M&S has become the first UK brand to work with Swedish sustain-tech company Circulose, using the material made of textile waste for selected products, helping to reduce reliance on virgin fibres and accelerate the shift to circular design at scale.

Katharine Beacham, head of sustainability and materials in fashion at M&S, said: "Partnering with Circulose allows us to put the concept of circular design into action and will be an example of how the industry can move from small-scale pilots to incorporating next-generation materials at a greater scale.”

M&S will become the first ‘Scaling Partner’ in the UK and will help the company’s drive to become a net-zero business across its value chain by 2040. The action also complements the retailer’s broader work under its Another Life initiative, which brings together initiatives across rewear, repair, recycle and resale - including resale partnerships with eBay and Reskinned, and a repair service with SOJO.

Since 2023, M&S has taken part in the UKFT ACT UK (Automatic-sorting for Circularity in Textiles) project, which aims to develop a blueprint for an advanced, automated textile sorting and pre-processing facility for none-rewearable textiles in the UK, and in April 2024, launched a post-consumer collection trial in partnership with Oxfam to help its customers donate unwearable, but too-good-to-waste clothing, alongside their pre-loved wearable clothing.

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