By the Ellen MacArthur Foundation

Creating solutions for a world where clothes are kept in use.

For decades, jeans have been at the heart of countless fashion collections. However, they’re no exception to the fashion industry’s take-make-waste approach. Making jeans requires large amounts of resources, such as pesticides, water, and energy, and the way they’re designed and constructed makes jeans difficult to remake and recycle after use.

Redesigning this iconic fashion staple is the perfect starting point on the journey towards a circular economy for fashion.

The Jeans Redesign guidelines encourage leading brands, mills, and manufacturers to transform the way jeans are made. Based on the principles of a circular economy, they’re a blueprint for collective action to scale circular practices.

The guidelines are a starting point for industry to design and make products aligned with the principles of a circular economy. Making jeans that are used more, made to be made again, and made from safe and recycled or renewable inputs.

They’re a ‘minimum bar’, designed to be regularly reviewed and updated to ensure they continue to drive the industry forward. The first redesigned jeans using the guidelines were completed in June 2021, demonstrating that it is possible to create circular jeans today.

The guidelines were updated in 2021, and all participants should now be working towards these. The Jeans Redesign – Insights from the first two years, reveals the barriers, solutions and innovation gaps faced by participants between March 2019 and June 2021.