On a mission to empower customers to reduce their climate impact, London-based menswear brand LESTRANGE and climate-tech start-up Vaayu have pioneered the first automated, science-based life cycle calculator, Re_Count, to help customers see how their fashion habits impact their environmental footprint.  

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Customers worldwide are looking for ways to reduce their mark on the planet in an era where retail is responsible for 25% of global carbon emissions, and the fashion sector alone is on track to generate 2.1 billion metric tons in 2030. 

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The digital web-app, developed by Vaayu, was designed to help LESTRANGE’s customers understand the impact of their clothing and care choices through an interactive online experience that explores shopping and aftercare habits using live data within the context of an annual carbon budget*. During the fashion-frenzy of Black Friday, it offers a new lens for customers to shop more intentionally, encouraging awareness around the impact that these purchases have on the planet over their lifespan.

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With Re_Count, customers can play with various scenarios by answering a set of questions to assess how decisions such as product selection and aftercare choices can extend the life of a garment and, in turn, decrease its footprint over the full product lifetime. The fluctuating CO2e impact of making small changes, like modifying washing methods, is visualized through infographics and equivalencies so that customers can really understand how their choices shape up against their environmental footprint, with easy tips on how to make reductions. The complex nuances are simplified so that customers can explore different levers to see how adjustments such as wearing an item for longer between washes, reducing the washing temperature or holding on to it for an extended period of time can either increase or decrease the overall footprint of that garment in a way that has never been seen before.

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Vaayu Co-Founder and CEO Namrata Sandhu says: “Re_Count marks the first time an interactive, science-based tool of this granularity has been launched to the consumer market, quantifying emissions data live at a per wear level to inform customer choice. Vaayu is committed to helping the retail sector reduce its impact at a B2B2C level, and we’re so proud to partner with brands and businesses like LESTRANGE to pioneer new technologies that have the ability to shift customer behavior for the better. There is a real hunger for this information, and with the scale of the climate crisis, we need to encourage carbon literacy.”

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Will Green, Co-Founder of LESTRANGE adds: “Bringing the fashion industry's footprint inside planetary boundaries will only happen by considering every phase of a product's life cycle. With Re_Count we’re bringing to market a first of its kind approach to empower and hopefully inspire customers to make more intentional decisions with the way they use and care for their clothes - and crucially - giving people context for how their decisions ladder back to wider science based targets - or their own carbon budget - all in an easy to explore calculator. 

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We’re incredibly proud to have partnered with Vaayu in realising this idea of giving people the keys to their own clothing carbon budget. We know it won’t solve fashion's climate impact by itself but it’s another small step toward a systemic change in our relationship with consumption and understanding our impact on the planet.”

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Learn more with Re_Count: https://LESTRANGElondon.com/pages/RE_COUNT