How Enel X's Circular Approach Could Revolutionize the Global Economy

Italian fashion house ES’GIVIEN is a trendsetter in more ways than one. A trailblazer in the world of chic outerwear and elegant clothing, the brand has also become an innovator in eco-friendly fashion.

Sisters Gaia, Nives and Vivilla Zampini who founded ES’GIVIEN in 2004, have decided to take a radical approach to sustainability. They are embedding the principles of the “circular economy” into the fashion house’s production systems, which means using recycled materials where possible, curtailing waste, and switching to renewable energy sources.

To help it reach its sustainability goals, ES’GIVIEN has partnered with Enel X, part of the Enel Group, to steer its production towards the circular model. Enel X has developed its own expertise in this area while moving its products to a circular approach. The company offers consultancy services to clients and suppliers to help them on their journeys to sustainability.

 The circular economy approach moves manufacturing away from the conventional consume-and-discard production model. Instead, a circular approach designs waste and pollution out of the system. This ensures products and materials are kept in use for as long as possible. It also utilizes sustainable resources such as natural feedstocks and renewable energy.

Many businesses and public authorities are attempting to embed circular economy initiatives into their systems as they seek to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and combat climate change. This means reinventing the way their organizations work from the ground up and embedding sustainability at their core.

Enel X’s Approach to Circularity

Enel X employs two approaches to help businesses and public authorities move to circular systems. First, it produces the Circular Economy Report, a tool that measures the sustainability of an organization’s activities. The report assigns each product or service a score between 1 and 5 - the highest standard of circularity. For the next stage, Enel X launches its circular economy-boosting program, which identifies how the organization can make its production processes more sustainable and increase its score.

This process has enabled the ES’GIVIEN to boost the score for one of its bestselling overcoats, the ES 957. Enel X initially analyzed the fabric, production process, energy use, sales channels, recycling, and disposal methods used in the life cycle of the coat. From this data, it calculated a circular economy score of 3 for the ES 957.

The Enel X boosting methodology was then applied, and Enel X helped ES’GIVIEN find ways to increase the use of recycled materials and renewable energy in the production of the coat, which raised its circularity score from 3 to 4. Nicola Tagliafierro, Head of Sustainability at Enel X, says this is “important information for the consumer about the commitment that ES’GIVIEN invests in the production of its clothing.”

Enel X applies the same approach with global clients as it does with its own products. The company offers its expertise in circular economy to diverse clients in Europe and Latin America.

The advantages of circular economics are not just environmental, but also pave the way for economic growth and new business opportunities. Tagliafierro says that it is vital to show that sustainability goes hand-in-hand with profitability.

“Sustainability needs to generate a profit, in order to be reinvested in new projects. If we just see the circular economy as a cost for the company without generating a return, we will not be able to fund new sustainability initiatives, and businesses will avoid it,” he says. For instance, substituting recycled materials for new ones can reduce costs, and a product’s high circularity profile can attract demanding consumers in today’s competitive marketplace - increasing sales and driving profits that can fund new initiatives.

Taking a Principled Approach

 Enel X has worked with a wide variety of companies, brands, and public authorities to create circular economy strategies, from partnering with air-conditioning supplier Mitsubishi Electric Hydronics & IT Cooling Systems to improve its sustainability profile, to helping coffee roaster Trucillo go green.

On a more macro scale, Enel X promotes the circular city and works with municipal authorities and third parties to improve sustainability in transport, energy, and urban services. One example is Serrenti, a city of 5,000 residents in southern Sardinia that is working with the company to implement innovations in renewable and digital technologies to move to a circular economy. For each of its partners, Enel X carries out the process of scoring circularity, suggesting ways to boost the score and re-scoring products and services when they are updated.  

Enel X’s five core principles underpin its analysis of circular economy implementation:

• Recycling and reuse - where waste is recovered, recycled, or refurbished rather than disposed of or sent to landfill;
• Sustainable input - the sustainability of energy sources and materials used;
• Product as a service - the extent to which the product can be leased as a service rather than sold as a finished product, allowing for multiple reuses
• The sharing platform - where users and consumers collaborate to save money and use resources efficiently;
• Life cycle extension - which looks for ways to keep the product functioning for as long as possible through repair, upgrade, and regeneration.

Tagliafierro explains that the analysis of products to calculate a circular economy score spans an entire company: “We analyze everything from design, procurement, input, and logistics to post-consumption, energy consumption, and waste, in an entire 360-degree view of the life of the company.” This overarching view is essential to create a process that builds sustainability into the fabric of an organization’s systems.

Enel X Enters the Eco-Age

For the next phase of this project, Enel X has partnered with the integrated consultancy Eco-Age, whose experience in the fashion industry spans over a decade. The goal of the partnership will be the launch of the first industry-wide circularity report. Involving companies across the entire Italian supply chain, the report will produce the first picture of the state of circularity in the Italian fashion industry. It will highlight the best practices, gaps, and propose an ambitious plan of how to integrate circularity in one of the country’s biggest export industries.

Circular economy will revolutionize the way manufacturing, production, and services are delivered and experienced over the coming years. From local startups to large corporations, from small towns to big cities, the switch to circular systems will continue to speed up the global economy’s journey toward a sustainable future.