As the leading platform for authenticated luxury resale, The RealReal engages its 40+ million members in creating a more sustainable future for fashion. To date, The RealReal has kept more than 40 million luxury items in circulation, while saving 5.6 billion liters of water and 101,572 metric tons of carbon emissions.
At a time when one garbage truck’s worth of textiles is landfilled or burned every second, driving awareness of resale and sustainability is almost as crucial as enabling consumers to act on that awareness. That’s why we put sustainability in the spotlight: in our marketing and advertising, throughout our shopping experience, and in conversations with both our community and the industry.
As a result, we’re changing how people shop. Approximately 40% of buyers and 34% of consignors say environmental impact or extending the life cycle of luxury are key motivators for engaging with The RealReal.
Educating and empowering consumers to make more sustainable choices drove us to develop a first-of-its-kind Sustainability Calculator that quantifies the impact of resale on the planet. We use those data in the product descriptions buyers see and the sales pages consignors see to show their positive impact.
We are actively working to drive global change toward a more sustainable future for fashion. We do this not only through growing and servicing the resale market, but also through our policy advocacy efforts: The RealReal is one of the founding organizations of American Circular Textiles policy group, a collective of companies that is focused on advocating for federal and state policies promoting circularity. Through these efforts and our operational sustainability initiatives, we're committed to reducing our resource use and minimizing our carbon footprint.
As a business that accepts consigned items from people throughout the U.S. and sells to customers around the world, we have an incredibly diverse community. We aim to reflect that diversity of gender, culture and perspective within our team, from individual contributors and managers to our senior leadership and board. We believe diversity and inclusion foster a collaborative culture, which fuels our ability to innovate and disrupt.