Eon, the fashion tech firm powering connected and circular commerce, has launched a global Partner Network to build new interlinked systems for the circular economy across fashion retail in collaboration with leading like-minded businesses.
Companies involved in the new Eon Partner Network include The Renewal Workshop, Trove, Reflaunt, Lenzing, Hallotex, Recurate, Optoro, Evrnu, Save Your Wardrobe and Worn Again Technologies, along with Salvation Army Trading Company and Waste Management. The Eon Partner Network aims to unlock the fashion industry’s vision of a circular economy at scale by enabling brands and retailers to manage, direct and track the flow of garments across the value chain by connecting with those products using Eon’s Internet of Things (IoT) platform.
Eon’s IoT platform, powered by Microsoft Azure, transforms the concept of a “digital passport” for physical products into viable reality by using the CircularID Protocol and creating a digital system of record for products across their lifecycle, giving brands high levels of visibility into the journey and value of their products over time, plus a transformational system for tracking and communicating with those products.
The Eon Partner Network will allow brands digitizing products on the Eon platform to provide participating circular business partners with instant access to connected product data crucial for enacting circular processes like re-commerce and recycling. With partner accounts on the Eon Platform and accompanying devices such as RFID and QR code, these network partners will have the ability to immediately digitally identify and authenticate products that are connected on the platform and to drive their circular practices by accessing data such as original sale price, images, key features and material content, the company said.
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“Making a circular system economically and operationally viable for the fashion industry hinges on the brands’ ability to communicate with their circular business partners about their products, and to connect, track and manage the products themselves,” Natasha Franck, Eon founder and CEO, said. “Eon’s Internet of Things platform delivers the enabling technology brands need to connect their products. Now, the Eon Partner Network unlocks the communication about those products between brands and their circular business partners, powering fully functional circular systems and enabling both brands and partners to capitalize on the ongoing value of their products and materials far beyond the first point of sale.”
Nicole Bassett, co-founder of The Renewal Workshop, said the launch of the Eon Partner Network is a “transformational moment” in the fashion industry’s journey toward a circular economy.
“Like many circular partners today, the ability to instantly identify products and materials is our biggest struggle,” Bassett said. “No matter how a garment is made or what it is made with, reselling or recycling will become viable at scale only when brands are enabled with the technology they need to aggregate and share crucial circularity data. By brands granting us and other network partners access to that data through connected products and Eon’s suite of tools, the Eon Partner Network is opening the gates to a new circular reality for fashion.”
Eon chief strategy officer Annie Gullingsrud said Eon has been in research and development on the language and platform architecture to enable this interconnected circular commerce network for several years.
“In partnership with leading global fashion brands and industry, Eon developed the CircularID Protocol, the global language for connected products, and has built a platform that supports the communication and data exchange between brands and circular partners using the CircularID Protocol,” Gullingsrud said. “The launch of the Eon Partner Network is the culmination of Eon’s commitment to solve for the biggest obstacle facing circular economy–product and material identification–and is essential to ensuring products and materials can be managed and monetized at highest value.”
Over the next year, a growing number of brands will pilot the CircularID Protocol, bringing millions of connected products online via the Eon Platform and rapidly expanding access to those products and their data for circular businesses participating in the Eon Partner Network.