Yellow Octopus founder: “There is money in circular business – we know where”

Jack Ostrowski

Profit first. Planet second. It’s not politically correct, but I believe it to be true. This is because no business will survive without making a profit. After all, the Cambridge Dictionary definition of “sustainability” is “the quality of being able to continue over a period of time”.

If you seriously want to make an impact at scale, the solution or business model needs to be a profitable one first. It’s not rocket science. There are too many people in the sustainability space who do not understand business and, by making heretical claims, they do the sustainability movement more harm than good.

There are very few companies that have diverted more fashion from UK landfills than Yellow Octopus Group in last 15 years. That fact allows me to say things that many people think but don’t necessarily say.

I am tired of “eco-warriors” who tell brands and retailers how “bad” they are. All they do is criticise without providing any real-life solutions. What fashion retail needs today is not another “sustainability expert” who will try to teach you how to run your business. What retail needs is business partners that will make it possible to implement solutions quickly and at scale, and add measurable value to a business’s bottom line.

Fashion retail contributes £62bn to the UK economy, 2023 research by the UK Fashion and Textile Association shows. It’s a very valuable contributor. This is the pretty part.

The ugly bit is that 50 lorries filled with 16 tonnes of fashion waste go to UK landfills every single day, amounting to 300,000 tonnes a year, a report by WRAP (Waste Resources and Action Programme) has shown.

The real problem we need to solve is how to continue the positive economic influence of fashion but limit its environmental impact.

Circular models are one of the answers.

But they have to be commercially viable to work. Even if your end goal is noble, your solution has to be competitive with what is out there on the market. And it needs to make money. Otherwise, you are destined for failure.

There is money in circular business – and we know where. Since it launched in 2006, Yellow Octopus Group has been building successful circular business models across the UK and Europe that make money for fashion brands and retailers. Our focus is to connect profit with purpose. Solving real, pressing problems, at scale, is what we do. We work with high street giant Primark and Paris Fashion Week’s Balenciaga, among others.

We provide commercial sustainability solutions that deliver value, because only then can we generate the scale to turn a small project into global solutions that have a long-lasting positive impact on the world.

There are three pillars to what we do: maximising recovery of value from unsold inventory and customer returns; creating new revenue streams from products made of your own waste; and gaining insights into what your customers have bought elsewhere and what they are looking to buy next.

These business models all have one thing in common: they provide savings while delivering more additional revenue. The positive environmental impacts of all three are simply the outcome of smartly designed circular systems in fashion.

Incentives are a strong factor in motivating behavioural change. I believe that economic gain is the core stimulus for the fashion retail industry to evolve towards circularity and more sustainable business models.

Yellow Octopus Group

YO Circular Solutions

YO Circular Solutions diverts over 10 million items of unwanted clothing from landfill each year, redistributing them throughout its second-life network to extend the life of each item as part of the circular economy.

It partners with retailers to offer fully traceable and audited stock exits for customer returns and excess inventory, as well as repair programmes.

Its recommerce software solution, Reflaunt, is successfully powering resell initiatives for businesses such as Net-A-Porter and Balenciaga.

YO Circular Solutions is also behind some of the largest takeback programmes across the UK and Europe, working with Primark, Asda’s George, Urban Outfitters and more.

Upcycle Labs

Upcycle Labs is a material science and technology company that provides upcycling services. Its patent-pending technology converts unwanted inventory and waste from the fashion and beauty industry into new products, such as homeware and store fittings, with zero waste from its factory in Nottingham.

It recently worked with footwear retailer Footasylum to create store fittings made out of the business’s old plastic hangers. Rather than dumping them in landfill, Upcycle Labs has turned them into retail display shelves, which now feature in several Footasylum stores across the UK.

Upcycle Labs has also worked with Canadian brand Lululemon to turn waste products from customer returns into elements that will form part of the women’s fitnesswear brand’s store within the Canadian Pavilion at this summer’s Paris Olympics and Paralympics.

Loop Digital Wardrobe

Yellow Octopus Group’s newest circular fashion solution, Loop Digital Wardrobe, is a tech plug-in that helps fashion brands and retailers connect their customers to multiple second-life options using one simple integration for their website or mobile app.

Loop gives brands’ and retailers’ customers the tools to act more responsibly as part of the circular economy, enabling them to easily resell, swap, fix or donate items. The plug-in also utilises the growing trend of social commerce. It digitises users’ purchases into an online wardrobe, making shopping and styling outfits an engaging and circular experience. Users can share and browse the digital wardrobes of their friends and favourite influencers, see their past purchases or their wish list, and resell peer to peer.

Brands and retailers can track this activity and use anonymous data sets to optimise their marketing strategy, reduce digital marketing spend, and increase return on investment.

Businesses that have already implemented the solution include Boohoo Group, Mountain Warehouse and Little Mistress.