Microsoft and Eon are partnering to initially bring 400 million products online by 2025, through a collaboration that introduces an industry-wide digital foundation for a connected and circular economy across fashion, apparel and retail.

Eon’s CircularID Protocol and Connected Products Platform powered by Microsoft Azure make it possible for brands and retailers to provide unprecedented customer insight and enable brands to monetize and scale new circular business models such as rental, resale, digital wardrobing, peer-to-peer exchange, styling services, reuse and recycling.

The introduction of Connected Products at scale across industry could overturn the traditional fashion trope of “take, make, waste” by providing brands with the capability to manage, control and monetise these products through new circular business models. Historically, selling two products has always been more profitable than selling one, putting sustainability and business at odds in fashion retail. With Connected Products, brands are able to generate ongoing revenue from products, meaning they no longer need to rely on the production and sale of more new products as their sole means for generating revenue.

Eon’s vision redefines growth and opportunity for brands and retailers by decoupling it from resource consumption. The approach aims to give each and every garment in the world a digital identity, or a “digital twin”, giving each item its own unique digital fingerprint. Eon manages this digital profile, complete with identification data and transparency information, and embeds the data into the garment with a digital identifier that enables the garment to be connected for its entire lifecycle – from production, through sale, use, reuse and recycle.