Depop is on a mission to make fashion circular. And impact is at the heart of what we do, and how we operate. Our community helps extend the life of millions of garments every year, reducing waste and slowing the consumption of new.
We estimate more than 80M items have been given a second life by Depop users since our platform was founded*. Over the past three years, we’ve estimated an emissions saving of more than 300,000 metric tonnes of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, through these secondhand sales on our marketplace, rather than new ones. That’s the equivalent of driving around Earth more than 30,000 times - and 12.5 times more than Depop’s total quantified scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions in 2023 (24,000 metric tonnes)**. Those sales have also helped to save an estimated 9.2 billion litres of water since 2021 - that's enough to fill 3,694 Olympic-size swimming pools.
Collectively, our community is driving real impact. And we commit to supporting and uplifting them by continually improving the way we show up in the world. Environmental impact and circularity are at the heart of our core mission, but as a marketplace used by millions of people, we also take our social responsibilities seriously. We actively work to foster diversity, inclusion, self-expression and empowerment on our platform and within our company.
As part of this commitment, we published our new Impact Goals last year. These focus on the key issues that we know our stakeholders care about most - including Circularity, Net Zero, Sustainable Operations, Employee DEI and Marketplace DEI.
A year on, we’re sharing the progress we’ve made towards those goals. We’re proud that since our Impact Goals were set, we have:
Published our first Environmental Impact Measurement Methodology to quantify the impact of shopping secondhand on Depop over purchasing brand new.
Launched and scaled Repop, a feature aimed at facilitating greater circularity and re-use within our ecosystem by enabling the easy relisting of previous purchases.
Increased the percentage of women and underrepresented genders in our engineering and data teams (26% at year end 2023, up from 20% at year end 2022).
Scaled our Employee Resource Groups (ERGs), creating two new ERGs: Black @ Depop and Queer @ Depop.
Surveyed more than 14,000 users to understand the make-up of our community, their inclusion sentiment and the barriers they face in order to inform our programming.
Worked to make our product experience more inclusive, through conducting an accessibility audit of the Depop app on both iOS and Android and making foundational product improvements to better serve our mid and plus size users.
Progress by pillar
Looking across our five priority Impact pillars of Circularity, Net Zero, Sustainable Operations, Employee DEI and Marketplace DEI, we’re continuing to drive broader progress aligned with our targets:
Circularity
Goal: Inspire and enable people to participate in the circular economy where products & resources remain in use at their highest value
Target: Leverage our marketing and product capabilities to facilitate access to circular fashion and inspire more people to shop circular
Key highlights
Launched and scaled Repop, a feature aimed at facilitating greater circularity and re-use within our ecosystem by enabling the easy relisting of previous purchases.
Mandated the circular listing attribute ‘condition’, meaning that users can search and filter items based on condition.
Published our first Environmental Impact Measurement Methodology to quantify the impact of shopping secondhand on Depop over purchasing brand new, for two major areas: GHG and water consumption.
Designed campaigns aimed at supporting users’ circular shopping behaviours, providing them a view of their personal contribution by shopping secondhand on Depop (e.g. 'Every Day is Earth Day', 'Year on Depop').
Net Zero
Goal: Achieve Net Zero through targets aligned with the science of climate change while continuing to offset quantified GHG emissions
Target: Near-term (2030) and long-term (2040) GHG emission reduction targets, whilst continuing to offset measured emissions
Key highlights:
Continued to drive adoption of our eco-friendly packaging programme in the US through efforts including seller education and user experience enhancements.
Continued to improve the accuracy of our reporting of GHG data, notably by collaborating with our shipping carriers to embed primary data within our methodology. To reduce long-term shipping emissions, we advocated for the U.S. postal service’s commitment to exclusively purchase electric vehicles starting in 2026 and supported California's finalisation of the Advanced Clean Fleets rule including a testimony to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Expanded engagement on decarbonisation with additional shipping carriers to drive reduction in shipping emissions.
We are focused on meeting our long-term SBTi- approved Net Zero goal. However, while we work toward long-term reductions in line with our goal, we are taking immediate action to address our impact through our commitment to purchase carbon offsets in an amount equal to our quantified scope 1, 2 and 3 annual emissions, in partnership with Etsy, Inc.
Sustainable operations
Goal: Run best-in-class sustainable operations
Targets:
Continue to source electricity from renewable sources.
Run ‘Zero Waste’ operations by 2025
Set an energy efficiency target by early 2028 and implement tactical measures to reduce energy intensity in the meantime
Key highlights:
Sourced renewable energy for our electricity used to power Depop's offices and used by employees working from home.
As a follow to our Energy Savings Opportunity Scheme (ESOS) audit, we have embedded energy efficiency measures within our workplace roadmap.
Employee DEI
Goal: Build diverse and inclusive workforces that are broadly representative of their communities
Targets:
Achieve 27% of underrepresented gender identities in engineering & data by the end of the year 2028 (baseline Dec 22: 20%)
Achieve 35% of underrepresented ethnicities in US and UK by the end of the year 2028 (baseline Dec 22: 30%)
Key highlights:
Increased the percentage of underrepresented gender identities in our engineering and data teams by 7 percentage points (26% at year end 2023, up from 20% at year end 2022)
38% of hires in 2023 were from underrepresented ethnicities, up from 24% over 2022. 26% of US and UK employees were from underrepresented ethnicities as of December 2023. Our positive progress on hiring should help contribute towards our 2028 goal
Scaled our Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) for members of diverse communities and their allies, creating two new ERGs: Black @ Depop and Queer @ Depop. Alongside, we continued to grow our existing ERGs: Underrepresented Gender Identities in Tech and Wellbeing & Mental Health.
Offered unconscious bias workshops for all managers and hosted an ‘Inclusion Week’, a week of hybrid workshops and activations aimed at promoting inclusion and a sense of belonging at Depop.
Conducted our first accessibility audit which will inform our accessibility roadmap.
Marketplace DEI
Goal: Make Depop a diverse and inclusive place to buy and sell, driving more equitable access to opportunities
Target: Aim to invest in programmes or initiatives that drive equity for underrepresented communities on Depop
Key highlights:
Completed an accessibility audit of the Depop app on both iOS and Android, and have since been actively working to address gaps identified.
Surveyed more than 14,000 users to understand the latest make-up of our community, their inclusion sentiment and barriers to success in order to inform our programming.
Made foundational product improvements to better serve our mid and plus size users; notably by expanding the range of size options and size-inclusive brands available in the listing flow.
Continued to celebrate cultural moments important for key underrepresented groups within our community (i.e. Black History Month, International Women’s Day, Pride, Hispanic & Latine Heritage Month).
Outside of the five pillars outlined above, we also enabled Depop employees to donate 183 hours of paid volunteer time in 2023 to their communities through the Impact Hours benefit, and continued to develop and enhance our Impact Hours employee volunteering programme. We also published our supplier code of conduct to outline standards for conducting business in an ethical, lawful and responsible way and to ensure our suppliers are committed to these principles.
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Notes:
* Relates to items sold on Depop that have been tagged as ‘used’ condition - not all items sold. We assume the split of ‘used’ compared to new items remained consistent over time, as condition attribute was added in Q4 2020.
** Based on a calculation of the GHGs and water usage avoided from secondhand purchases on Depop compared to brand new ones, from Jan 2021 to Mar 2024, for categories: bottoms, tops, shoes, outerwear and dresses (using the average category weight and excluding non-comparable stages of the product life cycle such as assembly, retail, distribution, use and disposal). See our methodology to learn more about our calculations. Equivalent claim of driving around Earth is based on a US gasoline-powered passenger vehicle (source) and Earth’s circumference as 24,898 miles, water claims based on a 50x25x2m Olympic-size pool.