While many brands and retailers are pulling out all the stops on Black Friday to sell what they’re made of, there are some using the day to go back on the sale by either halting their sales activity, enabling re-commerce or take back old goods for recycling purposes. FashionUnited has highlighted some of them below to offer alternatives to spending and overconsumption, as a recent report shows that retail mega-events like Black Friday are “completely inconsistent with our global climate commitments”.
Take Back Friday by Teemill
Leading the way is circular economy platform Teemill, working with its community of 10,000 stores to encourage shoppers to return Teemill-made clothes they no longer wear as part of the #TakeBackFriday campaign.
The returned products are then processed into new products using Teemill’s innovative remill technology. Customers will be rewarded with a £5 credit to spend on future circular product purchases.
“Black Friday is a symptom of how waste has been woven into the way our world works. Products were designed to be thrown away, meaning the only way to create growth is to make and sell more products and create more waste. This is fueling climate change and destroying nature,” Teemill co-founder Mart Drake-Knight said in a statement.
“We created Teemill to solve this problem. Our products are designed from the ground up to be reused and remade. This means that we do not generate waste, but use it to make new products. Doing the right thing shouldn’t cost the earth. That’s why we’re making the platform available for free, because we want to encourage everyone who cares about this issue to help shape a more sustainable future with us,” adds Drake-Knight.
The company, which was founded in 2008 as the fashion brand Rapanui, has been working on the development of a circular supply chain for many years and was relaunched in 2018 as the Teemill platform. Teemill uses only recycled, natural materials (no plastic), including for packaging, creating value from waste and taking responsibility even after a product’s lifecycle has come to an end.
The UK-based company currently works with more than 10,000 brands, including global NGOs and corporations, media, online content creators and influencers, providing an open-access platform for circular design and supply chains. Companies using it include Greenpeace, WWF, BBC Earth, Google, Selfridges, Fortnum and Mason and Lush.
To date, Teemill has kept 30,000 kilograms of organic cotton out of landfill, avoided 1 million kilograms of CO2e emissions and saved 586 million liters of water by using its remill process, which uses returned products to create new, high-quality products using the same process over and over again can go through. Teemill’s goal is to take back 100 million items by 2027, and Take Back Friday is a way to encourage consumers to participate.
Buy Back Friday by Raeburn
British fashion studio Raeburn will clear its flagship store at 2 Marshall Street in Soho, London, of current-season stock on Friday, to allow its circular economy partner, Responsible, to transform it into a re-commerce hub for Buy Back Friday. Consumers can bring in women’s and men’s Raeburn and other premium streetwear brands for an on-site appraisal, appraisal and cash reward. Visitors are also given tips on how to evaluate their current and future wardrobe, with a focus on keeping clothes in circulation for as long as possible and not ending up in landfill.
“We’ve always viewed Black Friday differently – as a day of restoration and repair,” said Raeburn founder and designer Christopher Raeburn in a press release. “Traditionally we close the shop on this day to promote a sustainable mindset: buy less but buy better. This year, we’ve gone a step further by engaging the Responsible team to educate customers on the proactive steps they can take to make purchases that will last the product for years to come and multiple new owners :keep circulating inside.”
“All collected pieces go through our premium preparation process. We ozone clean everything and perform quality repairs so that each piece feels like new when it’s delivered to the next customer in minimal, plastic-free packaging via our Responsible Re-Commerce Store,” explains Responsible CMO Ciaran Jordan.
Green Friday by Deuter
The German outdoor brand Deuter is committed to less consumption in favor of conscious shopping and sustainable action and is turning Black Friday into “Green Friday”. Deuter is donating 10 percent of its online sales between November 25 and 27, 2022 to the European Outdoor Conservation Association (EOCA) for the Strengthening Human-Elephant Coexistence project in Ghana.
With the money raised, the habitat of the endangered African forest elephant will be improved and restored. Trees will also be planted and around 5,000 people will be educated about the value of elephants to the ecosystem of the Kakum Conservation Area. In addition, around 500 farmers will be trained in better farming techniques and practices.
In order to extend the life cycle of its products, Deuter is also on the road in various cities in Germany to repair backpacks directly in stores.
SWAP Friday from Friday
The Swiss bag manufacturer Freitag not only closes its stationary shops on Black Friday, as in previous years, but also its online shop for the first time on this day. Those interested can alternatively exchange their bags either online on the SWAP platform or do so in person in all of the brand’s stationary stores from Zurich to Tokyo.
Freitag is also teaming up with like-minded brands like Raeburn (see above), Dutch denim pioneer Mud Jeans, Swedish slow fashion brand Asket, Spanish vegan sneaker brand Flamingos Life, and Seattle-based surf and yoga brand Oy and others. They also close their online shops on Black Friday and are committed to fair and sustainable business and consumption opportunities with various initiatives and constructive actions.
For more fashion brands boycotting Black Friday discounts, see here.