Upstream’s Reuse Awards Returns for Second Run With Fashion as a Focus
The second annual Reuse Awards — affectionately dubbed “The Reusies” — will return in virtual format on Sept. 29.
The awards ceremony is put on by Upstream, a nonprofit devoted to finding solutions to plastic pollution, and Closed Loop Partners, an investment firm funding circular economy innovations.
More from WWD
“We face an urgent and growing global waste challenge,” said Bridget Croke, managing director at Closed Loop Partners. “We are proud to partner with Upstream on the annual Reusies to drive forward the reuse trailblazers and incredible ecosystem of innovators paving the way to a waste-free future. This is critical to our work to research, test and scale solutions that keep valuable materials in play and accelerate the transition to a circular economy.”
Policy against plastic is simultaneously seeing rallying cries. Also on Wednesday, ocean conservation nonprofits Oceana and Break Free From Plastic pushed for support of the Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act (S984 and HR 2238) in a policy briefing to engage Congress on the issue.
Last year, the inaugural event received more than 1,200 submissions from a vast array of start-ups, environmental activists and community leaders. This year, the awards ceremony will include entries from both the U.S. and Canada, as well as a new vertical dedicated explicitly to fashion and apparel as part of the ceremony’s growing aims. Instead of one overall winner, there will be a “most innovative reuse company” for each sector, including food and beverage, consumer packaged goods and enabling technologies in addition to fashion.
The reuse finalists include: Dispatch Goods, Just Salad and R.Cup for food; Algramo, Goatote and Returnity for consumer packaged goods, Fabscrap, Poshmark and Thrilling for fashion; and Fill it Forward, Topanga.io and The Rounds for enabling technologies.
As with last year’s awards, there will again be finalists for corporate initiative of the year (which includes Coca-Cola and PepsiCo as finalists), reuse community of the year (including Human-I-T and The Ecology Center) and activist of the year (finalists being Alejandra Warren, Jacqueline Omania and Yayoi Koizumi).
Similar to last year’s ceremony, a judging panel (among them “Cradle to Cradle” coauthor William McDonough and sponsors like the Ellen MacArthur Foundation) along with the public, will decide the winners.
Sign up for WWD's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
