Rajesh Garg, Chief Financial Officer, Landmark Group
Regional retail and hospitality major Landmark Group inaugurated its textile recycling facility ‘Landmark Circulife’ earlier this month. Situated in Dubai World Central, the facility aims to transform used fabric into valuable recycled fibres to be reused in new products.
Landmark Circulife is the region’s first facility that aims to achieve textile circularity, while accelerating the Group’s commitment and efforts to become circular and climate positive across its value chain by 2050. A pioneering move of this scale has the potential to support the UAE economy to become a regional or even a global hub for recycled textile fibre.
Landmark Circulife: A quick snapshot
Initial capacity to process 2,000 metric tons of textile waste annually.
Recycling machinery can process a wide range of textiles. These recycled fibre can be utilised to create a wide range of products, from fashion items to home furnishings, reducing reliance on virgin materials.
The facility is set to expand further, aiming to address approximately 5% of the UAE apparel market (equivalent to 11,000 metric tons). The expansion is projected to negate 140,000 metric tons of CO2 emissions, save 107 GWh of energy, conserve 77,000 million litres of water and achieve a 70% reduction in eutrophication.
A blueprint for UAE’s textile circularity roadmap
A year ago, Tadweer (Abu Dhabi Waste Management Company) announced the ‘Integrated Textile Circularity Initiative’ designed to increase consumer awareness and foster collective efforts among public-private partners to manage textile waste across the entire value chain. As part of the initiative, Landmark Group had pledged its commitment to advancing textile circularity.
At that time, Tadweer had shared some eye-popping estimates to stress on the importance of undertaking measures to reduce the impact of textile waste on the environment. Let’s take a quick look:
The UAE’s textile consumption stood at around 500 million pieces annually, of which around 210,000 tonnes end up as discarded materials.
Up to 90% of discarded textiles end up in landfills, which then release methane, a potent greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming and climate change.
Cut to December 2024, Landmark Circulife was inaugurated by Abdulla bin Touq Al Marri, UAE Minister of Economy and Co-Chair of the UAE Circular Economy Council underscoring the facility’s key role in furthering “green growth.” In addition, the UAE Circular Economy Council’s quarterly meeting took place at the plant adding more credibility to the initiative.
During an exclusive interview with IMAGES RetailME, Rajesh Garg, Chief Financial Officer, Landmark Group who spearheads the Group’s ESG initiatives, explained how this plant is built to inspire a bigger change that will have a direct impact on UAE’s textile circulatory vision.
Any initiative of this scale can’t be achieved overnight. As part of its ESG efforts, Landmark Group had started upstream work a long time ago, right from the selection of raw materials and choice of suppliers to putting in place the right processes. Currently, a “very large portion” of its raw materials is sustainably sourced. Landmark Group is one of the first retailers outside the US/UK/Europe to be a part of Better Cotton’s Buyer Investor Committee. Its home brands stock products made from recycled fibre, renewable materials and Forest Stewardship Council certified labels.
However, the brands still use virgin materials. Moreover, what happens after a customer takes a product home? How long do they use the product and what do they do at the end of that product’s lifecycle? These were key questions for Landmark Group, especially since it has several fashion and home brands in its portfolio – both categories known to be waste generators.
For perspective, approximately 1.92 million tonnes of textile waste is produced every year. Of 120 billion new garments made every year, 30% are worn only once and only 1% is recycled. Fashion retail is among the top five polluters globally and enough waste is generated by the fast furniture retail segment to go to the moon and back every 6 months. Some of these concerning insights were shared by Garg himself a couple of years ago during a keynote session at the Middle East Retail Forum. Back then, he had raised a serious question: “Are business models at odds with sustainability?”
Hence, Landmark Group started thinking about changes it could pioneer. How can it reduce waste generation? How can it reduce extracting fresh raw materials from the planet? What if raw materials could be harnessed from pre-loved products at the end of its lifecycle?
“Landmark Circulife became the missing piece in our jigsaw,” Garg stated.
With an aim to close the loop on sustainable customer journeys and giving a second life to used fabrics, across fashion and home products, Landmark Retail initiated takeback programmes in 2023 across its stores in the UAE including Centrepoint, Max Fashion and more recently across Home Centre and Home Box stores. Pre-loved items brought by customers are then transported to the recycling facility where they are processed into a selection of fibres that can be shipped to manufacturing units to be spun into yarn and eventually transformed into new products across apparel and home furnishings.
“There is need for more awareness. If a consumer is fully aware of how their actions impact the planet, how their consumption – from clothes to cars – impacts resources, just that awareness will be a huge achievement. While we have achieved the first goal to drive awareness and positive changes in consumer behaviour, the uber goal is to inspire a textile circularity model in the UAE and eventually across the MENA region,” Garg shared.
“If every company makes sure that the amount they produce is getting picked up and reprocessed in a responsible manner, the world and the planet will transform.”
Rajesh Garg, Chief Financial Officer, Landmark Group
Sustainability efforts must be backed by sound economics
Being a numbers person, Garg strongly believes “what can’t be measured can’t be managed.” That’s why, Landmark Group uses an end-to-end, bottoms-up, by material, carbon accounting model to understand its carbon emissions. Taking a step further, the Group has developed a Generative Artificial Intelligence guided project management app ‘Fit for Green’. The app encourages employees to measure and reduce carbon footprint at individual, business unit and the Group levels through multiple initiatives and projects.
“I’m a very strong believer that sustainability must have sound economics. If not, it becomes a nice initiative that some people with golden hearts will push but eventually it will lose steam,” he reiterated.
So, the obvious question is since building a recycling facility of this scale requires large investment, what are the Group’s expectations in terms of return on investment alongside impact-making?
“The investment to build the full-blown recycling plant was significant. It required our Investment Committee’s approval,” he admitted. Having said that, we are a value focused company, and we have value engineered the model. We had to ensure that the cost per unit is on the lower side. At the end of the day, we must watch every penny so that we can offer a better value to the customer,” Garg observed.
“I’m glad that we’ve been able to take the step to create Circulife. Our board and shareholders have been bold to do the right thing and act as leaders. Importantly, the UAE, truly believes in public-private partnerships to not just drive sustainability-centric initiatives but embrace the principles of a circular economy,” he added.
The ride towards net positive
Yet, one question remains – how energy efficient is the plant?
“The short answer is it doesn’t run on solar energy,” Garg responded. “The location is solar powered at its maximum, but it is already being used by the other half of the facility.”
Notably, in the UAE 14% of Landmark Group’s energy needs are met by renewable sources, which is the permissible limit going by the current regulations. In a previous interview, Garg had mentioned, “If we are allowed more, we can double it tomorrow.” When that happens, Landmark Circulife will not only help the economics of the model but will be a truly circular and sustainable initiative.
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