The Circular Collective
The charity shop is an icon of the British high street. However, under the overwhelming weight of domestic textile waste, it's struggling to cope. We took it on ourselves to explore how thinking form sustainable retail could inform our concept 'The Circular Collective' - the first sustainable initiative of its kind to promote systemic change for charities on a nationwide scale.
Donating unwanted clothes will always be a positive act in itself. However, in the UK, we’re donating more than the UK’s 11,000 charity shops can handle. Staffed with mostly volunteers, these bastions of sustainable retail are becoming a sea of bin bags waiting to be processed.
Meanwhile, demand for pre-loved clothes continues to grow at pace, driven by the rise of purpose-driven consumers, sustainable retail and online platforms. As we delved deeper into this trend, an opportunity emerged.
What if we could glue the pieces together to re-energise the British charity shop?
