Turning your rags to riches

IT’S less a rags-to-riches than a rags-for-a-few-quid story, but it’s a compelling one, nonetheless.

Retailer John Lewis is trying a new service that allows customers to sell any unwanted clothing back to the department store, regardless of its condition. For every returned item – which will be repaired and resold or recycled – shoppers will receive credit to spend in John Lewis shops. Of course, there is a hard business aspect to this. The scheme encourages shoppers to stick with John Lewis. But as attempts to improve customer loyalty go, this seems a commendable one. Each year 300,000 tonnes of unwanted garments end up in UK landfill sites.

As a solution to the problem of what to do with discarded clothing, this is clearly unsustainable. Businesses which want to attract new, younger customers for whom environmental concerns are greater will, increasingly, have to prove their green credentials. John Lewis is showing a possible way forward. And if it means more business for them, less environmentallydamaging waste and some extra cash in the pockets of customers, we can’t see a downside.