Circularity and Waste

To design, make and sell products that limit waste and pollution and keep materials in use for longer.

Performance highlights

20

More circular products launched across five categories.

Circular design collection

In June 2024, John Lewis launched its first circular design collection online and in-store. With products across nightwear, babywear, men’s cashmere, mattresses and filled bedding, the collection has been produced in accordance with our three circular design principles: material choices, durability and recyclability

130

Tonnes of surplus pasta donated annually to FareShare.

Food waste

In collaboration with our own-brand pasta supplier, Daybreak Foods, and in support of The King's Coronation Food Project, Waitrose has begun diverting up to 130 tonnes of surplus pasta a year to FareShare. This is the equivalent of approximately 300,000 meals.

150

Pre-loved designer products available at johnlewis.com

Circular business models

Luxury pre-loved fashion brand Sign of the Times has launched a range of pre-loved handbags on johnlewis.com, making up to 150 pre-loved designer products available through our website. May 2024 saw us expand our fashion rental offering to menswear, creating the biggest multi-brand menswear rental platform amongst major UK retailers.

96.7%

Of Waitrose and 95% of John Lewis primary product packaging is recyclable or reusable.

Waitrose packaging

In last year’s report, we committed to setting a target for packaging reduction. We have since developed a Waitrose packaging strategy, which will take into consideration WRAP’s revised UK Plastics Pact targets when they are released. Unnecessary packaging components will be removed where there is no negative impact on food waste and we will have a reuse target to replace 20 million units of single-use packaging components with reusable alternatives by 2030

Our approach to circularity and waste

As well as innovating to tackle waste in our own operations, online offerings and in-store service propositions, we’re addressing this issue across our product and packaging supply chains, too. We also strive to raise awareness of waste and circularity among our customers, as we continue to advocate for and lead industry-wide change.

By confronting these challenges today, we aim to limit our contribution to biodiversity loss, food scarcity and a rapidly changing climate, both now and for the future.

Buy Back

Offer a buy or take-back option for all John Lewis product categories by 2025

Sustainable Rental & Resale

Develop sustainable rental and resale options for customers

Recyclable Packaging

Reduce and make easily recyclable or reusable all own-brand primary product packaging by 2025

Operational Food Waste

Halve food waste in Waitrose’s operations and supply chains by 2030

Cut Household Food Waste

Help halve customers’ household food waste by 2030

Circular Design

70% of own-brand products to meet our circular design criteria by 2030

Progress

We’re exploring new ways to reduce waste and promote circularity, from garment repair trials to pre-loved kids’ clothing initiatives. Through clearer customer messaging and responsible packaging commitments, we’re helping shift behaviours and protect natural resources.

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Fashion repair trial

In July 2024, we launched a garment and textile repair trial in partnership with Timpson. The pilot makes repairs, alterations, dry cleaning, jacket re-waxing and handbag restoration available in five stores for a trial period.

thelittleloop at John Lewis

Our Oxford Street store has welcomed thelittleloop, stocking 400 lines of pre-loved clothing for kids aged 0 to 7. The trial allows customers to pick up free clear-out packs, enabling them to exchange unwanted kids’ clothing from over 100 brands for credit.

Waitrose customer messaging

In spring 2024, we collaborated with WRAP at Waitrose’s Thatcham store to test how different messaging affects sales of loose fruit and vegetables. The results highlighted some of the barriers preventing customers from buying loose produce.

Pack4Good initiative

John Lewis became the first large UK retailer to sign up to Canopy’s Pack4Good initiative. Through this initiative, the Partnership is committed to ensuring no items in our packaging supply chains are sourced from ancient or endangered forests.

1 st

John Lewis became the first large UK retailer to join Canopy’s Pack4Good initiative

Number of stores participating in the repair trial

100

Number of brands customers can exchange clothing from in thelittleloop trial

400

Lines of pre-loved kids’ clothing stocked by thelittleloop at Oxford Street

2024

Launch of the garment and textile repair trial with Timpson

Challenges

We’re tackling food and packaging waste through stronger reporting, sector collaboration and innovation in reusable formats. By working with partners and suppliers, we’re driving progress toward recyclability goals while advocating for scalable, customer-friendly solutions.

Explore Challenges

Food waste is a key driver of climate change and a hurdle to meeting our net zero targets. While voluntary efforts by the Partnership, our suppliers and other retailers to manage food waste have made progress, the sector needs to move at pace and with conviction. We support mandatory food waste reporting that would ensure all food businesses track and reduce waste, providing the transparency and accountability needed to tackle this pressing issue at scale.

As members of the UK Plastics Pact, we’re committed to reducing and improving our packaging. At Waitrose, efforts have focused on exploring how to introduce reusable packaging. In our 2023/24 Ethics & Sustainability Report, we announced that we had moved our recyclability target to 2025 to align with the wider sector. Challenges remain on how best to scale reusable and refillable packaging formats in a way that does not overcomplicate the customer journey.

Another ongoing challenge for our 100% recyclability target concerns the most difficult-to-recycle materials, such as polystyrene for John Lewis products. We’re also working closely with our supply chain to try to reduce packaging in our supply chain operations.

Looking forward

We’re continuing to strengthen protections for workers across our supply chains, from farming communities to fishing vessels. Through partnerships, research and initiatives, we’re tackling issues like recruitment fees, discrimination and worker education, while celebrating 20 years of impact through the Waitrose Foundation.

Expand Progress

We’ve updated our circular design target to reflect learnings from our initial circular design collection. Our new target is that 70% of own-brand products will meet our circular design criteria by 2030. This change brings into scope more product lines, reflecting our increased ambition in this area. Since then, we have trained over 100 Partners in product development teams to understand how best to implement our circular design principles.

We’ve successfully scaled up trials of some schemes tested in 2024, including expanding our repairs and alterations trial with Timpson, offering more pre-loved products through a concession at our Oxford Street store and continuing to partner with thelittleloop to offer pre-loved childrenswear. Alongside this, we’ll seek further pre-loved opportunities across John Lewis.

At Waitrose, we intend to take the insights from our customer messaging trial, delivered in collaboration with WRAP at our Thatcham store, to consider scaling further initiatives that encourage customers to purchase more loose fruit and vegetables.

At both Waitrose and John Lewis, we’re seeking to refine our packaging strategies in 2025. This means we’ll work even more closely with sector teams to consider where our efforts can be best directed in future.

Re-designing with circularity in mind

Case Study

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John Lewis has launched its first circular design collection online and in store. The collection celebrates 20 products across five fashion and home ranges, all of which have been designed in line with our three circular design principles that promote better material choices, improved durability and enhanced recyclability.

Around 45% of UK citizens say they buy clothing at least once a month, with 23% admitting they regularly purchase clothing with the intention of using it for a short timeframe only1. Despite this, almost 80% of consumers are changing their shopping habits based on social responsibility, inclusiveness and environmental impact2. This collection aims to help drive that switch by offering a more sustainable, longer-lasting choice.

Unveiled in June 2024, the 20-product collection covers nightwear, babywear, men’s cashmere, mattresses and filled bedding, incorporating more recycled content, providing excellent quality and designed for greater longevity.

Each fashion product also comes with a QR code on its care label, providing details about how the product has been redesigned in line with our circular design principles.

With industry standards related to circular design still in development , we’ve developed our own framework built on the principles of material choices, durability and recyclability. The framework was developed in collaboration with circular economy experts at the University of Exeter’s Centre for the Circular Economy and aligns with WRAP’s circular design toolkits.

We’re already using the learnings from this launch to review our approach, including revising our circular design target, and ensuring further successful rollouts across additional own-brand product ranges. As part of this process, we have introduced a training programme for our commercial teams that will help them design products incorporating our circular design criteria.

Sophie Scanlon, Textiles Specialist at WRAP, said: “We are delighted to see our Circular Design Toolkit principles in action within this new collection from John Lewis. Up to 80% of clothing’s impacts are determined at the design phase, so it's great to see John Lewis taking the practical steps to embed this within their collections.”