Closing the Loop

To facilitate our garments having a second life, in 2015 we launched Closing the Loop. The aim of this initiative is the reuse and recycling of textile products, footwear and accessories, strengthening the circular economy in our sector. At the same time, this promotes social employment and collaboration with social entities and the third sector in our community.

In 2016, we extended this programme to a total of 394 stores in six countries, reaching 100% implementation in the Zara stores in Spain, Portugal, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Holland and Denmark. This will soon be completed in Sweden and China. In the stores in these countries, we placed specific containers to facilitate donation by our customers. In the same way, we have placed containers in all of our offices and logistic centres in Spain, in order to encourage this initiative among our employees.

Throughout this year, we have also initiated the free home collection service for clothing donations in Spain, in collaboration with Seur. When placing an order on Zara.com, customers have option of giving clothes that they no longer use to the courier. To extend the programme beyond collection in our stores, and in collaboration with Cáritas, in 2016, 992 containers were installed on spanish streets for the donation of garments.

Thanks to this programme, we have been able to collect over 128 tonnes of products in our stores and corporate offices, of which 10.6 tonnes were donated through Zara.com, and 6,973 tonnes on the Spanish streets.

In the coming years, we hope to initiate the garments collection in the stores of Oysho and Massimo Dutti, to expand the network of containers on Spanish streets to 2,000 garment collecting points, and to extend the programme to new countries, including the United States, Canada, Mexico, France, Greece, Italy, Belgium, Switzerland, Austria, Germany, Finland, Norway, Poland, Russia, Korea and Japan.

Closing the Loop also strengthens our social contribution together with nonprofit entities such as Roba Amiga, Cáritas, Red Cross, OXFAM, the China Environmental Protection Foundation, among others. We collaborate in order to integrate people at risk of exclusion to the roles responsible for collecting and classifying the clothing. The products that can be reused are sent to non-profit social entities in nearby communities.

To close the cycle of garments that cannot be used a second time or be wasted from textile manufacturing, we have joined forces with different business organizations and universities to promote sustainable innovation and to develop new materials and technologies that permit the recycling of textile waste.