Sole Responsibility - an innovative approach to fashion waste

by Startacus Admin

The lowdown on Sole Responsibility, the Halifax-based business that's on a mission to save "seconds"clothing and footwear from landfill...

It’s that time of the week that you look forward to, when we remind you that landfills are bad! And, when it comes to its impact on the environment, so is the fashion industry. We wrote earlier this year in our article about Renoon that the UN Conference on Trade and Development has the fashion industry down as the second largest polluter on the planet, churning out 10% of global carbon emissions every year and polluting water everywhere.  

Businesses like Renoon and Nuw have popped up to do their part in tackling this aspect of the industry, and we have another one today. 

Halifax-based Sole Responsibility has been selling ‘seconds’ and returned clothes, which would otherwise be incinerated or sent to a landfill, and has saved hundreds of thousands of pieces of clothes and trainers from this fate since 2014 - a large amount of it branded - and sold them on to people who might otherwise not have been able to afford branded clothing. 

Seconds are clothes that are marked as waste due to sometimes tiny imperfections or barely noticeable damage, so what Sole Responsibility is selling is brand new and probably in better condition than those shoes you bought a month ago.

In May, Sole Responsibility was named as an official sustainability partner of JD Sports, and will be selling the retailer’s stock of trainers that are slightly damaged, returned, or simply end-of-line. This not only helps the retailer and gets those trainers on feet, but it highlights just how much unnecessary waste there is in the industry where partnerships like this don’t exist, with huge amounts of stock being discarded simply because they are at the end of their line.

Sole Responsibility pledges around 10% of their stock to charity every year, providing boots and warm clothes to homeless people across the UK. They are working towards the United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals, and have achieved four of the key goals within the sector so far. With their business model, they are helping fashion brands achieve their own sustainability goals, as well as saving them money and time.

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• #susatinability
• #fashion
• #waste
• #landfill
• #environment

Published on: 19th May 2021