Each year, the Agency for donation in kind redistributes between 200,000 and 300,000 units of unsold clothing.
The association collects articles from donor companies before making them available to accommodation centers, children's aid associations and many other groups using a digital platform.
For its managing director, Romain Canler, a given unsold product is no longer truly an unsold product: "It is a product which finds social utility by certainly leaving the consumerist market in the traditional sense of the term, but which by finding its social utility avoids waste. "
Lots of cremated clothes
An approach which nevertheless has its limits.
According to estimates from Refashion, an eco-organization in the textile industry, for each item of clothing donated, five are incinerated.
At Fashion Green Hub, a community of 300 fashion companies, we try to give a second life to unsold products through "upcycling" - or upcycling.
Bizzbee jeans become a computer pouch, sheets are transformed into kimono ... Since its inception, the association has upcycled more than 100,000 products and saved two tonnes of textiles.
Take into account the demand
What if we tackle the source of the problem: overproduction?
Agile production, on demand, is what the start-up Tekyn offers.
"We are going to tell the brands: instead of producing 3,000 pieces at once, you are going to produce 300 pieces per week. Each week, we will analyze what was sold the previous week", explains Donatien Mourmant, co-founder of Tekyn.
This is a real paradigm shift for brands, an ecological approach but also economic in order to avoid overstocks.
"We constantly have examples of production where a brand has produced more than twice what it actually sold."
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