In a warming world filled with single-use products and rapidly growing landfills, outdoor gear companies have an elevated responsibility to help fix the issues of resource waste and over consumption. The need for outdoor gear to be repaired, reused, and resold has eclipsed the modern consumer’s desire to replace it when the shiniest upgrade comes along. With that in mind, the way forward for many environmentally-conscious brands is no longer a linear take-make-waste system, but a circular one, in which used and unwanted products can be taken back by brands and given a second life.
According to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, a charity committed to creating a circular economy, millions of tons of clothes are produced, worn, and thrown away every year. A closed-loop cycle, or circular economy, transforms that waste-producing method of production into a renewable process that not only recycles products at the end of their life, but ensures they are designed to be reused again and again from the very beginning (with some repairs, if necessary).