As I’ll be starting courses and workshops in Circular Design soon, I was pretty impressed to find this research document carried out on Vinted’s ecological performance.

Milda Mitkute and Justas Janauskas co-founded Vinted in 2008 in Vilnius, Lithuania. “Long story short: Mitkute was in the process of moving but didn’t know what to do with all of her extra clothes. Janauskas hit on the idea of a website to give away her clothes to friends. He built it, and the website became Vintage in its nascent form. “

Vinted has grown year-on-year and is now present in Vilnius, Berlin, Prague, Amsterdam, and Utrecht. Helping them to operate in 16 markets: Spain, France, Luxembourg, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Lithuania, the UK, Italy, Portugal, the USA, and Canada.

For its 15th year of activity, Vinted asked the German startup Vaayu to draw up a Climate Change Impact Report on its environmental impact. Vaayu has already collaborated with large global companies such as Bayer and Stripe.

Vinted’s whole argument (Vision) is this… allowing everyone to wear second-hand clothes to reduce the environmental impact of the clothing industry .

YOUNGER AUDIENCES PREFER SECOND-HAND GOODS

• The secondhand market is predicted to grow by 127% by 2028. 
• 75% of students shopped for secondhand goods.
• 37% of students are reselling their clothes.
• 69% of people in Generation Z think that brands should reward those who shop for secondhand items through discounts provided by retailers or third parties. 

“Vinted promotes reuse by helping you keep fashion and other items in circulation for longer, which is a key way to reduce the emissions produced by the fashion industry.* To measure our impact, we asked Vaayu to conduct an independent study of 350,000 of our members and assess the emissions saved during half a billion transactions.”

https://company.vinted.com/newsroom

When we consider that 2,500 litres of water are necessary to manufacture one only t-shirt, this report goes into every type of saving when buying second-hand, rather than new. Lots of people say, yes, but, it uses a lot of transportation to move things around but this is also taken into account in this report (also see Go Vinted later on in this post).

CHARITIES LOSING OUT.

It is true that Emmaüs and Secours Populaire have been affected greatly by the fact that second hand clothes are sold on Vinted, rather than given away to them – and Emmaüs’s latest response is a campaign with a slogan of “If you don’t wear it, give it away”. The Emmaüs slogan hijacks the slogan of Vinted, “You don’t wear it anymore? Sell ​​it ».

This report highlights the success of the Vinted model. Indeed, the conclusions of Vaayu’s work present a completely honorable result for Vinted. In fact, on average, 1.8 kilograms of CO2 emissions are saved per purchase on the Lithuanian platform. Based on 500 million sales, this totals 453 kt CO2e saved.

REPLACEMENT RATE.

The replacement Rate was 39 per cent. The Replacement Rate is the probability with which the alternate emissions generating scenario would have happened if Vinted didn’t exist. This calculation includes emissions linked to transport and the packaging of packages for each sale.

In addition to this report, this year, Vinted launched Vinted Go Lockers in and around Paris.

THE LAST KILOMETRE. TRANSPORTATION.

“Transportation alone accounts for 96% of the carbon emissions of any purchase on Vinted, measured at 1.28 kg of CO2 per delivery, and 977 grams per product.” fashionnetwork.com

A pick-up/drop-off (PUDO) – pick up, drop off shipment/delivery system is said to cut emissions by 62%, given that, for a quarter of respondents, the journey to a pick-up point lasts on average 13 minutes.

The new delivery service launched this year in Paris, Go Vinted, allows members to opt for a delivery solution that generates lower carbon emissions than home deliveries. According to independent research, PUDO (pick up, drop off) delivery of Vinted parcels generates approximately 97% less on the last kilometre compared to home delivery, and 42% less on the whole journey between the shop and the pick-up point/lockers. In addition, deliveries within cities are made via electric vehicles.

We don’t see in-depth analyses like this one very often. Let’s hope other companies start to follow suit.

If you’re interested in short courses or workshops on the subject of design and the circular economy, please get in touch with Sue Alouche on +33 (0)667452888.