Industry Case & Field Activity
Industry Case & Field Activity
Industry Case & Field Activity
Patagonia's Worn Wear programme illustrates how repair, trade-in and resale can be connected within a brand-managed system. It should be presented as a circular business example rather than assumed to be profitable without public programme-level financial evidence. The programme accepts eligible products for credit and resells selected used items; non-resalable items require a documented recovery route. Source: https://wornwear.patagonia.com/
The economics must be tested for each SME and product category. Build a unit model with inspection, cleaning, repair, grading, storage, platform, packaging, transport, warranty and unsold-inventory costs; compare these with trade-in value, resale revenue, avoided write-off and customer-retention value. Track additional wears and avoided new purchases alongside recovered revenue, because resale turnover alone does not demonstrate environmental benefit.
Reflection
Which of your product categories could survive a second life? What would you need — repair skills, spare parts, grading and cleaning capacity, a resale channel — to capture 30–60% of the original price a second time? (Figures are illustrative estimates for teaching purposes; verify current programme details at wornwear.patagonia.com.)
Choose one of the three tracks below. Allow 2–3 hours in total (visit + write-up).
VET / EQF 4: Sorting and collection observation
Visit a second-hand store, charity shop or municipal textile collection point. Observe and note: how garments are received, graded and priced; what happens to items that cannot be resold; and what information (labels, fibre composition) staff use. Write 10 bullet observations and one sentence on how design helped or hindered the process.
HEI / EQF 5: Service blueprint of a take-back offer
Choose one brand with a public take-back or resale programme. Map the customer journey and the brand's internal flows (collection, grading, cleaning, resale or recycling, data capture). Identify the three weakest links and propose one design and one logistics improvement, referencing sections 6.3–6.6.
Professionals / SMEs: return-flow and value-retention analysis (using existing data)
Analyse the previous 90 days of existing data for one product line — returns, repairs, unsold stock and end-of-life destination (% resold, % repaired, % donated, % recycled, % discarded) — or use the supplied sample dataset where company data cannot be shared. No new data collection period is required. Calculate the value recovered per unit and propose one change with a simple business case (investment vs recovered value). Deliverable: a one-page memo.
Assessment focus: ability to connect product design decisions with real downstream infrastructure and quantify value retention.