You

Every company is unique, with a unique mix of individuals, skills and experience.

As such, every company will use ThinkLifecycle differently.

ThinkLifecycle is designed to be used in any size fashion company, from an independent designer selling at markets to a large mass market retailer.

Here are the features of ThinkLifecycle with examples of how they may be used to promote conversations across your company.

Forum

The forum is where the conversation can begin. Starter threads in the Forum may include:

Where can we reduce waste?
What alternative fibres should we look at?
What are we doing well?
Where would our biggest environmental impact be?
What excites you about fashion?
What is sustainable fashion to you?
What other people doing in this area?

How the conversation evolves will depend on the unique mix of individuals within the company. It may at first be very general before developing into specifics. Tags related to lifecycle can be added to the posts.

Examples:

A user writes on the forum that fashion can't be sustainable because it is always changing. They tag this under 'speed'. Someone else may respond that 'you have to start somewhere', and in their view recycling has a lot of potential. When asked to give some examples, they add links to designers which have used upcycling or donated collected garments to charity. These links may be flagged by another user as a potential addition to the Knowledgebase.

A knitwear technician comments on 'how can we reduce waste?' by mentioning the large volume of unused yarn from discontinued styles which is currently sitting in the warehouse. The design room manager suggests creating a page for the list of available yarn in the Knowledgebase for a quick reference for design teams. This evolves into a discussion in a new forum thread as to the reasons why this wastage occurs in the first place.

Knowledgebase

The Knowledgebase can be built by the users for the users. Here links, text and images can be posted to provide ideas and inspiration for sustainable strategies. As it is built collaboratively, the research can be added to in stages and the load shared amongst many users. This is built on a wiki structure, allowing a user to upload content such as text or images in a 'what you see is what you get environment' with no HTML knowledge required. Pages can be added with a single click. Content is tagged according to phases of the lifecycle.

Examples:

A member of the technical team adds a page with a link to the supplier of new yarns she has sourced from alternative fibres such as milk, bamboo or soya. She tags this under 'fibre'. Someone else edits the page to add a link to an article on low-impact fibres. A retail store member adds a comment beneath that a customer came in that week and asking whether any of their garments were made from Lyocell. A designer may open this up as a forum thread, asking other retail staff for additional feedback on customers and fibre choices.

A merchandiser in the company adds a link to an article from WGSN about new retail trends related to product service systems, such as hire services or styling services. She tags this under 'retail' and 'use'. A womenswear designer comments that her garments are too on-trend to be hired out as they have such a short use-by date. Another designer adds a comment suggesting an in-store recycling program for the faster pieces. A menswear designer comments that they could have an in-store tailoring service to help alter suits more easily to the customer. This can be flagged as an idea to take to Phase 2, and a small team of designers and merchandisers can collaborate on expanding on the idea before pitching it to management.

Blogs

An optional feature of the CMS software is the ability to host any number of blogs.

Examples:

The administrator of the CMS has a blog where they give periodic summaries of ideas and comments that have come out of the forum conversations. Ideas can be flagged as potential strategies to move into Phase 2 collaborations.

A collaborative project between members of several different departments may have a dedicated blog to keep each other updated and also to show the wider company how the project is progressing.

A blog can be made available to the wider public for greater engagement between designers and end-users. Already many companies blog as part of their marketing strategy - a blog within the structure of ThinkLifecycle would demonstrate the company's public commitment to developing sustainable strategies and describe their progress so far. In this way, successful Phase 3 Innovations can be promoted and celebrated. It also would allow customers to add comments and feedback.