Pierre Duponchel, founder of Le Relais has become the Social Entrepreneur of the Year in France.
The Social Entrepreneur of the Year in France is an initiative of the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship in partnership with the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) France. The award was handed over in Paris by Martin Hirsch, High Commissioner for Active Solidarities against Poverty in the French government.
Le Relais collects, sorts and resells or recycles second-hand textiles, employing socially excluded people. The company has created 1,500 jobs in France and Africa. Facing the difficulties met by employees in finding a new job, Le Relais has been developing since 1993 activities that provide both training and sustainable employment.
Pierre Duponchel is focused on making Le Relais become an Entreprise à But Socio-Economique (a company with a socio-economic objective). From a small door-to-door collection activity in the north of France, Le Relais has today become a major industry, treating more than 60,000 tons of textiles each year.
The textiles collected are used for different purposes: top quality material is resold in Ding-Bring boutiques, an integrated network of second-hand shops; and approximately 40% are exported to Africa, where they are sorted again and resold on local markets. Textiles that cannot be resold are recycled into industrial rags. Le Relais is also committed to recycling textile and paper waste, reusing more than 85% of the 60,000 tons of textiles collected every year.
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