Fashion.at

29 October 2024

Guess which second-hand goods are most effective at reducing carbon emissions, and why it's not fashion


The '2023 Second Hand Effect Report', commissioned by Willhaben and e-commerce specialist Adevinta and conducted by Vaayu - which provides AI-powered software for the retail industry to track carbon and environmental impact - provides a detailed look at how trading used goods can reduce carbon emissions. The results were presented today in Austria via a press release and on the website of Willhaben, Austria's largest marketplace, at https://www.willhaben.at/will/nachhaltigkeit, where a link leads to the full report including other marketplaces. Using data from 8,369,835 items sold on Willhaben in 2023, along with survey responses from 14,374 users, Vaayu's API and proprietary Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) modeling engine calculated the CO2e emissions that could potentially be avoided if consumers chose to buy used items instead of new ones. The study examined how the purchase of used items in selected categories serves as an effective lever for Austria's circular economy by calculating the difference in emissions between a new purchase and a used purchase (the "replacement rate"). Items with high replacement rates, i.e. directly replacing the purchase of new items, showed the greatest potential for CO2e savings.

One key insight was that Fashion/Accessories and Books/Films/Music have low replacement rates, indicating that these purchases often supplement rather than replace new buys, resulting in minimal emissions savings. This means that, while second-hand fashion is beneficial, its environmental impact is smaller than other categories where replacement rates are higher, as consumers may not reduce new purchases correspondingly.

So, in conclusion, second-hand fashion is also positive for reducing the carbon footprint (as calculated by Vaayu on the Vinted marketplace; results on https://company.vinted.com/sustainability), even when the Willhaben results show that, compared to other product groups, fashion does not play a major role under the aspect of replacement rates. One of the findings of the Vinted X Vaayu study is that 40% of purchases on the platform of the marketplace with focus on second-hand clothing, accessories replaced new ones.

In contrast to fashion, certain categories on Willhaben showed high CO2e savings:
Living / Household / Catering: This category showed the greatest impact, with items like washing machines potentially avoiding over 52,000 tons of CO2e emissions—equivalent to the carbon absorption of 334,000 trees.
Sports / Sports Equipment: Second-hand sports items like bicycles and skis contributed to a reduction of up to 50,578 tons of CO2e, matching the emissions generated from producing 22 million plastic bottles.
Computer / Software: Used electronics and software potentially avoided 11,620 tons of CO2e, with gaming consoles alone saving 5,482 tons, comparable to the annual storage of 249,000 trees.
Baby / Child: Products in this category, like strollers, prevented around 7,007 tons of CO2e emissions, the equivalent of 525 dishwasher cycles.

Image: The graphic shows the second-hand product categories in a graph with the tons of CO2e emissions in 2023 on Willhaben. With 3.6 million monthly unique users, Willhaben's platform supports sustainable shopping practices that will avoid an estimated 136,000 tons of CO2e emissions in 2023. The impact has been compared to the CO2e that more than six million trees could store annually. Photo: © Willhaben.



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