While 53% of retailers were given an “advanced” score on circularity overall, just 28% were given “leading” status and 19% were found to be “emerging”.
Opinium surveyed 150 senior leaders at retailers in the UK and Europe on behalf of ReBound Returns and Advanced Supply Chain in July 2026.
Go deeper with GlobalData
Discover B2B Marketing That Performs
Combine business intelligence and editorial excellence to reach engaged professionals across 36 leading media platforms.
The retailers were benchmarked on four themes: strategy, operations, value recovery and sustainability.
While retailers performed best at strategy and sustainability, with 49% scoring “leading” status in these areas, value recovery was an ongoing concern. Just 25% of those surveyed scored “leading” status here, with retailers reselling items at under 30% of their full price once returned.
Under the EU’s Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation, the destruction of unsold consumer goods – including apparel, footwear and textiles – is banned in EU markets.
ReBound Returns says the legislation means retailers will need to think more carefully about their returns processes.
“The most striking thing about these findings is that the will to improve circularity is already there. Nearly nine in ten retailers are measuring their environmental impact, and most believe there’s untapped value sitting in their returned stock. Where it becomes tricky is turning that ambition into action,” explained Inge Bujakiewicz-Baars, head of sustainability at ReBound Returns.
“This matters more than ever with regulation like ESPR giving retailers no choice but to think more carefully about what happens to returned items. Value recovery is now about compliance as much as cost-saving. Fortunately, the best environmental and commercial outcomes are the same; retailers don’t have to choose between benefitting the planet or the business anymore. The leading brands in our circularity benchmark have proved that closing the loop works.”
The ESPR also requires businesses to disclose data on discarded unsold consumer products. These disclosure rules will apply to large companies immediately and to medium-sized companies from 2030.
Stuart Greenfield, UK & European sales director at Advanced Supply Chain, added: “These findings reflect what we see every day: retailers are not short of ambition, but they are lacking in speed. A returned item only holds its value for a short time, so every extra mile, touchpoint, or hour it sits unprocessed lowers the chance of any value being recovered.
“Logistics is a key differentiator, because products need to move through the right route and warehouses quickly for circularity to be effective. Otherwise, writing off stock becomes the default, which is wasted potential both for value recovery and sustainability.”
