Last week, I wrote about one of the core ideas that emerged from building sustainable brands over the past two decades and now guides our selection of companies to profile on Supercool.

Put simply, they make the sustainable choice the better choice.

Not the more virtuous choice.

Not the choice requiring the least sacrifice.

But outright better.

And it underlies the quiet revolution underway that’s turning the best climate companies into the best businesses.

Budderfly doesn't give fast-food restaurants state-of-the-art commercial appliances as philanthropy. It pays for the upgrades, cuts the restaurant's energy use, and earns its return from the savings.

Lennar isn't installing Dandelion geothermal systems in new communities to attract climate warriors. It's doing it because homeowners get lower energy bills and high-performance heating and cooling. Those first buyers are also incentivized to buy, knowing they will get a better resale value.

Formula E didn't build a global fan base of more than 500 million by asking people to care about saving the planet. It built a more fun, more accessible form of racing for a new generation of fans.

TerraCycle doesn't persuade companies to recycle hard-to-process waste through guilt. It shows them how recycling can improve customer loyalty, employee engagement, and profitability.

Wärtsilä doesn't sell grid-scale batteries because utilities want to cut emissions. It sells them because its batteries and software respond in milliseconds, improve grid reliability, and increasingly offer the lowest-cost way to balance electricity systems.

And Trove doesn't sell resale to billion-dollar brands as an environmental initiative.

It sells margin expansion.

New customers.

Incremental revenue.

Supply chain resilience.

Six companies. One core strategy.

Make the sustainable choice the better choice.

Terry Boyle didn't found Trove. He joined as CEO after leading businesses including Nordstromrack.com, Zulily, and Trunk Club.

"The original founders were the visionaries," Terry told me. "I kind of consider myself the commercializer."

That perspective shapes how he talks about resale.

"I kind of joke with my team. It's sort of like Fight Club. We have this environmental mission, but we never talk about it. We're always trying to sell on the basis of the economics for the brands and retailers."

Today, Trove powers branded resale programs for companies including Patagonia, Levi's, Arc'teryx, Canada Goose, Michael Kors, and Brooks.

The pitch isn't circularity.

It's better business.

Consumers already buy secondhand.

What brands can offer that marketplaces can't is trust.

Terry compares branded resale to certified pre-owned cars. Customers are often willing to pay more when the original brand has inspected the product, graded its condition, and stands behind it.

That trust translates into economics.

Resale generates more value than liquidation.

It attracts customers who may never have purchased the brand at full price. For many Trove clients, between 50 and 80 percent of resale buyers are new to the brand.

It creates another revenue stream from products already in circulation.

And when tariffs rise or supply chains tighten, resale gives brands inventory that's already in the country.

A company can't rebuild its global supply chain overnight.

It can begin creating value from products it has already made.

That's why resale has become a growth strategy, not merely a sustainability initiative.

For decades, brands relied on off-price retailers to reach more price-sensitive customers.

But much of that merchandise wasn't excess inventory.

It was manufactured specifically for off-price channels.

"When I was at Nordstromrack.com," Terry told me, "80 percent of what we sold was made for that channel."

Resale offers a different model.

Instead of manufacturing another lower-priced product, brands can earn additional revenue from one they've already made.

Canada Goose shows where this can go.

Its Generations resale program protects pricing, certifies quality, and introduces new customers without discounting new merchandise.

The company has even explored guaranteed trade-in values at the point of purchase.

Buy a jacket today.

Know what it may be worth years from now.

That's more than another sales channel.

It's a different way of thinking about products.

A jacket is no longer manufactured, sold once, and forgotten.

It becomes an asset that can create value more than once.

When Trove started, it operated its own warehouses.

It received trade-ins, authenticated products, repaired them when necessary, photographed them, stored them, and fulfilled orders.

The model proved branded resale could work.

It also made growth slower and more capital-intensive.

Under Terry's leadership, Trove has evolved into a software platform that allows brands to run resale through their own facilities and logistics partners.

The internal question used to be, "Where should we build the warehouse?"

Today, they ask their clients, "Where do you want to run the program?"

That's the difference between operating a business and enabling an industry.

"Once resale programs are running and delivering business results," Terry said, "that's when brands love to talk about circularity."

"It's just not what gets the deal done."

Circularity may be the story brands tell. The business case is what gets them to act.

The environmental benefits haven't become less important. The economics have become impossible to ignore.

Twenty years ago, sustainable businesses often asked customers to compromise.

Pay more.

Accept less.

Feel good about it.

The companies winning today are asking something very different.

Lower your costs.

Grow your business.

Build a better product.

Delight your customers.

The emissions reductions ride shotgun.

That's how climate businesses stop being climate businesses.

And become the best businesses in their category.

This Week’s Podcast Episode:

Circularity is Strategy: Why Billion-Dollar Brands Are Betting on Resale

🎙️ Listen on Apple, Spotify, and all other platforms.

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