This month sees the launch of a new employment project with a compelling case for business leaders: commission offenders to divert your workwear from landfill and grow more than just your green credentials.
Green Reparation™ is a national social enterprise working with criminal justice organisations on climate change initiatives. Its primary aim is twofold: reduce reoffending and reduce waste going to landfill. This pairing of formidable challenges offers a direct route way to achieving safer communities and sustainable lifestyles. The Green Reparation social franchise model enables offenders serving community and custodial sentences to undertake waste recycling services for businesses, delivering environmental gains with business savings whilst generating income to offset the costs of punishment.
The model also progresses environmental education and employability agendas by facilitating green job work experience, training and job-readiness certification for unemployed and low-skilled (ex) offenders to enter the green economy.
“With businesses facing limits to responsible waste management, including costs, time, storage and uneconomical scale, and offenders facing barriers to employment, there is a valuable opportunity to turn respective need into mutual benefit” says director, Bill Mather. “A key area where we can help businesses is in the secure recycling of branded workwear — a labour-intensive process that otherwise is not commercially viable.” Green Reparation has been awarded EU funds to develop ‘Green Employability’ for offenders under a NOMS managed programme.
The project, which launches this month and is focused in three Green Reparation franchise pilot areas (Merseyside, Wales, and Devon and Cornwall), will inform best practice and efforts to achieve more effective joined-up employment services to get offenders into green jobs.
If your business has textile waste resulting from a branding refresh or general disused workwear, then please contact bill.mather@greenreparation.org. Stay tuned for more information on the project in the August Mayday newsletter.
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