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Rebirth Fashion: Community-based collaborative consumption
The UK is Europe’s fourth-largest textile waste producer. According to the UK parliamentary report in 2019, a million tonnes of textiles are wasted each year in the country. Despite high donation rates at charity stores, over 300,000 tonnes of clothing ends up in household bins every year, with approximately 20% going to landfill and the rest ending up at an incinerator plant. One of the most efficient ways to reduce clothing items’ environmental footprint is to extend product life. Current charities, clothing swaps or rental models often offer a viable way to do so on a small scale. Although several studies have investigated consumer drivers and motivations when engaging in secondhand consumption, the roles of charities and community-based small businesses in shaping sustainable consumption are not well understood. Through the collaboration of a charity, Oxfam, and a local clothing exchange community group, this project investigates how donated secondhand clothing can be more effectively redistributed, reused or upcycled by local communities and citizens, finding new strategic pathways and leveraging social innovation for the circular economy. The findings will enable the building of a road map for community-based collaborative consumption and assist entrepreneurs and charities to utilise secondhand goods to an optimal degree.
You can find community stories on circular fashion practices here. https://www.facebook.com/rebirthstories/
Key research findings
One of the key research findings from the Rebirth Fashion project is available here.
Rebirth fashion: Secondhand clothing consumption values and perceived risks
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.122951
Highlights
•Drivers and barriers to secondhand clothing consumption (SHCC) were examined.
•Major drivers of SHCC are economic, hedonic, ecological, and social values.
•Non-SHC consumers’ concerns are quality, cleanliness, style, and social image.
•Easy accessibility of physical and online SHC shops are major enabling factors.
•Segmented SHC consumer groups and retailing strategies are identified.
Abstract
In recent years, the circular economy of alternative consumption models for secondhand goods has become a subject of prominence. However, very little research has been carried out to obtain an in-depth understanding of the negative or positive consumer attitudes, motivations, and values behind secondhand clothing consumption. Therefore, the aim of this study is to investigate the perceived risks and barriers to utilizing secondhand clothing and to identify the enabling and disabling factors that influence its consumption. Two empirical semiqualitative studies were carried out among secondhand clothing consumers (n = 134) and non-secondhand clothing consumers (n = 138) in the UK to investigate their attitudes, values, and perceptions of risk regarding secondhand clothing consumption. The study incorporated a qualitative means-end value model with a quantitative research technique to construct hierarchical value maps. The results show that consumer perceptions of secondhand fashion products and services differ significantly. The five main values identified among secondhand clothing consumers were: economic, self-expressive, hedonic, environmental, and social contribution values. Non-secondhand clothing consumers exhibited concerns about used clothing consumption due to perceived poor product quality and cleanliness, limitations in the degree of possible self-enhancement and expressibility of self-identity, and a perceived social image of the clothes as low-class and having low social acceptance. The study’s findings concerning secondhand clothing consumption values held by the market and consumers’ perceived risk dimensions can assist retailers and marketers to create a more tailored retailing and promotional strategy.