Recycling startup
How a startup is making recycling easy across the whole fashion industry
- x3
- collection volume in one year
- 700+
- tonnes of material recovered
Less than 1% of clothing is recycled into new clothing. A startup set out to change that for the unsold stock of fashion and luxury houses: it collects it, has it transformed into new yarn by partner factories, and proves what each kilo became. Its volumes tripled in a year. To scale, it needed a platform that could carry its process. It ran on Retool, and our developers helped take that platform further.
What was in place
The company coordinates the whole chain: it collects the stock, has it transformed by partner factories in France, Italy and Portugal, and delivers the new material. A lot passes through several hands, and the company answers for all of them.
Its clients include some of the largest luxury houses. They are demanding, and French law has forbidden destroying unsold clothing since 2022, so a house must be able to prove what became of its stock. Some want their own textile back, as new yarn or fabric, to use again.
A process like this holds while volumes are small. At three times the volume it needs a platform, or the proof is lost.
The objectives
- Scale the process without losing traceability: for any lot, what it was transformed into, where, and how it was reused, including when it returns to the house it came from.
- Indicators for management, to steer a company growing this fast: volumes, the share of material that comes back as new, what each project earns.
- Figures to share with the client houses, so each sees the value of what was done with its stock and can show it complied.
What we did
Traceability. The heart of the platform, and of the company’s promise. For any lot: what it was transformed into, in which material, in which factory, and how that material was reused, including when it returns to the house it came from.
A redesign of the whole application. Every part of it reworked to be easier to use: pages in place of pop-ups, a click from any record to the ones linked to it, each piece of information edited in one place only. And faster, as volumes grew.
Indicators. Volumes collected and produced, the rate at which a client’s material comes back as new yarn, the margin on each project and order, and the company’s objectives, calculated from live data over any period. Figures for management, and figures the company can share with each house on its own stock.
The result
The platform grew with the company, and became easier to work in as it did. A lot can be followed whichever factory handled it. Management steers a fast-growing business on figures the platform calculates. And the company has the numbers to show each house what its stock became: the reason it chose recycling over destruction, and the proof it needs.
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