How Textile EPR Will Influence Brands’ Business Model
From a brand’s point of view, how should extended producer responsibility (EPR) be designed so that circularity pays off?
Philipp Bonaventura from Schöffel explains where circular design already works, why the economics hold it back, and what the system needs to change.
What you’ll hear in this episode:
- Why the barrier is economic, not technical: low collection volumes, weak sorting, and repair that doesn’t cover its cost
- How designing for repair differs from designing for recycling, and why material choice decides what can be recovered
- Which fees reward durable, repairable products, and why harmonised rules across Europe matter
The episode also covers what counts as a circular product, and why quality comes before recycled content.
This is the second episode of the Textile EPR series.
People
Philipp Bonaventura, CR Manager Strategy & Environment at Schöffel
https://www.linkedin.com/in/philipp-bonaventura-21409013a/
Patrick Hypscher, Circular Business Strategist, PaaS Expert
https://www.linkedin.com/in/hypscher/
Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:20 The oldest product: a 90s ski jacket
3:18 Schöffel’s business model
5:12 Repairing 5,000 products a year
6:42 A vision for textiles in 2040
8:31 Designing for repair and recycling
11:07 What makes a product circular
13:07 Where the economics hold circularity back
15:02 How EPR should reward circularity
17:36 Outro
About
Schöffel is a family-owned German outdoor and ski apparel manufacturer based in Schwabmünchen, Bavaria. Founded in 1804, Schöffel is one of the oldest outdoor brand in the world.
It sells outdoor, ski, workwear and technical apparel across three business units, Schöffel Sport, Schöffel Pro and Schöffel Tech, and runs its own repair service factory. The company builds eco-design and circularity into product development, with a focus on product durability, repairability, and design for recycling.
Further Links
https://www.schoeffel.com/de/en
Transcript
[00:00:00] Intro
Patrick Hypscher: This is the second episode in our Textile EPR series. Last week I talked to Lisa Oelze from Messe München and Jelica Ramirez from GRS PRO. Today we get the producer’s perspective. The producers are the ones who will be affected most by the EPR systems, as they will need to pay the fees for every item they put on the market. If you want to get access to the key learnings from this conversation and an overview of upcoming Circularity events, then sign up to the circularity.fm newsletter.
[00:01:20] The oldest product: a 90s ski jacket
Patrick Hypscher: With me now is Philipp Bonaventura, Corporate Manager, Strategy and Environment at Schöffel. Philipp, before we start the interview, let me ask a question about longevity. Product longevity, not personal longevity. Schöffel is the oldest outdoor fashion brand in the world. What was one of the oldest products you personally had in your own hands?
Philipp Bonaventura: So in 1804, we started our business in Schwabmünchen, which is 30 kilometers on the south of Augsburg. The first products were knitted socks and Swabian nightcaps. These products are not in our assortment anymore, but longevity has always been a part of our identity, even before sustainability became a topic. We have a service factory where customers can send our products to us for services of repairment. And I think it was about three years ago, so I started working at Schöffel at the beginning of 2022. There was a very old ski jacket sent to us. I think it was developed in 1994 or 1995. So a time where jackets were very colorful in lots of different colors. It looks very nice and interesting. And for us, and also for the team at the Service Factory, it was a big highlight to see that there was someone who was still wearing this old product, using it for skiing, and it was really possible to repair it. And I think this was the oldest Schöffel product I’ve ever seen with my own eyes in my life.
[00:03:18] Schöffel’s business model
Patrick Hypscher: You already teased at the repair service, but let’s do one step back. So what’s the core business model at Schöffel?
Philipp Bonaventura: Schöffel currently operates primarily through a traditional product sales model. We have three business units, Schöffel Sport, Schöffel Pro and Schöffel Tech. Our revenue is generated through the sale of outdoor products, ski products, outdoor workwear products and also some technical apparel. However, I think sustainability and circularity are increasingly integrated in our product development. We have also a circularity definition and a definition for eco-design for our product development, which is now really used at the beginning of the product development process. So it’s more than a nice marketing headline. Some circular activities we are doing at the moment is for the one hand design for longevity. So longevity and product durability was always very important for us. This includes, for example, high quality construction or really robust materials, functional performance, long product life cycles, and also quality leadership. I think it’s always important to increase the amount of recycled materials, but recycled materials are useless when they are in a very bad quality. And I think quality is the really first main point to even achieve the groundwork to create sustainability. So that’s one first point. And I think longevity, product durability is the first important step.
[00:05:12] Repairing 5,000 products a year
Patrick Hypscher: Okay, wonderful. You mentioned before that you do have repair services. So is this something that you offer proactively also beyond warranty?
Philipp Bonaventura: Yes, so of course we fulfill the… law requirements for a guarantee, but for years, actually I don’t know how long we have our service factory at Schwabmünchen, where the customers can send the product for us where some defect or something else which is able to be repaired. And this is very helpful for us. So even for our sustainability strategy, for our goals for longevity, product durability, because last year about 5,000 products could be saved and sent back into the lifecycle process again. And I think to save a product is always better than buying, developing, creating new products. It is a challenge because we don’t have lots of garment makers, garment workers in Germany and even in the EU even more. So many of our colleagues will leave work in the next 5 or 10 years. So every year saving 5,000 products will be a big challenge, but we are doing it. It is an important part of our strategy.
[00:06:42] A vision for textiles in 2040
Patrick Hypscher: Okay, wonderful. So Schöffel already does quite a lot of circular activities as part of the circular business, but where do you want to go? How should the textile and apparel system look like in 2040, especially for you at Schöffel?
Philipp Bonaventura: First, in general, in my dream world, the textile industry should no longer operate as a linear system, maybe some international laws like the Extended Producer Responsibility, the EPR, can help to achieve this point so that in the end we have a regenerative circularity system where material continuously retain their value. So, for example, that products are designed not for just one cycle, so for multiple life cycles. As I’ve told with our circularity design guideline, circularity starts with design, not just when the product has some defect or is at the end at the life cycle. We need more material transparency, more mono material in the product, so compatible material systems. We also, I think, need reduced dependence on virgin resources. When I can create a product with recycled materials, the creation of carbon footprint can be about between 40 and even 80% less, which has a really, really big impact. We also have to talk about more climate-friendly supply chains, so renewable energy at the producing factories in Asia, Middle East, and Africa. So these are some goals and wishes I have in general for the textile industry.
[00:08:31] Designing for repair and recycling
So you asked what we are doing specifically at Schöffel. As I’ve told, we have one eco-design guideline for the product development, and there are clear main goals they should focus on during the creation of a new style. For example, design for repairability. This means for durable zippers, replaceable buttons and components, and in general, repair-friendly product construction. It’s also important that the design is not just for repairability, because after years, always a product is at the end of the life cycle, maybe not after twenty-seven years, like the colorful ski jacket from the 90s, but it’s… some point there will be the end. So design for recycling is really important. How can we achieve that we send a product back into the whole textile loop again? So we have always some definitions and goals for this point. This is, for example, reduced material complexity, minimize zip pullers and tapes, simplify component structures, also that we can concentrate non-recyclable elements in removable areas or more in small areas that we can save a big part of the product for the recycling process. We also have CERC product concept for our own circularity. Products very prefer mono material constructions, also polyester-based material systems, because the recycling process of polyester is at the moment easier and also cheaper in comparison with polyamide, which is the second most important fiber for Schöffel. We also try compatibility with future textile-to-textile recycling technologies. Recycled material is also preferred because I think a closed-loop system is very important, but it’s not the main solution to start this circle always at the beginning with some, with always conventional materials. Yeah, we also try to increase the amount of recycled materials of polyester, polyamide or other fibers.
[00:11:07] What makes a product circular
Patrick Hypscher: Yeah, impressive. Quite a long list already, Philipp. You mentioned there are circular products within your range. So you have some products where you already, let’s say, race ahead and have a higher circularity standard compared to others. So what do you mean by circular products?
Philipp Bonaventura: So there are some specific rules like 50% or more recycled content of the materials. Also, some rules for zips and pullers and other parts of the product that it’s more easy to take it back into the textile supply chain at the end. I think the most circular styles are now at Schöffel Sport, because there it’s the easiest way. We also started at Schöffel Pro, where we have the workwear, at Schöffel Tech, where the products have a high complexity and also some security tasks and rules. It’s more difficult. But we are also working with tech together at this point to have one pilot. But what is the point, which is very important for me, is just not one or two nice styles where we have 300 products or something else. For summer 26, I think at Schöffel Sport we have about 20 or 25 different circularity styles. So it’s a really, really important part, not just of our sustainability strategy, but of our whole product and company strategy to make improvements at the amount of circularity styles every season and every year.
[00:13:07] Where the economics hold circularity back
Patrick Hypscher: Okay. Wonderful. You mentioned a lot of the activities, also your plan for the future. I guess for most of them, it’s not so much a matter of knowing that they should be done and how it could be done. It’s more like a matter of how to make it economically viable for you as an actor in the ecosystem. Are there some activities you want to highlight or you can highlight where it’s say, okay, this is something that is really needed for circularity, but the economics of it hold you back?
Philipp Bonaventura: Yes, so there are many… circular solutions which are technically feasible today but are not yet economically viable at scale because of the complexity of the whole textile supply chain. But we have at the moment limited collection volumes. We have very insufficient and inefficient sorting infrastructure. We have very high processing costs. We have also unstable markets for recycled feedstock. Repair services are difficult to scale profitably. We don’t make any money with our service factories. So in general, we communicate that it’s possible, but it does not work really. So there are not many customers who send their circularity product back to us. I think we need a holistic collection system of the whole industry. But the biggest challenge is not technological feasibility. The challenge is creating economic conditions, the whole infrastructure and maybe some good and effective laws. And this is still the biggest challenge.
[00:15:02] How EPR should reward circularity
Patrick Hypscher: Yeah, let’s stick to that topic and it brings me to my last question about the EPR system. This conversation here and the whole series is about textile EPR and you already mentioned it as one of the main current initiatives on a legislative level. How should the EPR system be designed to make these practices that are sometimes also contradictory, as you just said, but how should it be designed to make this more attractive also from an economic point of view?
Philipp Bonaventura: The most important point for me as a sustainability manager is that a good and effective EPR system rewards circularity performance, and high sustainability performance, rather than simply charging companies for waste. So, we need eco-modulated fees that products should pay lower fees if they are durable, repairable, recyclable, consists of mono material, are made with recycled content. They also should reward the design quality because circularity always starts with the design. I think it will always also be helpful if there is a repair bonus. We need take-back systems, so collection systems, reuse systems, recycling programs. And they should always receive direct credits within the EPR framework. For example, one of my colleagues has lots of fun with new sustainability rules for packaging. And there are now 38 different rules for every EU country. And this doesn’t work. So we need a harmonization across Europe. Regulatory complexity is reduced, and we have also no market fragmentation. And if we have a law which can achieve that we significantly improve the scalability, then I’m very optimistic that it can be a new push for circularity systems in the textile industry. As I’ve shown, the most important step is for such laws that sustainability is rewarded.
Patrick Hypscher: Philipp, thanks a lot for providing your perspective on the topic.
Philipp Bonaventura: Yeah, and thank you very much.
[00:17:36] Outro
Patrick Hypscher: This was the second episode in our series on textile EPR. In the next week, we will learn more about the collection and recycling challenges from Louisa Hoyes, Segment Director, Textiles at TOMRA. If you want to get the key learnings from today’s conversation with Philipp, then sign up to the circularity.fm newsletter. It also comes with an overview of upcoming circular economy events around the world. Stay tuned for the next episode. All the best in driving a profitable circular economy. And please don’t forget, the most abundant renewable resource is your imagination.
