InPost, a leading out-of-home and eCommerce delivery company, today announces a new partnership with sustainable fashion trailblazer, Yellow Octopus Group, which aims to offer consumers a more convenient and greener way of donating and recycling clothes.
The collaboration aims to encourage and incentivise more sustainable behaviour by offering consumers exclusive discount coupons for every donation made, and in doing so, contributing to the creation of “circular fashion” with old clothes being reused, recycled or remade into new products and preventing them from ending up in landfill. The circular fashion industry is a fast-growing movement to reuse and recycle all materials, eliminating waste and pollution and regenerating the environment.
Consumers can register old clothing via Yellow Octopus’s reGAIN app and drop off donations to any InPost locker in the UK completely free of charge — with the whole process taking a matter of seconds. This makes it even more convenient to participate in the scheme, helping to further boost the green benefits of signing up to the service by reducing the environmental impact of shipping the clothes.
The reGAIN programme — which also features as part of Stacey Solomon’s latest clothing collection for In the Style — enables unwanted clothes to be distributed to charities as well as across a network of textile recycling innovators, research initiatives, students’ projects and fashion designers to be renewed, upcycled or recycled into new sustainable products.
InPost’s ambition is to green the delivery and returns of circular fashion by managing the process more efficiently and sustainably. The home delivery trend for online shopping and returns could become unsustainable if it continues to surge. Accordingly, the fashion industry is facing heavy pressure to reduce carbon emissions and waste, not least from a new generation of consumers who demand more environmental accountability — this has given added impetus to the argument for circularity.
Jason Tavaria, CEO of InPost UK said: “We’re pleased to partner with Yellow Octopus to support its reGAIN programme. This collaboration is another vote of confidence for fashion’s fast growing circular economy. Our own research suggests that consumers – especially 18-34 year olds – are increasingly looking for ways to live more sustainably — what we need to do is try to make it as convenient as possible to adopt green behaviours. That’s why we’re so excited to play an integral part in helping to scale this concept by making it super convenient for consumers to participate and completely free to send donations via lockers. With the added bonus of a money off voucher in return, it’s a win-win for consumers”.
Jack Ostrowski, Founder of Yellow Octopus Group said: “We are thrilled to partner with InPost to create another amazing channel to donate and recycle unwanted clothes. Now anyone who wants to send donations to the reGAIN app can also do it via InPost lockers, which means we’ll be able to get even more people on board using the app. It’s so important for us to make it as easy as possible for people to get behind reGAIN in order to drive consumer behavioural changes, as we push to transition from a linear fashion industry model to a circular one”.
InPost’s own research shows that over half of those aged 18-34 (51%) say they are more concerned about the environmental impact of delivery and returns today than in the past.[1]
By partnering with Yellow Octopus, InPost hopes to build greener out-of-home collection and return options for circular fashion and in turn, making it free of charge for consumers to donate and supercharging the convenience of participating in reGAIN to help encourage consumers towards more sustainable behaviours.
The reGAIN program has been recognised by EDIE as a Sustainability Leaders Award Winner in the Circular Innovation of the Year category and Yellow Octopus Group has also won the Queen’s Awards for Enterprise from Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.