TheIndustry.fashion Awards Winners' Interview: Christian Toennesen, Sustainability Director, Selfridges Group

In this series, TheIndustry.fashion continues to celebrate the achievements of the winning brands from TheIndustry.fashion Awards 2025 through a collection of dedicated interviews.

With the Awards dedicated to People, Planet & Purpose, we set out to uncover the strategies driving positive change in the industry - from sustainable and circular practices to strategies amplifying diverse voices and supporting community and charitable causes.

Within the Planet category, Selfridges won the award for Retail Excellence. Christian Toennesen, Sustainability Director at Selfridges Group, speaks about the retailer's implementation of sustainable practices, how these initiatives are communicated to customers, the response they've received, and more.

What are the core values that drive Selfridges and how are they reflected in the business?

At Selfridges, we are driven by a bold vision to reinvent retail and a clear purpose: to imagine and create a sustainable future for both our people and our customers. We do this in a way that respects our world, builds trust and values creativity and innovation in everything we do. These values come to life in our approach to sustainability through RESELFRIDGES, an ecosystem of products, services, and activities designed to help us build a more sustainable future, underpinned by ambitious targets.

Can you tell us more about how Selfridges has introduced sustainable practices into the business, particularly customer facing offerings?

Our dedicated RESELFRIDGES spaces are embedded right alongside our luxury brands across all four of our stores, with the ambition to make circular shopping feel as elevated and luxurious as buying new.

Pre-loved is a core part of RESELFRIDGES, offering a curated edit of pre-owned and archive pieces that are sourced from established, reputable suppliers whom we have built long-standing relationships with over several years.

Our Resell service is truly one of a kind - we are the first retailer to invest in an in-house end-to-end customer buyback service, demonstrating our commitment to mainstreaming circular as a fundamental part of our offering. Customers can now buy, repair, and resell a bag with us, which not only extends the life cycle of their products, but has really enriched our relationship with them too.

Repair services can be found all across our stores, with six permanent repair destinations in Selfridges London alone. We can repair clothing, shoes, accessories, jewellery, and Apple products alongside our partners like SOJO and SNEAKERS ER.

We also continue to innovate and evolve our circular offer to stay relevant with seasonal trends and cultural moments. This summer, we’ve been running a RESELFRIDGES festival-themed pop-up as part of our Summer of Sound campaign, featuring a rotating line-up of brand partner concepts. We’ve worked with Vintage Threads to curate an edit of vintage and reworked ready to wear and accessories, whilst Barbour has showcased its Re-Loved jackets, bucket hats and bags, and offered customers the option to customise their Re-Loved purchases.

How do you communicate sustainability information to customers?

Communicating sustainability to customers has become a highly regulated activity. This is an important step in holding businesses accountable for the claims they pass on to customers, however there is an argument brands are now adopting ‘greenhushing’ as their most prevalent form of (non-)communication.

We have always put a lot of thought into the ‘what’, ‘when’ and ‘how’ of our sustainability communications at Selfridges. With RESELFRIDGES, we want to tempt our customers into making more sustainable decisions in a seamless way that allows buying new and circular services to coexist. Our aim is to make these decisions feel intuitive, exciting, and desirable, so the language we use needs to reflect this. We have been encouraged by the positive response from both customers and team members since our RESELFRIDGES rebrand last year.

What has customer response been like to your sustainability initiatives? How do you measure engagement and uptake across this?

We’ve been delighted at both the industry and customer response to RESELFRIDGES. Our latest customer research revealed that nearly two in three customers feel more concerned about sustainability in fashion than they did last year, with over half looking to us to help them make more sustainable choices. The appetite is there, and it will only grow in the future.

We are now exploring how we can reward our customers and better understand their behaviours, by analysing their shopping habits through our Selfridges Unlocked membership programme. We are running a trial to see if customers would like to collect a Selfridges ‘Key’ in exchange for recycling beauty packaging.

We measure uptake across our circular business models as well as the overall customer sentiment. A key lesson for us, and perhaps the industry, is that thinking of the sustainable customer in the singular is outdated. We are firmly into plural territory; there are many types of sustainable customers with unique preferences and behaviours.

What was the significance of winning the award for Retail Excellence in relation to your sustainability initiatives?

It was great to receive external recognition for our work on sustainability, particularly as it’s such a fundamental part of our brand DNA and purpose. We’re delighted that RESELFRIDGES has not only resonated with customers, but with the wider industry too.

Why should brands and retailers be championing people, planet and purpose today? Any advice?

The short answer is no-one is going to do it for you! Climate change and nature loss are no longer abstract dots on the horizon, they are here. Brands can’t expect to continue with business as usual if living on our planet is no longer business as usual.

Alongside music and films, fashion is first and foremost a cultural industry, and if we want to maintain our cultural relevance, then we have to take a position – and empower our customers to take a position – on the issues that matter to them. It really is that simple.

Are there any upcoming sustainability initiatives that you can share, particularly in regards to the retail experience?

We’ve seen such strong momentum in Pre-Loved and Resell and will continue to scale these as key components of our future circular strategy.

Earlier this year, RESELFRIDGES housed a limited time pop-up with ReBurberry, which focused on extending the life of Burberry products and even featured a selection of revived trench coats made before 1999. We’re excited for future activations this year from upcycling collective, The Alterist, as well as a takeover by Mulberry in September.

What else can customers expect from Selfridges over the next year?

We launched our current sustainability strategy back in 2020 and are now busy developing the next chapter, taking us to 2030. Being able to deliver experiential retail and build our cultural relevance through the lens of sustainability are high on our wish-list. We’re only just getting started.

As the Retail Excellence award was sponsored by Accruent, we asked the company what trends they see shaping the future of the fashion industry and how is Accruent positioned to help businesses stay ahead of these changes.

How does Accruent collaborate with brands? Can you talk us through the services you offer, and how these help brands and retailers create meaningful impact?

Accruent works with fashion and retail brands to help them manage their physical spaces more effectively - whether that’s through smarter lease management, streamlined store development, or more efficient facilities operations. Our solutions are designed to bring clarity and control to complex property portfolios, enabling teams to make faster, more informed decisions. By connecting data across real estate, maintenance, and capital planning, we help brands reduce operational risk, improve compliance, and deliver consistent customer experiences across locations. It’s about creating the right foundation for growth, agility, and long-term impact.

How does sustainability factor into Accruent’s mission and operations?

Sustainability is a key driver in how we support our customers. We help retailers take a more data-led approach to managing their built environment - whether that’s identifying underperforming sites, reducing energy-intensive maintenance callouts, or ensuring alignment with green lease clauses. By digitising and centralising operational processes, we enable brands to reduce waste, improve efficiency, and make decisions that support their environmental and social goals. Our role is to provide the tools and insights that help retailers embed sustainability into everyday operations, not just long-term strategy.

As the retail sector faces growing pressure to meet evolving consumer demands, operational challenges, and sustainability targets, how is Accruent helping companies adapt?

Retailers today are balancing the need to be more agile with the pressure to reduce costs and meet ESG expectations. Accruent helps brands adapt by giving them greater visibility and control over their real estate and facilities operations. Whether it’s managing lease obligations, planning store refurbishments, or responding to maintenance issues, our solutions help teams act quickly and with confidence. We also support cross-functional collaboration - connecting property, finance, and operations teams with a single source of truth. This enables faster decision-making, better use of resources, and a more coordinated response to change.

Looking ahead, what key trends do you see shaping the future of the fashion industry – and how is Accruent positioned to help businesses stay ahead of these changes?

The fashion industry is evolving rapidly, with physical retail playing a new role in a more connected, omnichannel landscape. At the same time, there’s growing pressure to operate more sustainably and transparently. These shifts are driving the need for more flexible, data-driven approaches to managing space and operations.

Accruent is helping retailers stay ahead by providing the insight and infrastructure needed to make smarter decisions - whether that’s rethinking store formats, consolidating portfolios, or ensuring compliance with ESG standards. As the industry continues to change, our focus remains on helping brands build more resilient, responsive operations that support both innovation and responsibility.

TheIndustry.fashion People, Planet & Purpose Awards will be back for 2026. Find out more at theindustry.fashion/awards/. For sponsorship enquiries, please email [email protected]