H&M, Primark, Zalando and 65 other organisations call for targeted policies to scale circular fashion and create jobs
H&M Group, Primark, Zalando, and 65 other fashion and textile organisations have joined the Ellen MacArthur Foundation in calling on governments in the EU, US, and Canada to address what they describe as the “broken economics” of resale and repair. In its report The New Bottom Line, the Foundation highlights that current policies and infrastructure make producing new garments from virgin materials more profitable than extending the life of existing clothing, penalising labour-intensive circular business models.
The coalition is urging three concrete policy changes: reduced VAT on resold and repaired items, lower labour taxes for circular businesses, and Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) schemes to fund large-scale collection and sorting infrastructure. Proponents say these measures could raise profit margins to 55% for resale and 41% for repair, while creating local jobs in repair, sorting, logistics and retail, reducing carbon emissions, and easing pressure on waste systems. Leyla Ertur, H&M’s Chief Sustainability Officer, called fixing resale economics “one of the fastest and most concrete ways to scale circularity in fashion,” while Vinted’s Marianne Gybels emphasized that supportive policy would help second-hand fashion become a mainstream, climate-positive alternative.
