Chanel is diving headfirst into sustainability — or more specifically waste management and recycling — with the creation of an independent-of-Chanel B2B hub focused on circularity that will handle unsold stock, fabric offcuts and other unused materials.

The new entity is called Nevold (that is, ‘never old’) and is reportedly being headed by Sophie Brocart, the former Patou CEO.  As an independent business it will work with other companies and brands and won’t only focus on the luxury sector. Ultimately it should be able to produce recycled materials for use in new items.

Around 30% of Chanel bags and 50% of Chanel shoes include recycled elements at present and this should increase, as well as its new hub helping other companies to head in the same direction.

The company’s investment in the project has been estimated at between €50 million and €80 million, trade paper WWD reported.

The fashion sector is undeniably the source of a huge amount of waste and it’s an issue that isn’t only one for fast-fashion producers to solve (even though they’re the companies that receive the most criticism on the subject). It’s also an issue that puts the wider fashion sector increasingly under the spotlight for both regulators and ever-more-eco-conscious consumers.

But as well as aiming to cut down on waste, the industry needs to deal with the problem of resources becoming more scarce due to climate change affecting the locations in which they’re produced and work to avoid the huge drain on resources that materials production entails, as well as guaranteeing that those who produce them are treated fairly. Nevold will reportedly address this.

Old-style solutions simply aren’t acceptable these days (think of the furore surrounding news that Burberry was burning unsold stock a few years ago). And some companies are opting for creative ways to address the problem, such as Coach with its Coachtopia line. 

Bruno Pavlovsky, president of fashion at Chanel told Vogue Business: “We started by asking ourselves what happens to the materials that don’t make it into a final product, or those that reach the end of their first life. At Chanel, we didn’t destroy unsold products. But we also didn’t yet have a real system to understand their full potential. Nevold is that system.”

It will be interesting to see how Nevold develops in the months and year ahead.