Break free from overconsumption and reuse all year round

This guide covers how to maximise the redistribution of surplus assets to the charity & not-for-profit sector.

The article is aimed at procurement, facilities, estates, waste and sustainability managers in large organisations, as well as those with responsibility for community outreach. 

You have surplus assets you don't have a use for internally- you have tried to donate to charity in the past but it has fallen over and now you are just paying to dispose of reusable assets.  

We will discuss why you should pass surplus assets to charitable organisations and we will explore several ways you can do this legally, safely, effectively and with maximum impact. We will also have some downloadable resources at the end to help you implement the advice in the article. 

The objective here is to help your organisation to increase your impact in the local and regional community- but also avoid waste disposal costs, increase landfill diversion by reuse and head towards zero waste.

If an item/s is heading for the skip, it makes sense for the facility manager to improve estates management to give furniture for free to not for profits- legally and safely. It is the same with office furniture clearance or decommissioning- it is good for waste minimisation and sustainability as well as your costs. 

Here's what we will cover:

• How to donate office furniture to charity
• How to point charities to the Warp It online portal
• How to maximise community leadership and set up your own charity network
• How to use your staff body to reach out to charities and make more meaningful connections

You can view the video or read the content. If you are already a Warp It customer skip forward to 4.14 on the video!

It's very easy to get started on the Warp It redistribution. Here we show you how, by breaking it down into a series of simple steps.

What will you learn?

• How to add an item.
• How to add items in succession. 
• How to claim an item.
• How to add an item to your wish list.
• How to allocate items internally.
• How to mark items for internal use only.
• How to mark items for external use only.
• How to set up a private group.

Following this, you'll know exactly how to use Warp It and be set up to effectively save your organisation money and reduce the impact on the environment.

Universities have already saved £3 million by sharing resources such as furniture and other equipment through the Warp It online scheme. Now, we have announced we have set a target to bring savings of £1 million to the sector in 2017. In addition, waste arisings will fall by 100 tonnes, and 250 tonnes of CO2 will be slashed.

This is a reuse cheat sheet, designed to help you decide on the best actions to take to get support to start or improve a reuse system in your organisation.

We have put reuse systems or furniture reuse programs into 250 large organisations in the public sector, central government, healthcare as well as private sector. These actions are the ones that take the least time but have the most impact. This will help you adopt circular economy practices and hit zero waste in no time!

Yes, organisations can even upcycle.

Within organisation we are often to stuck in our ways to come up with innovative and new uses for our waste streams. In this article we look at what one healthcare organisation is doing. We also give you access to a free download to use to help you think more innovatively about your problem waste stream items and start to approach zero waste.

We have talked in the past about how overwhelming projects can be at work - and we always offer solutions.

This blog post is about making cultural change in large organisations. We discuss one particular technique which is used all over the world, but which is seldom followed in organisations.  This can be applied to any behaviour change project and we use the example of a surplus asset reuse program. 

When an old computer breaks, it seems an almost natural response to follow the standard waste disposal policy and think ‘ah, it’s outdated, I might as well send it to the dump and buy a new one’. However, the old phrase ‘one man’s trash is another man’s treasure’ is very applicable in this article. What if your broken computer is only broken temporarily, and that whilst you go and buy a new one, it can be repaired?

This blog post is about taking that step beyond reuse of surplus assets and moving into repair and refurbishment- to reduce procurement demand by extending the life span of products.

In this interview we talk to John Bailey, Head of Sustainability at the University of London about a project which has caused a buzz across the campus.

John talks about delivering a bee-keeping project which he has used as a way to engage on sustainability. John also talks about getting things done in large, sometimes bureaucratic, organisations. In particular: John talks about the importance of gettting backing for a project before you pitch your idea to a committee. The video is below followed by extracts of the transcript.