Mango teams up with I:CO to advance circular economy strategy

Spanish fashion group Mango is teaming up with I:CO, a supplier of global solutions for the collection, reuse and recycling of used clothing and footwear, to localise and improve collection donations from its customers in Europe.

The move is to advance the retailer’s circular economy strategy and will see Mango working with I:CO, a subsidiary of the Soex group, to classify and process clothing garments and footwear collected in selected group stores in Germany, Poland, Switzerland and Turkey.

Mango will locally manage the garments collected in its Committed Box containers, which allows customers to donate clothing and footwear, irrespective of the brand, that they no longer wear to give them a second life. I:CO will then be responsible for collecting garments donated to Mango and sorting them according to the second life they may have based on their condition. Clothes that can be worn again will be distributed in the second-hand channel and those that can’t be reused will be recycled into textile fibres for industrial use.

Mango to localise clothing donations with I:CO

Until now, Mango was managing clothing donations and textile waste from Spain. The new agreement with I:CO means this process is collected in each country through a local partner to reduce the carbon footprint and optimise inverse logistics, explained Mango in a statement.

In Spain, all the items collected are donated and processed at the Koopera recovery and recycling centre, which forms part of Moda Re, a group of social initiative cooperatives and non-profit making work placement organisations promoted by Cáritas.

To expand the initiative, Mango also added that it is in discussions with other potential local partners to manage waste locally in each country where the Committed Box project is. Currently, Mango has a Committed Box in 759 stores in 15 countries, including the UK, Andorra, Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey and selected stores in Croatia.

Beatriz Bayo, sustainability director at Mango, said: “Moving forward in our circular economy strategy is one of the pillars of our sustainability goals. For this reason, we are working on extending our Committed Box project through agreements like this one, working in coalition with local partners that will allow us to contribute on a local level in every country where the project is implemented.”