Debrand’s Sustainable Success: Transforming Textile Waste into Environmental Wins
In the dynamic landscape of sustainability, we have been making waves through successful pilot projects focused on textile circularity and sustainability. Collaborating with key players in the apparel and footwear industry, our combined efforts have yielded impressive results, showcasing the positive impact of its initiatives.
“We are honored to be working with these incredible brands who trust us to guide and support their sustainability initiatives. Each and every victory — no matter how small or big — has the potential to be a catalyst for a tsunami of success in the future.”
– Amelia Eleiter, Debrand CEO and Co-founder
Let’s dive into some highlights from 2022:
Everlane: Circular Partnership
We worked with Everlane to address over 112,000 units of damaged apparel, footwear, and accessories that had accumulated in their warehouse since 2019. Over a 2-year project, we assessed, sorted, and diverted 100% of these products from landfills, aiming for reuse, recycle, downcycle, or resource recovery. Learn more in their report (page 62).
“Our ongoing partnership with Debrand allows us to responsibly address our most immediate challenge—damaged returns—by identifying opportunities to extend the useful life of our products and materials. Our learnings through this pilot project with Debrand have been extremely valuable, helping us revamp our returns quality control process, recover value of the products/materials through resale and innovative recycling trials, and ensure that our damaged returns never end up in landfills.”
– Katina Boutis, Director of Sustainability at Everlane
Victoria’s Secret Take Back Program
Victoria’s Secret initiated a Take Back Program in 14 U.S. stores, allowing consumers to return used products for future use. Debrand managed all sorting and next-life channels, including donation, textile recycling, and waste-to-energy exit channels, which were all being tested as part of this pilot program. Read more about it here (page 55).
lululemon athletica: Next-Life Solutions
lululemon athletica partnered with us to resell, donate, and recycle 90% of their damaged or excess products. Recycled apparel was turned into products like insulation stuffing for mattresses, furniture, cars, and sporting equipment. For products that didn’t have recycling solutions, they were processed in a waste-to-energy facility that generates electricity. For more details, download the report (page 4).
Soles4souls: Meaningful collaboration
Soles4Souls and Soles4Souls Canada collaborated with us to extend the life of 22,232 pieces of clothing, divert 15,119 pounds of garments from local landfills, and create $68,755 in economic opportunities for families and communities in need. To see the report, click here.
We are proud to be trusted advisors to the world’s leading apparel and footwear brands.Headquartered in Canada, we’re on a mission to propel the textile industry towards a sustainable future, collaborating with companies to build systems of sustainability that optimize the planet’s finite resources.
These achievements come on the heels of a strategic investment from WM in November 2022, which has allowed us to accelerate our growth and integrate our next-life solutions at scale across North America.