Ventures built to drive inclusive circularity

In brief

As part of our initiative Saamuhika Shakti, our partner Enviu is building impact ventures that are combining circularity with social inclusion. Second Spin, one of the ventures taking root, is now working with more than 35 hotels to tackle textile waste from India’s hospitality sector while bringing waste pickers into the formal sector.

In India, the story of textile waste is typically one of endings, landfills growing, fabrics forgotten, but Enviu is working to rewrite that narrative. With support from the H&M Foundation through Saamuhika Shakti our multi-stakeholder initiative they are building ventures that don’t just reduce textile waste, but generate business and livelihood opportunities for waste pickers, designing businesses that are both socially inclusive and circular from the ground up.

One of the ventures taking root under Enviu’s Closing the Loop programme is Second Spin (formerly known as Retex) which is tackling textile waste from India’s hospitality sector. Institutions like hotels, airlines, hospitals, railways and many more generate thousands of tonnes of textile waste every year. The model is simple: instead of letting used hotel linens and other textiles go to waste, Second Spin collects and transforms them into new materials like yarn, recycled paper and new textiles. The venture actively partners with waste picker entrepreneurs to build dignified roles in the circular value chain – proving that social equity and climate action can, and should, go hand in hand.

Waste pickers are an integral part of the system. Working with Enviu adds to our income streams and gives us the freedom to collect door-to-door more confidently

Krishna, textile waste entrepreneur and Second Spin collaborator

The past year has seen strong progress. Second Spin signed a chain-level MoU with The Ascott Group, marking a key milestone in bringing institutional textile waste into circular systems. And in the last quarter alone, they:

• Recovered over 26,600 kgs of textiles from 23 new hotels
• Initiated conversations with 12 hotel groups in Delhi
• Deepened R&D partnerships with CIRCOT and SITRA to tackle circular yarn innovation challenges.

Second Spin is just one of the ventures Enviu is building to address critical gaps in the post-consumer textile value chain in India. challenging the status quo of linear production and waste, and instead enabling a shift toward circularity that creates social value for those too often left out of the system.

Enviu’s venture building approach shows the power of bold ideas backed by hands-on collaboration. When social and environmental ambitions align with entrepreneurial drive, we unlock a multiplier effect where impact ventures don’t just spark change, they scale it.

Maria Bystedt, Programme Director, H&M Foundation