28th May 2024
ReLondon is pleased today to announce the names of 22 high street businesses who they will be awarding grants to – all with the goal of helping them reuse, repair, rent, share and recycle more as they provide products and services to their customers.
The grants are a key element of ReLondon’s ‘High Streets Beyond Waste’ programme. After a competitive application process, ReLondon selected the winners from across London, and they range from cafes to shops to nail salons. Each business will be given grants of between £2,500-£10,000 to set up a new ‘beyond waste’ circular economy idea to tackle all the stuff they or their customers buy, make, use and throw away, while also helping their business to grow.
Paving the way for the circular high streets of the future
A circular economy is one where materials and products are kept circulating, keeping them at their highest possible value for as long as possible. It saves money, and stops us having to keep extracting raw materials from the planet – many of which are running out.
But transitioning to a circular economy can’t happen without including the kinds of high street-based business we all use every day. After some tough years with Brexit, COVID and the cost of living crisis, ReLondon wanted to give these businesses the opportunity to apply for grants which could help tackle some of their resource issues, and implement some ‘beyond waste’ innovations.
ReLondon was impressed with the variety, ingenuity and passion in the successful applications. All were driven by a desire to improve their environmental impact but critically they all understood how their actions would also support the health and longer term sustainability of their businesses.
And it’s not only the businesses who will benefit: London’s 600 high streets sit at the heart of their communities, so impacts such as reducing waste will be felt at a local level. Each business will also help increase awareness of and access to circular products and services for those who live and work nearby – including cost-saving approaches like repair services, or refurbished household items.
Over the next six months ReLondon will support grantees through its business transformation programme to bring their ideas to life, and work with them to measure their environmental, economic and social impact. The variety of business types, materials tackled and ways of tackling them will create a blueprint for a circular high street that can then be replicated across London and beyond.
Food and drink
The winning food and drink businesses will be tackling two common problems for hospitality businesses and for London: food waste and single use packaging. Some will explore different ways to either reduce food and ingredient waste in the first place through training, collaboration, technology and partnerships; others will find ways to capture and use ingredients before they’re disposed of, feeding them back into the food they’re making or creating entirely new products.
Others will tackle things like disposable coffee cups, plastic cups, and single use glass bottles. They’ll be trialling different reusable solutions either within their own operations or by incentivising their customers to bring their own refillable cups and bottles.
Retail
The winning retail businesses have each identified opportunities unique to their own business. Projects include creating new circular products, taking back products for resale or recycling, offering a repair service, and introducing refill – all examples of identifying a unique problem and creating a solution to fit.
High street services
The nail, hair and beauty salons in the cohort are all looking for ways to deal with the single use items and packaging disposed of through their day-to-day operations, as well as hair from their clients.
Meet the winners
1. Blue Check Restaurant & Bar, Brent
2. Cafe Terrace, Islington
3. Caffe Torelli, Richmond upon Thames
4. Cinnamon Leaf, Haringey
5. Earlybird Designs, Hackney
6. Ed Baker, Lewisham
7. Fabulous Trace, Newham
8. Go Mezza, Brent
9. Iris Avenue, Camden
10. Kanpai London Craft Sake, Southwark
11. Margaret Howell, Across London
12. Maverick and Wolf, Hounslow
13. Mont58 Coffee, Lewisham
14. Neuton Hair Salon, Islington
15. Petit Village, Lewisham
16. Renegade Urban Winery, Waltham Forest
17. Signature Brew, Waltham Forest
18. Symposium, Tower Hamlets
19. The Black Lamb, Merton
20. The Fall Bride, Hackney
21. Wild Card Brewery, Waltham Forest
22. Yapix Coffee and Wine House, Newham
These grants are made possible thanks to funding from UK Government through the UK Shared Prosperity Fund.
Want to get involved?
ReLondon has over seven years’ experience helping small businesses realise the commercial benefits of making better use of ‘stuff’. We offer advice, training and funding through a dedicated in-house team.
Our approach is designed to be replicated across London and continuously evolve the blueprint for resilient, circular high streets of the future. We’ll soon be delivering a localised High streets beyond waste grants programme in Southwark, made possible thanks to Southwark Council’s Pioneers Fund.
Get in touch if you’d like to bring the benefits of the circular economy to businesses in your area at business@relondon.gov.uk .
