The gap between ambition & reality

15:05–15:20

Primark has positioned itself as the original value disruptor for more than 57 years, selling affordable fashion and everyday essentials across 480+ stores in 19 countries. For the past three years, the retailer has been building, testing and adjusting its own Circular Product Standard 2.0, translating circular design principles into practical ways of working for both internal teams and suppliers.

In this on-stage interview, Paola Weir, Circular Products Manager at Primark, talks with moderator Lukas Mauve about what people may be less aware of regarding Primark’s work on sustainability and circularity, and how evolving expectations around circularity influence the way Primark’s progress is understood and assessed.

The conversation covers what genuinely changed over three years of building Circular Product Standard 2.0, and what proved harder in practice than expected. It also gets into the compromises and difficult choices involved in making circularity work at Primark’s scale, and whether operating at that scale makes circular change easier, or harder.

Primark’s latest Sustainability and Ethics Progress Report shows progress in materials and circular design. The interview looks at what the company is aiming for over the next five-plus years, how it plans to get there, and the biggest challenge that exists today in bringing Circular Product Standard 2.0 to life across the business.