John Twitchen FCIWM, Founder of Stuff4Life, explains how his new social enterprise is working to build a circular economy for workwear.

Achieving net zero and reducing carbon emissions is a challenge for all organisations, and it will require everyone to leave no stone unturned, especially when it comes to the impacts of the things we use every day – our supply chains, or ‘Scope 3’ emissions.

Scope 3 emissions can make up between 70 and 90% of an organisation’s emissions, which includes branded workwear worn by employees.

Employees and partnerships come and go, mergers and acquisitions happen, and in the past overordering has been rife.

To solve this problem Stuff4Life has established a social enterprise, Second Time, to promote their simple but highly effective laundry, repair, debrand and rebrand services.

The aims are simple: to keep workwear in play for longer, to servitise key elements of workwear, and to ensure leftover workwear can be used as originally intended.

This means emissions are reduced or eliminated by using more durable garments – which can be washed, repaired, returned and worn multiple times – the impacts of manufacturing more garments are avoided, fewer garments are discarded, and unwanted items can be rebranded and used as originally intended.

It’s difficult to recycle polyester as there are currently no commercial-scale facilities for synthetic composite branded clothing (Stuff4Life are working on it!), meaning leftover garments are highly likely to be incinerated.

By rebranding using Second Time’s unique ‘visible repair’ process, organisations can avoid significant carbon emissions and create jobs and green growth in the UK.

Second Time’s project with British Cycling saved hundreds of garments from incineration, which were rebranded and sold to cycling clubs at a reduced price.

Just under 200kg of rebranded uniform reduced end-of-life carbon emissions by 750kg and created over £30,000 of social impact value (based on the TOMS framework).

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