we can reduce the multitude of daily waste that is produced.