Visa, COS and the United Repair Centre unite to make more sustainable choices everyone’s must-have

The first experiment partners for Visa’s Recommerce Behavioural Insights Lab will be COS and United Repair Centre, in conjunction with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, Mindworks and Twig, to support sustainable consumer choices and the transition to a circular economy.

92% of people surveyed say they want to live a sustainable life, but only 16% are actively changing their behaviour.[1]
Visa is partnering with retail partners H&M Group’s COS brand, the United Repair Centre, Mindworks, Twig and the Ellen MacArthur Foundation to help understand and overcome the barriers that stop consumers taking part in the circular economy.
As one of the world leading payments network, Visa is strongly placed to develop new services that support more sustainable choices for consumers.

LONDON, July 13, 2023 /PRNewswire/ — Today Visa announced the first partners for its Recommerce Behavioural Insights Lab, a new initiative running rapid real-world experiments to understand and share how businesses can help consumers actively engage in the transition to a more circular economy.

With 92% of consumers surveyed claiming they want to live a more sustainable life, but only 16% taking active steps to change their behaviour, Visa will partner with leading brands to better understand how to bridge this “intention/action gap”, aimed at driving more circular behaviours and business models while ensuring an inclusive approach.

The first two experiments will be run in partnership with COS and the United Repair Centre, and will take place in various places across Europe. Initial countries where early experiments are likely to take place include France, the Netherlands and Germany, as well as the UK.

COS will explore the motivations and compelling experiences that increase consumer participation in the resale market. Resale is an important part of fashion’s shift to circularity and is a growing commercial activity. However, with only 47% of consumers participating in resale activities more than once a year, many brands are still learning the many motivations and novel barriers that affect customer interest.[2]

The experiment with the United Repair Centre will leverage their experience offering high-quality repair services to leading European apparel brands. It will explore the barriers that stop consumers from repairing their garments, and how to make clothing repair services more accessible and beneficial for all.

The experiments will test the different experiences and motivations with customers in a variety of environments, including online and in store, to provide a better understanding of the precise triggers of changing consumer behaviours, experimenting with factors such as improving visibility, access, community, reward, ease, or affordability.

The experiments will be open sourced, with key findings available through downloadable playbooks so that other businesses can use this knowledge to help develop their own circular models and be part of the wider Recommerce community.

Katherine Brown, Vice President Sustainability and Inclusive Impact, Visa Europe: “Over half of Europeans are already regularly engaging in recommerce activities like resale. By uncovering what actually gets shoppers to change their behaviour and by leveraging our data and insights from these experiments with United Repair Centre and COS, we can identify new ways to make sustainable fashion a must-have purchase and accelerate the transition to the circular economy for all.”

Thami Schewichler, CEO, United Repair Centre: “Every brand is looking at how they can be sustainable, and consumers are also looking for sustainable alternatives. Repair is a great way to show consumers the value of clothing again, and as it becomes the new cool in fashion, it also gives them the chance to create real impact.”

To ensure the Behavioural Insights Lab provides participating partners with industry-leading expertise, Mindworks, a leading behavioural design expert, Twig, an innovative circular economy fintech, and the Ellen MacArthur Foundation will be joining the Lab as foundational partners. Insights from our Strategic Partner, the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, including circular design principles, will be incorporated, and the Foundation is further supporting the project by helping to shape its direction.

The meaningful and unique combination of Visa’s equitable commerce and design experience, the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s circular design insights, Twig’s fintech meets resale space knowhow, and Mindworks’ key role in designing behavioural interventions, will supercharge discovery of actionable insights and scalable solutions, that encourage sustainable choices.

“As a Strategic Partner in our Network, we have been working with Visa to ensure circular design is incorporated in the Behavioural Insights Lab. This project is absolutely a design-led initiative, and an important step in the journey towards bringing together different actors to collectively imagine and test new ways of engaging people and enabling circular economy choices. The learnings from this iterative project will sit alongside our Adaptive Strategy for Circular Design to help organisations leverage design as they transition from linear to circular, and will support not only the fashion industry, but all actors across different sectors who want to bring their users and customers along on their circular economy journey.” Anna Queralt, Strategic Design Manager, Ellen MacArthur Foundation.

Brad Herholdt, CEO, MindWorks Consulting says: “We’re thrilled to be announced as one of Visa’s foundational partners for their Behavioural Insights Lab. At MindWorks we believe in the power of transformation for good which is why we can’t wait to help shape a better future for our planet and its people by designing innovative behavioural interventions to help consumers make more sustainable choices. We’re proud to partner with like-minded organisations and are especially excited about the open source nature of Visa’s labs approach, encouraging collaboration and knowledge sharing for the whole community.”

The creation of the Behavioural Insights Lab follows the announcement of Visa’s commitment to Recommerce as a regenerative way to buy, re-use and share goods and services, helping to accelerate the transition from our “take-make-waste” linear economy to a circular economy, incorporating recommercial activities and business models, including resale, repair, rental, redistribution, return and refill.

For more information about Visa’s Recommerce programme and to join Visa to shape and accelerate the transition to a more circular economy designed for everyone, everywhere, please visit: www.visa.co.uk/recommerce.

To become a partner, visit: https://globalclient.visa.com/recommerce

Details on experiment methodology

Using insights from behavioural science, the Lab will identify the factors that drive consumer behaviour towards sustainable choices while also uncovering barriers that hinder the achievement of sustainable intentions, such as Resale, Rental and Repair.

The Lab plans to test and share the results of interventions that have been designed to overcome these obstacles, with the ultimate goal of assisting businesses and consumers in adopting more sustainable habits and behaviours.

In order to conduct these experiments, Visa has devised a comprehensive methodology that includes defining the behavioural barrier, establishing a behavioural intervention, designing the experiment, carrying out the experiment, analysing the data, and sharing the results openly. The foundation of the methodology and lab is based on the M.I.N.D.S.P.A.C.E behavioural framework that decodes the nine effects thought to have the most influence on behaviour.

By following this methodology, Visa will be able to evaluate experiment data and merchant feedback, share learnings, and create and share guides and playbooks for businesses to implement the intervention.

About Visa Inc.

Visa (NYSE: V) is a world leader in digital payments, facilitating transactions between consumers, merchants, financial institutions and government entities across more than 200 countries and territories. Our mission is to connect the world through the most innovative, convenient, reliable and secure payments network, enabling individuals, businesses and economies to thrive. We believe that economies that include everyone everywhere, uplift everyone everywhere and see access as foundational to the future of money movement. Learn more at Visa.co.uk, blog (https://www.visa.co.uk/visa-everywhere/blog.html), and @VisaUK.

[1] https://www.kantar.com/inspiration/sustainability/making-sustainable-choices-affordable-and-accessible-a-call-to-action-for-brands
[2] Opinium research on behalf of Visa, October 2022

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