Essay On Application Of Circular And Doughnut Economics

This paper aims to discuss the application of circular economy and doughnut economy from the perspective of Versac. Versac is an Italian fashion company that sells luxury clothing for men, women and children and accessories as well as home decor (see A2 appendix).  This brand is globally known for its symbolic flashy colors and bright prints. This company is walking in the path of sustainability by modifying their production process in order to align their business activities with the sustainability movement that has been started in the international level (Versac 2022).

 

 

Application of the concepts of circular economy is important in the fashion and/or clothing industry. Textile industry is ranked fourth for water use, second for land use and fifth for greenhouse gas emission (Dissanayake, and Weerasinghe 2021). In theories, the circular economy refers to the model of consumption and production that involves leasing, sharing, reusing, refurbishing, repairing and recycling the available materials or resources as long as it is possible so that the life cycle of products is extended. In practice, circular economy implies reduction of waste to the minimum (Hultberg, and Pal 2021). The doughnut economics is a framework related to sustainable development. The name of this model is de to the fact is that it is represented as doughnut. The center of the model shows the ratio of people that do not have enough access to the essentials of life whereas the crust represents the planetary boundaries on which life depends. According to this model, an economy that can satisfy all the life’ essential without overshooting the ecological ceiling of the earth is considered an sustainable economy (see A1 in appendix) (WEF 2017).

 

The application of the circular economy and doughnut economy can be done by Versac in many ways because many of their activities are subject to pollution generation and extraction of resources such as production process of products, delivering them to the clients, electricity consumption, water pollution and water extraction. However, the application of these models is particularly important in the production process.  In other words, the proposal is that Versac should try to identify the way it can use collected clothing waste and turn them into new products in a cost-effective and low pollution-intensive way possible.

 

The reason is that, the sales revenue of clothing is rapidly increasing in the world. The value of the luxury clothing market is 80 billion USD. The market for women clothing is huge compared to the clothing market for men and children (Statista 2022). On the other hand, the value of clothing utilization has been falling. This implies that people are not wearing the same clothes repeatedly and hence a design for longevity would not work for Versac. This is leading to generation of more clothing waste. The United Kingdom is being named as the most clothing waste producing country in the Europe. Textile wastes are made of most part of the household wastes in the UK. The UK households had generated 300,000 tons of clothing in 2017. The clothing consumption by UK population was of worth 200,000 tons in 2016. These clothes generated 26 million tons of CO2 combining all the stages of the product cycle (Smithers 2017). Thus, it is recommended that Versac invests in research and development of a technology with which these clothing wastes can be recycled in a lower cost and pollution-intensive way possible.

 

Versac already has taken an initiative, namely Versac up-cycle that deals with production of kids wear using recycled materials and up-cycled unused products (Versac 2022). The same process can be followed in the case of men and women’s wear. Versac can introduce a plan which will allow the customers to buy clothes in a discounting rate in exchange for used clothes (with some specification regarding the quality of the used clothes). This will encourage people to submit the used clothes in good condition to the specified centers of Versac instead of dumping them in the landfill. The fashion designers can be instructed to work on the identification of the techniques that will allow them to recreate fashionable dresses using used clothes (that are collected in a good condition) that is following a design food recycling policy (Dissanayake, and Weerasinghe 2021). In this way, a huge amount of clothing waste can be collected in a low-cost and efficient way which then can be used for recycling purpose.

 

From the above discussion it can be stated that through efficient recycling process, Versac can help the economy in becoming more sustainable because it will be able to provide more clothes by generating less emission, ozone layer depletion, and more efficient use of existing resources. Thus, the report concludes by discussing the application of circular and doughnut economics.

 

Dissanayake, D.G.K. and Weerasinghe, D., 2021. Towards circular economy in fashion: review of strategies, barriers and enablers. Circular Economy and Sustainability, pp.1-21.https://doi.org/10.1007/s43615-021-00090-5

 

 

Hultberg, E. and Pal, R., 2021. Lessons on business model scalability for circular economy in the fashion retail value chain: Towards a conceptual model. Sustainable Production and Consumption, 28, pp.686-698.https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352550921001998

 

 

Smithers, R., 2017. UK households binned 300,000 tonnes of clothing in 2016. The Guadian, [online] Available at: <https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/11/uk-households-binned-300000-tonnes-of-clothing-in-2016> [Accessed 2 August 2022].

 

 

Statista, 2022. Topic: Apparel market worldwide. [online] Statista. Available at: <https://www.statista.com/topics/5091/apparel-market-worldwide/#dossierKeyfigures> [Accessed 2 August 2022].

 

 

Versac, 2022. Versac Sustainability Principles. [online] Versac.com. Available at: <https://www.versace.com/international/en/world-of-versace/stories/news-projects/versace-children-upcycle-project.html> [Accessed 2 August 2022].

 

 

WEF, 2017. Meet the doughnut: the new economic model that could help end inequality. [online] World Economic Forum. Available at: <https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/04/the-new-economic-model-that-could-end-inequality-doughnut/> [Accessed 2 August 2022].