Circular Monday vs Black Friday: which one is your brand building for?
This week starts with Circular Monday and ends with Black Friday. On paper, they're two days in the same week. In practice, they're two very different ways of doing business.
Black Friday rewards one thing: selling more units, faster, at a lower price. Circular Monday asks a different question: how can we get more value out of what's already been made?
For brands in our industry, this isn't just a marketing choice for one week in November. It's a question about where your business model is heading.
The numbers behind the discounts
Let's start with the facts. According to the European Environment Agency, the average EU citizen bought 19 kg of clothing, shoes and home textiles in 2022. That's a new record. In the same year, we each produced 16 kg of textile waste, and 85% of the textile waste from households was never collected separately.
Textiles are also among the five consumer categories with the biggest impact on climate and environment in Europe.
Black Friday didn't create these numbers. But it's the loudest moment in a pattern that's already very big.
What is Circular Monday?
Circular Monday is a global campaign held every year on the Monday before Black Friday. This year it fell on 23 November. Its database lists businesses from more than 50 countries, Denmark included.
The idea is simple: rent, repair, buy second-hand, swap or take back, instead of buying new. It's not anti-business. It's a showcase of business models that don't depend only on selling more new products.
It's still a small day compared to Black Friday. But it points at something bigger: where the market and the rules are heading.
The rules are moving in the same direction
You might see Circular Monday as a nice idea for a few frontrunners. But look at what's happening in EU regulation, and it starts to look more like a preview:
Producer responsibility for textiles (EPR). Brands will have to pay for collecting and handling their products once customers are done with them. Waste is moving from "someone else's problem" onto your price list.
Unsold goods. The EU has banned large companies from destroying unsold clothing and shoes, and they must report what they throw away. We wrote about it in It's now non-negotiable: you have to be transparent about your unsold goods.
Digital Product Passport. Products will carry information about what they're made of and how they can be repaired and recycled.
Green claims. Since 27 September 2026, vague words like "eco" and "eco-friendly" need solid proof. Read more in Goodbye "eco-friendly”.
Put together, the message is clear: the EU wants brands to take responsibility for the whole life of a product, not just the moment it's sold.
So should you skip Black Friday?
Not necessarily. Our industry needs to sell, and so do we. Many brands use Black Friday week to do something a bit different, for example:
offering repair, care tips or spare parts next to the discounts
giving customers a reason to bring old products back
putting their most durable products in the spotlight, instead of the cheapest ones
But a campaign is not a business model. The real question is what happens the other 51 weeks of the year.
The questions worth asking
This is where it gets tricky, and where the answer depends a lot on your brand:
Does your current strategy fit with what you'll need to document and report? Producer responsibility, unsold goods and product passports all need data that many brands don't have yet.
Could take-back, repair or resale become a real revenue stream? Or would it just add cost? The business case looks very different depending on your products, your price point and your customers.
Who in your supply chain needs to be involved? Durability and recyclability are decided long before a product reaches the shop, often in fabric and design choices.
How do you talk about it? If you go circular, can you back up every claim you make?
There's no one-size-fits-all answer. And there's no quick fix either.
Our take
Black Friday isn't going away. But the brands that will do well in the coming years are the ones that start building circular models now, while it's still a choice and not yet a requirement.
You don't have to do everything at once. But you do need to know where you stand, and where to start.
Want to find out which circular steps make sense for your business?
Get in touch with us and we'll help you work out where to start.