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@Zalando
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Europe's largest online fashion retailer Zalando promises a sustainable approach to returns. But the company is deceiving customers, a new investigation reveals. The company delivered more than 250 million orders in 2021 around half of which were returned. Zalando advertises that it is becoming a sustainable fashion platform, with a "net positive impact on people and the planet," and that returns and delivery are climate neutral. According to them, 97 % of returned clothing is "resold after appropriate inspection as well as careful refurbishment." The rest being sold on discount platforms or donated to organisations. To verify these claims, reporters from German TV channel SWR, newspaper Die Zeit and research platform Flip, ordered 10 clothing items from Zalando, sewed trackers into the items and then sent them back to Zalando. The journalists discovered that some of the returned items took very long journeys across Europe. For example, they tracked a baby onesie to Gardno in Poland, a small village which is home to a logistics service provider who handles returns for Zalando. One reason for sending items to Poland could be to circumvent a German law introduced in 2018 prohibiting the destruction of new goods and returns. Shortly after the law was passed, Zalando started outsourcing some of its returns department abroad. To find out more, the researchers obtained internal documents and spoke to current and former employees at the returns centre. According to workers, soiled items and new goods that are missing a barcode are deposited into a shredder. The shredded textiles are then thought to be handled by a Swedish recycling company. Zalando maintains that this only applies to items that have to be destroyed for health reasons.One worker claimed that they are required to sort 68 pieces of clothing per hour., giving little time to determine the state of the returned items. After Gardno, the baby onesie headed to Gdansk, then back to Swinemünde, in the far north-west of Poland. From there it was shipped to Malmö in Sweden and then on to Stockholm. A few days later, it returned to Germany via Denmark. And then back to Poland. From the coast, the onesie took the ship to Sweden again. Its total journey was almost 7,000 km. In total, the 10 items of returned clothing travelled 28,822 kilometres, with one venturing as far as Chicago, USA. Björn Asdecker, a researcher from the University of Bamberg, says the zigzagging journey of the returned items is partly due to ‘predictive analytics’, a system using an algorithm to speculate on where an item of clothing is most likely to be ordered next. It could also be due to the fact that returns centres often get full and items must then be trucked further afield to facilities where there is space to house them. Although Zalando claims to check the capacity of centres before making deliveries, items often still make unnecessary zigzag journeys across the continent, spewing emissions as they go. Zalando aso states that some damaged returns are given new life through a repairs service and used clothing sales, but refuses to disclose figures. Some items marked for outlet retail or donation are reportedly sent to external facilities for handling. They are then often sold to dealers outside Europe; this means such goods could travel thousands of kilometres to countries in Africa or Asia, where they often end up in landfill. So what is Zalando carbon footprint ? According to them, they emitted more than 5.5 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent across its entire value chain. This is more than twice as much as all of Iceland. This figure does not include the emissions from returns handled by its partner brands. Its ‘climate-neutral returns’ promise relies partly on carbon offsetting schemes, like tree planting, which have been revealed as substandard by Die Zeit. https://letsflip.de/zalando-retouren-klimaneutral-co2-greenwashing/ https://www.euronews.com/green/2023/03/09/fast-fashion-retailer-zalando-claims-its-returns-are-climate-neutral-is-it-true
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Oskar Lindgren
203 w
Great initiative from Europe's largest online retailer. Making it mandatory for all its 2000 brands to evaluate their value chains according to the Higg Brand and Retail Module, which will look into the environmental and social impact of a brand's products. They have given their brands three years evaluate their impact and improve their social and ecological impacts from their value chains and own production. These types of actions are recurring everywhere, organizations requiring environmental transparency and evaluation from their collaborators, suppliers, and partners. Read more here: https://www.harpersbazaar.com/uk/fashion/fashion-news/a32694825/zalando-sustainability/ PS. Zalando has also aligned their goals according to the Science-Based Targets (SBTs) in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in line with the 1.5 C Paris Agreement.
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203 w
Good. But 2023? Why wait 3 years?
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203 w
There business model isn't about sustainability at all (mass consumption) , wonder how this is going to work out
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203 w
Definitely agreeing with you on that. However, we cannot just think that people will stop consuming. Even though what Zalando is doing is not close to enough, it’s a step in the right direction.
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59 w
Greenwashing is never okay! Change is needed
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59 w
Greenwashing arguments!
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59 w
Sad!! This is a breach of trust.