Nyttigaste affären

Collaboration prize for circular economy partners creating sustainable fashion

November 29, 2021 - News

The 2021 edition of the annual national award – Nyttigaste Affären – for a collaboration doing good goes to partners Nimble Patch, Yalla Mellerud and Wargön Innovation for a circular economy initiative giving new life to clothes. 

Business partnerships that create value for the partners as well as the society have every year since 2015 been awarded through the Nyttigaste Affären prize, to highlight the benefits of collaborating to create social and environmental good. This year’s winners are fashion company Nimble Patch, work-integrating social enterprise Yalla Mellerud and innovation centre Wargön Innovation that together have set up an initiative that reuses jeans and fabric, provides job opportunities for foreign-born women, and offers sustainable fashion to consumers.

Nimble Patch sells reused children’s jeans that have been remade with fabric that would otherwise go to waste, and the sewing is done by Yalla Mellerud and its foreign-born women work force. Wargön Innovation, an innovation centre with a strong focus on sustainability, provides some of the material and Nimble Patch also collaborates with some of the biggest fashion brands in Sweden, such as H&M, to produce remade fashion with a focus on circularity.

 

Awarding partnerships for good

The annual prize is awarded by Coompanion and HSB Göteborg and it’s given to two or more partners that together create social and/or environmental good through a business partnership. SE Forum’s Executive Director Tove Nordström is on the jury alongside representatives from IKEA, Coompanion, HSB, and Business Region Göteborg. Their collective words about this year’s winners are:

 

“As a society, we need to use the resources that already exist. This is a fantastic collaboration that shows how one can make the most of existing material, present it in an attractive way and create a business at the same time. It also offers a way into the job market for those who are far away from it and it decreases social exclusion.

To create a circular Sweden, we need collaboration between various actors: companies, social entrepreneurs and circular economy experts. To engage various players in this way shows that it’s possible to combine innovation, environmental thinking, social good, work integration, and day-to-day consumption.”

 

Congratulations to the winners! Check out their winners’ video here.