Sustainable maths is hard and we are trying to get better at it.
Our carbon savings calculator was created as we wanted to give our customers a better understanding and visual of the positive impact they were making by buying secondhand. That meant we had a big problem to solve. How do we measure the CO2e saved for 10,000s of unique items of clothing?
After working with Carbonbase, a climate-tech solutions provider, we created an emissions framework and database to provide guidance on the positive impact of buying preloved.
Our methodology is as follows:
- First we broke down our inventory into simple age (newborn - 14 years old) and product categories (tops, trousers, dresses, etc).
- From there we calculated the average weight per product/per size by taking samples from our own inventory.
- We also used the samples to calculate the average material breakdown per product and researched the emissions factor per material (kgCO2e / kg-material).
- From this information we were able to build out our emissions database, letting us know how much CO2e was saved per clothing item listed on our platform.
We appreciate this methodology is not perfect but it is a step in the right direction to be able to account for the impact of choosing secondhand over buying new. We have rolled out the carbon savings calculator across all clothing categories on our platforms and our aim is to expand our emissions database to account for all product categories.
As a customer, you can see how much CO2e can be saved on each product page and your total CO2e saved for each order at checkout. In addition you can log in to the Retykle dashboard to see your accumulated carbon savings from shopping at Retykle over time.
Step by step we are making the impact of buying secondhand items accountable.
