The Reuse Consortium – Excelling In Scotland
The CRNS Reuse Consortium was the highest scoring submission in the recent tender for a national framework contract with Scotland Excel to provide quality reuse furniture to Scotland’s local authorities and housing associations.
After four years of successful trading, the CRNS Reuse Consortium is now set to grow and develop new partnerships with forward thinking Councils and social landlords, providing quality furniture at very affordable prices – while achieving carbon savings, and promoting community wealth building.
As this article in the Scottish Housing News illustrates, the CRNS Consortium “Gives the option to source re-use items – a move that underpins Scotland’s circular economy drive to keep quality goods and materials in use instead of sending to landfill”.
Link Housing is one of the most recent “converts” to the reuse option. Andy Jack, Community Investment Officer with Link, said:
“We are working towards solutions that are better for our planet and we want to find more affordable solutions too. In some of the services we provide, such as temporary homelessness accommodation, there is a high turnover, which means there are substantial costs connected with replacing furniture. We had been buying new furniture but were delighted to have the opportunity to switch to reuse”.
Link are working in partnership with Four Square, the Edinburgh based homelessness charity, and a member of the CRNS Consortium. Jane Devine, CEO of Four Square, said:
“It’s a great partnership! We have been able to employ local people to deliver the contract, we have reduced waste to landfill, we have provided lovely furniture to people that is individual and of high quality, we have generated income for our charity and we have reduced costs to Link Housing. There are no downsides.”
The CRNS Reuse Consortium is celebrating this success by launching a dedicated Reuse Consortium website to promote the community reuse furniture sector and supporting more local authorities and social landlords to make this choice.
For more information contact:
Lesley Campbell, Reuse Consortium Coordinator
lesley@crns.org.uk