By partnering with weturn, LVMH is completing its range of creative circularity solutions and continuing its commitment to the circular economy, a major pillar promoted by the Group through its LIFE 360 program (LIFE: LVMH Initiatives For the Environment). Founded in 2020, the new start-up has created the first recycling chain dedicated to unsold textiles, rolls of fabric and offcuts from major fashion houses, which are all protected by intellectual property, by transforming them into new quality yarns and fabrics that are 100% traceable and European-made.
While the closed-loop recycling rate in the textile industry is currently less than 1%, weturn’s initiative allows fashion houses to recycle their unsold products protected by intellectual property, after considering donation and reuse solutions, to create new eco-designed textiles. Weturn works with several LVMH Group Maisons to support them in recycling their textiles and to help them reuse these recycled materials in future products (packaging, accessories, fabrics for workshops, uniforms for teams or research projects for integration into ready-to-wear products), intended for the original Maisons or other brands and designers in the market. Weturn provides the fashion industry with an innovative solution for achieving recycling rates of over 50%, while offering the promise of transparency through a traceability chain, from collection to reuse.
Alongside partners such as weturn, the LVMH group is perfecting its commitment to environmental excellence in terms of products and packaging, as well as their traceability. It has set the following objectives through its LIFE 360 environmental program:
- By 2023:
- The Group will build on and amplify the main advantage of luxury products, their durability, by relying on sophisticated repair services and upcycling or reuse of precious materials such as leather and fur, as well alternative materials.
- By 2026:
- LVMH is committed to transparency with respect to its customers; all new products will be equipped with a dedicated information system. This is an essential way to guarantee excellent practices.
- By 2030:
- 100% of the Group’s new products will follow an eco-design approach, with a controlled environmental footprint, from the extraction of materials to their processing.
- 100% of the Group’s strategic supply chains will have a dedicated traceability system.
“We are delighted that the LVMH group is partnering with weturn, which offers innovative solutions in the field of textile recycling. Today, this partnership allows us to take a new step towards achieving our ambition in the field of creative circularity, which is one of the four strategic priorities of LIFE 360, our environmental policy for the next 10 years. As our designers continue to integrate more and more upcycling into their collections, as the Nona Source platform enables them to obtain high-quality unused fabrics and leathers, and as CEDRE intervenes in the end-of-life of products, weturn offers our Maisons the opportunity to recycle their unsold finished products, branded fabrics and textile packaging in the form of spools of thread. This creates a complete ecosystem around creative circularity, which is a source of inspiration for our designers. The circle is complete!”, says Hélène Valade, Environment Development Group Director, LVMH.
“After a year dedicated to creating a new recycling chain, we are proud to join the circular economy market by working to recycle unsold and protected products alongside prestigious Maisons such as those of the LVMH group, which contribute to the international reputation of France. Our ambition is to contribute to the revival of the European textile industry by demonstrating that a product’s value lies in its raw materials.”, adds Sophie Pignères, Founder of weturn.
Brief history of LVMH’s circular economy approach:
The Group has pursued its commitment to recycling since 2006. This commitment became a reality when LVMH joined forces with CEDRE, a company specialized in waste collection. Its pioneering approach was integrated into the Group’s previous environmental strategy in 2011 with improvements in the eco-design of packaging, certification of raw material sourcing and waste reduction at its sites. With LIFE 360, LVMH is going even further by including circular creativity as one of the four strategic priorities of its approach.
weturn in short:
Weturn was founded in 2020 with an eye on the coming French AGEC law (anti-waste for a circular economy), which will prohibit the destruction of new and unused textile materials by businesses starting on January 1, 2022. The company offers a service that is 100% dedicated to textile recycling which allows major fashion houses, textile professionals and manufacturers to recycle their stocks, production offcuts, and IP-protected products into new quality yarns and fabrics. Weturn has created an exclusive recycling chain that gives its customers access to a network of logistics specialists, recyclers, spinners and textile manufacturers united around a common goal: to conserve resources and raw materials by prolonging their life span.
By combining digital sorting and low-cost collection tools, weturn develops and distributes new, high-quality recycled raw materials at competitive prices aligned with the market. The model developed by weturn allows compensation for an entire new sector and opens up new economic perspectives for recycling.
