Circularity and Waste

Designing, making and selling products that limit waste and pollution and keep materials in use for longer.

Performance highlights

More circular products launched across five categories.

19

knitwear pieces in our fully UK-produced Closed Loop Initiative circular clothing collection.

Circular clothing evolves

19 knitwear pieces in our fully UK-produced Closed Loop Initiative circular clothing collection.

Tonnes of surplus pasta donated annually to FareShare.

1506

repair, restorations and alterations in JL shops in 2025/26.

In-store repairs

1506 repair, restorations and alterations in JL shops in 2025/26.

97,000

plastic handwash bottles per year made fully recyclable by removing metal from pumps.

Reusable packaging

97,000 plastic handwash bottles per year made fully recyclable by removing metal from pumps.

715,000

meal equivalents will be donated to charity through our partnership with Primafruit.

King’s Coronation Food Project

715,000 meal equivalents will be donated to charity through our partnership with Primafruit.

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.

Sustainable Rental & Resale

Develop sustainable rental and resale options for customers

Recyclable Packaging

All primary product packaging for own-brand products to be widely recyclable or reusable

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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Menswear rental

We’re seeing strong momentum in menswear rental. For Autumn/Winter 2025, we introduced more than 100 new styles, significantly broadening choice and improving availability across men’s tailoring and eventwear.

More preloved

This year, we accelerated our second-hand strategy, building on the strong in-store and online performance from our preloved designer partner, Sign of the Times. We broadened our luxury footprint with a Kidswear Collective preloved concession in John Lewis Oxford Street and delivered two exclusive resale events, which included the sale of a £ 11,000 Birkin – the most expensive bag ever sold at John Lewis.

New packaging commitments

Waitrose has partnered with Polytag to track single-use plastic packaging waste disposal in the UK. Ultraviolet tags, invisible to the human eye, are placed on own-brand milk bottle packaging. This allows special scanners in some of the largest waste processing plants in the country to track the destinations of our bottles, providing insight on customer recycling behaviour and supporting data-driven decisions on packaging.

Food waste

We’re working with FareShare and the Institute of Grocery Distribution to support the King's Coronation Food Project. This includes diverting surplus food from our processing facilities to FareShare, which then forwards this valuable resource onto the charitable sector.

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 solving it requires the UK food supply chain to move beyond voluntary initiatives. While partnerships and supplier efforts have yielded progress and many suppliers are highly engaged, this is not the case across all of our supply chains.

Another factor that compounds the issue is a lag in data quality. In the initial years of food waste reporting, suppliers' data quality can be poor, with extreme negative and positive fluctuations. Over time, suppliers’ collection and reporting of waste data becomes more robust, which helps improve data quality. Mandatory food waste reporting is essential to enforce tracking and reduction across all food businesses, thereby providing the vital transparency and accountability needed to tackle this pressing environmental issue at the scale required to meet net zero targets.

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

This year, we were proud to launch our second circular design collection. To capitalise on successes like this, we must continue to progress with embedding circular design principles across all our product ranges.

Our target is that 70% of own-brand products will meet our circular design criteria by 2030. We have already trained over 100 Partners in product development teams to understand how to best implement our circular design principles, and we continue to upskill and track progress.

Our focus remains on creating high quality and durable products which last a long time and can be used by multiple owners. We strive to utilise recycled content and to design products that are suitable for straightforward recycling at the end of life.

In the preloved space, we’re partnering with Fashionphile, a global leader in pre-owned luxury accessories, launching a curated edit at our Bluewater store. In 2026, we’ll grow the offer further through expanded partnerships, additional events and a stronger luxury resale presence.

In 2026, we’ll create a packaging strategy for John Lewis, ensuring sustainability considerations are at the forefront of decision-making, alongside customer satisfaction, robustness and cost.

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.”

Introducing the Closed Loop Initiative

Case Study

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John Lewis launched the Closed Loop Initiative, a circular unisex knitwear collection made from reclaimed and repurposed wool. The collection features preloved wool clothing donated through John Lewis’ FashionCycle, as well as other UK takeback schemes, which have been converted into new garments using only UK manufacturers.

The Closed Loop Initiative is a 100% recycled wool collection made with pre- and post-consumer wool which has been collected, sorted, recycled, spun and knitted entirely in the UK.

It all starts with the John Lewis FashionCycle takeback scheme, serviced by circular economy experts Salvation Army Trading Company Ltd (SATCoL), who sort garments from UK takeback schemes into different grades, separating the wearable from the unwearable.

The latter are again sorted by composition for recycling. Any 100% wool products are cleaned, pulled, colour-matched and blended with other waste wool to prepare them for re-spinning by Yorkshire-based iinouiio Recycled Textiles, which creates the beautiful vibrant shades. The wool is then blended with pre-consumer recycled wool and spun into new yarns, ready to be knitted into the playful unisex designs in Leicester.

The new yarns are spun less than 20 miles from our Leeds store and knitted even closer to our Leicester shop.

Each shade is carefully blended to a precise recipe, mixed from the colours available within the recycled fibre, with absolutely no dyeing. Every piece is individually labelled to show how many are in each batch, and the high-quality garments are designed to last a lifetime.

Doing things differently is hard, and getting this up and running required real commitment from the John Lewis knitwear team. But their vision has proved that unique and beautiful products can be designed and manufactured in a circular economy, right here in the UK. The range is available online and in six stores.

This isn’t intended to be a one-off collection but a commercially successful and ongoing addition to the John Lewis offering. Now the supply chain is established with multiple expert craftspeople, there are many exciting opportunities for the team to explore.

Bernie Thomas, Circular Economy and Sustainability Manager, SATCoL : “We are honoured to play a role in this groundbreaking ‘ReMade in Britain’ collaboration. Closed Loop is more than an initiative – it proves that British fashion businesses can lead the circular economy, transforming worn clothing and textiles into stunning new products, ready to begin their life all over again.”