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“You get the best out of others when you give the best of yourself.”
Business leaders don’t always need grand gestures to inspire employees to achieve great work. Simply set a strong example, and your organisation will naturally follow.
In the UK footwear and apparel industries, we’d love to see stronger leadership, especially around recycling and repurposing. The Ellen MacArthur Foundation estimates that less than 1% of clothing material is recycled into new products, with around 15% of fabric wasted. Worse still, as many as 44% of customer returns are never resold. And whether they’re binned or burned, they leave a big impact on our planet.
Customers have noticed; most UK shoppers (79%) want to ban the destruction of this unsold clothing. So, modern brands that fail to meet expectations risk hefty reputational damage (see the global Burberry backlash). And while workers can make tweaks where possible, wholesale strategies to reduce textile waste must come from the top.
So, how can you empower and equip your employees to achieve real circular impact?
“Never pass up an opportunity to use your values to talk about how to get better or celebrate someone’s example. Values are something that we live by, not something we can wear out. In fact, it’s the opposite… the more you use them, the longer they last.”
At Soles4Souls, we follow the TEAM mantra, which stands for Transparent, Entrepreneurial, Accountable and Meaningful. And it’s a great template for all types of change-ready footwear and apparel brands to heed:
- Transparent: We tell the truth to ourselves, each other and everyone else. That goes for everything from financials to programmes to team members. Bad news is okay because it’s a chance to improve. Good news is welcome because it’s a chance to celebrate.
- Entrepreneurial: We take calculated risks, learn from failure and act like an owner. We are results-focused, but always through the lens of our mission and north star.
- Accountable: We deliver on our promises to each other and those we serve. Words matter; if we say we’re going to do something, we do it. If we can’t, we own it without making excuses and don’t surprise others who are affected.
- Meaningful: The work we do matters to us and to those we serve. Every team member should feel connected to that work, but work isn’t truly meaningful unless employees believe it matters, too.
Turning impactful strategy into daily action
With values in place, your brand can then take practical steps to empower employees and reduce business waste. How they look will depend on your manufacturing processes, but common upgrades include:
Smarter design and production
- Digital pattern-cutting to reduce fabric waste.
- Just-in-time manufacturing to avoid overproduction.
Upskilling and training
- Workshops linking employee roles to ESG goals.
- Retail staff trained to explain in-store recycling schemes.
Operations and logistics
- Warehouse teams sorting damaged/returned items for reuse or resale.
- Barcode tracking to speed up repair, donation and recycling.
We’ve already seen some of these techniques working magic in the real world. Nike has pledged to divert 100% of its waste from landfill, with at least 80% recycled back into Nike products and other goods. Levi’s efficiency initiatives (like water recycling requirements) have saved 13+ billion litres of water since 2011. And in a single year, sustainable shoe brand Allbirds shrank its carbon footprint by 19% through a range of strategies, including: lower production of wool footwear styles (5%), increased use of renewable materials and energy (5%) and updates to packaging (1%).
The thread is clear: when systems support employees, they can make decisions that reduce waste every day.
Lowering the barriers to a smarter end-of-life strategy
Of course, not every brand has the infrastructure, expertise or bandwidth to build a full-scale waste strategy. Margins are tight. Resources are stretched. And many leaders worry that ambitious circularity programmes will demand heavy investment.
That’s where partnerships make the difference.
Through Solutions4Good, Soles4Souls helps footwear and apparel brands and retailers transform surplus, B-grade, returned, and customer-collected shoes and clothing into new value. By sorting, grading, repairing, repurposing, re-commerce, and providing responsible end-of-life solutions, we maximise the life and impact of every item – diverting textiles from landfills, protecting brand integrity, and creating measurable social and environmental value.
With Solutions4Good, you and your employees can engage in real transformation of your products’ end-of-life, without significant investments in time, resources or technologies. Plus, you help us make a real social impact through our 4Opportunity and 4Relief programmes. To learn how you can get involved today, simply email alexandreg@soles4souls.org.
