Thread Talks: How M&S is Scaling Take-Back, Repair and Reuse

In this episode of Thread Talks, part of the Circular Soundbites podcast, host Aimée Campanella, Reconomy’s Development Director for Textiles EPR, is joined by Katherine Beacham, Head of Raw Materials, Packaging and Sustainability at Marks & Spencer.

Katherine has spent 14 years at M&S, moving from fabric technologist to leading raw materials, packaging, and now ethical and responsible sourcing. In this conversation, she takes us through M&S’s journey from Shwopping, the UK’s first clothing takeback scheme, launched in 2008 with Oxfam, to Another Life, the retailer’s current circularity programme spanning rewear, repair, resale and recycling.

In this episode:

• How M&S moved from Shwopping to Another Life, and what convenience means for driving customer behaviour change
• The four pillars of Another Life: rewear (Made to Last standards), repair (the Sojo partnership), resale (Reskinned and eBay, including a first-of-its-kind live shopping event), and recycling
• M&S’s raw materials progress, from converting to preferred cotton to the push toward fully preferred fibres by 2030, and early work on textile-to-textile recycled polyester
• Supplier decarbonisation, including the Schneider Electric partnership and the Future Supplier Initiative
• Inside the ACT project, the UKFT-led automated sorting pilot that saw 6,000 of 9,000 collection bags used in under a week
• Beauty packaging takeback, and how empty containers get a second life
• Why EPR matters for unlocking investment in UK textile sorting and recycling infrastructure, and how the UK compares to EU markets already moving on this
• Advice for any brand or retailer considering launching their own takeback scheme