RREUSE (Reuse and Recycling Social Enterprises in the European Union) is a European non-governmental organisation (NGO) and the first European umbrella organisation of social enterprises with activities in the reuse, repair and recycling sector. The very specialised European network puts the three pillars of sustainability at an equal level: environmental protection, social equity, and economic viability.
Contents
Mission and activity
RREUSE's mission is "to lobby at European level for stronger policies in favour of repair and reuse of end-of-life products to avoid that products become waste too early". Additionally, RREUSE also "participates on social economy legislation with a specific focus on green employment linked to social inclusion and training initiatives for those most removed from the labour mainstream market". Therefore, repair, reuse and recycling activities within social enterprises should expand and develop across Europe.
According to the statutes, to reach the scope of their mission the RREUSE activities include
RREUSE also carries out international projects in cooperation with other institutions like universities and research centres, for example the LOWaste Project or the Quali Pro Second Hand Project II (a European project on the innovation transfer of a qualification profile "second hand").
In 2011 RREUSE received the European Week for Waste Reduction award for the Waste watchers campaign.
Members
RREUSE has currently 26 members in 15 European countries and one member in the USA. The members of RREUSE are national and regional social economy networks that combine both social as well as environmental objectives. Within the RREUSE network 77.000 full-time equivalent jobs are provided and more than 60.000 volunteers and trainees are involved in RREUSE members’ projects.
The activities of the members can be described with
Currently (10/09/2014) the members are:
Origin
Between 1999 and 2001 the interest on social enterprises working together in the environmental services has been increased and therefore a couple of events and projects was set by a few organisations from the social economy sector. At the same time a couple of organisations started working together on the forthcoming of the European WEEE Directive (which was adopted 2001) as they were concerned about the impact which the WEEE-Directive could have on social enterprises working in the recycling and reuse sector. To create a more stable platform of discussion where organisations could follow the political debates and decisions in Brussels on a more regular basis, on a conference in November 2000 the idea to create a European network of social enterprises working in the waste sector was developed. Finally 17 networks of social enterprises elaborated the constitution in Barcelona on 26 February 2001. Representatives from the European Parliament, from the Belgium Ministry for Social Economy and from the Directorate Environment of the European Commission appreciated the foundation of the network and expressed their general support. RREUSE was founded under the Belgium law with the status of a Non-profit organisation. The original members are
- A.E.R.E.S.S. (Spain)
- AIRES (Spain)
- BKN (Netherlands)
- BAG Arbeit (Germany)
- Bytes Twice (UK)
- CRN (UK)
- Consorzio IDEA Ambiente (Italy)
- Creat UK (UK)
- Emmaüs international (France)
- ENVIE (France)
- FRN (UK)
- KVK (Belgium)
- Recycl-it! (UK)
- RPG (Germany)
- Ressources (Belgium)
- Community Le-paint (UK)
- Verband Wiener Volksbildung (Austria)
In 2003 RREUSE opened a secretariat in Brussels.
Structure of the network
RREUSE has a non bureaucratic structure. The members meet 3 times a year working on the different waste streams, such as WEEE (Waste electrical and electronic equipment), textiles, bulky waste, bioswaste, resource consumption and product policies etc. Most of the work is done by volunteer members between the meetings. The coordinating office is located in the Mundo-B house, an ecologically renovated office building in the center of Brussels for Belgium and international environmental and social NGO's.
Funding
RREUSE is financed by the membership fees. In the first two years RREUSE received also some funding from the Belgium government to promote the launch of the organisation. Later RREUSE also received some funding by DG Environment and DG Education. Recently RREUSE has received funding from Fondation de France.