Fristads expands its sustainability offer with REACT

Swedish workwear manufacturer Fristads broadens the scope of its environmental work to six impact areas. The initiative goes under the name REACT and includes efforts to reduce the climate footprint of the company’s products as well as the development of a sustainable service offer.

"We chose to call our initiative REACT, since the word has dual meaning. It alludes both to how we react to the biggest challenge of our time – global climate change – and the concreate actions that we are taking to fight it,” said Petra Öberg Gustafsson, CEO of Fristads. “The purpose is not only to reduce our own environmental impact, but also to help our customers and partners reduce theirs, by making more environmentally conscious decisions about workwear.”

REACT is an umbrella term comprising six areas where Fristads is hoping to make a difference by tackling the climate crisis from multiple angles. Three of the focus areas encompass Fristads’ efforts to develop more sustainable products, while the other three revolve around developing sustainable service offers to extend the products’ lifespan and ensure they are used to their full potential, even at the end of life. The focus areas go under the names Reduce, Rethink, Reform, Repair, Reuse and Recycle.

A path to change
“The workwear industry must transition to more sustainable way of doing business and to do so we must broaden the scope of our environmental work. REACT is our way of staking out a clear path towards change and engaging not only our own company but also our customers, partners and other stakeholders in the process,” said Anne Nilsson, Director of Marketing and Sustainability at Fristads.

Through REACT, Fristads will continue to add more environmentally declared products and products made of recycled materials or by using more sustainable techniques to its range. REACT is also the company’s platform for repairing, reusing and recycling workwear. The groundwork for these sustainable services was laid during 2023, when the Repair, Reuse and Recycle flows were tested together with some of Fristads’ larger customers in Sweden and the Benelux region. This year, the plan is to gradually expand the service offer to customers in more markets.

About Fristads’ REACT initiative

Reduce encompasses Fristads’ environmentally declared products, produced in a way that minimises the impact on the environment.

Rethink includes Fristads’ products made of used workwear that has been collected, shredded and turned into new fabrics through a closed-loop recycling process.

Reform encompasses Fristads’ products made of more sustainable materials or by using more sustainable techniques.

Repair is Fristads’ service to extend the life of garments that have minor damages. Sample repairs include replacing buttons, zippers and knee pockets, and fixing ripped seams.

Reuse focuses on collecting used workwear and getting it ready to be used again, for example garments used by seasonal employees.

Recycle is Fristads’ open-loop recycling flow for collecting garments that have reached their end of life and making sure the material comes of use in other products.