Filippa K is a leading example of a brand embedding best practice into its DNA – it considers fibres, sourcing, garment lifecycle, end-of-use and the importance of customer care. Has it always had this holistic approach to impact, or has the brand evolved over the years as it has learned more about environmental issues? What can other brands learn from this journey?

It’s been a journey, from the very start. As a brand, Filippa K has actually always considered sustainability and created clothes that last for a long time, but we didn’t always talk about it in those terms. Sustainability is a concept that has arisen in the last few years, and which is still evolving. When times are changing, you soon realise you need to stay up to date in order to make sure everyone is aware.

What makes some organisations more adaptable to change? I have given this a lot of thought, and would like to highlight these key factors:

Firstly, that knowledge creates engagement. Sustainability can be an overwhelming subject and, at times, almost frightening. It’s filled with jargon, many areas of concern, and it can be difficult to know where to begin in order to enact change. In order to create change, in any part of an ecosystem, raising awareness is crucial. I believe this quote from Jean Paul Sartre describes it very well: ‘Once we know and are aware, we are responsible for our action and our inaction. We can do something about it or ignore it. Either way, we are still responsible.’

Fully integrated vision and clear direction is also vital when considering a company’s direction, and focus. Early on, we decided not to have a separate sustainability department, and to instead make sure that sustainability would be an integral part of everyone’s work and processes. By doing so, sustainability became a natural part of the core business and our decision-making.

In order to get everyone on board and to contribute to a shared vision, you need a clear and simple strategy that everyone can relate to. I like to compare strategy with a Christmas tree. Before you have your strategy, it’s like you have all these beautiful Christmas ornaments, but nowhere to hang them and, as a result, you don’t use them. Once you have the Christmas tree in place, however, everyone can start decorating the tree.

You must be bold enough to try new things. Breaking new ground can be tough, and you need to have some guts to challenge yourself and dare to try it. I believe that the Filippa K team shows a lot of guts—we are constantly challenging ourselves and testing new ideas and solutions. It also takes a lot of patience and conviction to make change happen, or at least to get the majority on board. The road can be bumpy and winding sometimes, but that is part of the transformation phase. We found that it is easier to trial new ideas and solutions in smaller scale, to separate projects from the beginning. This minimises the risk. Having said that, it is important that the ideas are scalable, because we enter these trials with the intention of growth. The idea is to develop a concept so that it becomes a contributing part of our business, whether it’s relating to product development or new services to our customers.

It’s important to be humble enough to adjust along the way. When developing completely new ideas and changes, it’s difficult to know how it will work in reality; how customers will perceive it, how well will it integrate with the rest of the business, potential unforeseen logistic challenges we did not foresee and the like. That is why you need to allow yourself to learn as you go along and make adjustments along the way. One of the most important objectives of our innovations is to allow the lessons and insights acquired to spread throughout the business, and to create a change bigger than that one project.

I met a Swedish Buddhist monk once who told me a story about a little girl. The girl walked all alone on a beach. There had been a dreadful storm the night before and thousands of starfish had been washed up on the beach. The little girl picks them up one by one to throw them back in the sea when an old man walks by. He says to her, “Stop that, there’s no use, you cannot save them all.” The little girl bends down, picks up another starfish and throws it into the sea and says, “Ask that one what he thinks”. I like that story a lot, because it speaks to the importance of the small actions and how they can spread and create a greater change in the end.

The team at Filippa K and I wanted to explore what fashion would look like if it operated within planet capacity. Back in 2014, we developed a circular fashion framework that would act as a business transformation guidebook. Our primary ambition was to shift our business to a circular model in which no waste is created, to use our resources in the best way possible throughout the entire garment lifecycle. This meant we had to make sure the production of our clothes was completely sustainable, the whole supply chain was transparent, and that we could offer sustainable ways of consuming fashion. We also had to ensure we collected our garments at the end of the cycle so that we could recycle them into new textile fibres. It was an elaborate mission that we approached with extensive research and analysis. We used all the learnings we gathered through our daily work, and started a deeper journey with our suppliers. There’s still a long way to go, but they, and we, will get there.

On a planet with finite resources, there is obviously a real need to shift away from a take, make, dispose model and towards circularity. In what ways has Filippa K embraced this as an opportunity to innovate? Is this what prompted the launch of Front Runners?

This is where our circular fashion strategy has played an important role, alongside a focus on the four Rs: reduce, repair, reuse, recycle.

Reduce is about the clothes that we create—how can we make them as sustainable as possible, fully recyclable and creating no waste. And further to that, how can we inspire customers to build a more sustainable wardrobe and more mindful consumption. To really challenge ourselves and to understand what it takes to create products that are part of a circular business model, and that can live up to our commitments for 2030, we have our Front Runners to show us the way.

Every second year or so we develop a few products to become Front Runners. Front Runners are products that are made as sustainably as possible throughout their lifecycle. Their purpose is not to have created a separate collection, but rather to be a learning process, so that we can take those learnings and implement them in our ordinary collections. They allow us to continue working towards our 2030 commitment—when all our clothes should be ‘Front Runners’.

Repair is about giving our clothes the long life they were meant to have, by helping our customers care for their clothes. We give our customers inspiration and guidance on how to care for their clothes, and we mend broken clothes. We sell care products in our stores, and use them to start a dialogue with customers on how to care for their clothes.

I believe we often tire of our clothes before they wear out, so try to ensure all clothes get a second or a third life. That is what reuse refers to. In 2015, we launched a take-back system in our stores. Customers can return Filippa K pieces they no longer user and receive a voucher for their next purchase, no matter if they are broken or worn out. A great deal of the clothing we get back is in such good condition that we’re able to sell them again in our Filippa K second-hand store in Stockholm. It’s worth noting that it’s been profitable since day one, and has really proven its business potential.

The next question is: do we really need to own all of our clothes? I don’t think so. A couple of years ago a survey showed that 70% of Swedish people only use 50% or less of their wardrobe, and that 30% of them were frustrated by their wardrobe. We obviously own too much stuff. And when we look at the clothing that isn’t being used, it is often items that you would only wear on special occasions. With this in mind, we started a rental program in 2015 for our clothes in selected stores.

Lastly, recycling is about making sure worn out clothes are returned or acquired at the end of their life so they can be turned into new textile fibres. Today, Filippa K can only guarantee full recycling of their Front Runner products. They do currently have an initiative in place though, that collects cutting waste from wool production and sends it to manufacturers in Italy that are able to make new fabric out of it again. They’re also beginning a similar program for jersey materials.

Considering all fibres have some form of impact on our environment, and that no utopian fibre exists, which do you believe to be the least harmful and why? Have recycled fibres proven to be just as durable and high quality as virgin?

The latest research has shown that the biggest impact lies in the production of fabric, rather than what fibre you use. The common separation into ‘good’ and ‘bad’ fibres, based on generic classifications of fibre types, is too simplified—a tee-shirt made from organic cotton or recycled material does not automatically become a more sustainable tee-shirt. That said, fibre choice is still important. I believe that in the future we will see a mix of different sustainable choices—we will use recycled fibres, regenerated fibres made of waste from other industries (orange peels, pine apples, grapes, fish), and new innovative fabrics like lab-grown leather, synthetic spider silk and fibre made from algaes. It’s likely we will even have climate-positive fibres available to us in the future, made from harvested greenhouse gases.

A challenge we still face today is that recycled material is often of a lower quality, but I expect this will be solved in the future—we’re already seeing some very high quality recycled options.