Edinburgh Remakery's story
The Edinburgh Remakery is an award-winning environmental social enterprise based in Leith, North Edinburgh. Founded in 2012, our mission is to put an end to waste by providing people and communities with the skills and opportunities to live more sustainably.
Our work supports both people and planet, in a number of ways.
We hold monthly Community Clubs; offering an enjoyable way for people to come together once more and regain a sense of connection, building confidence and resilience, and improving the mental wellbeing and self-esteem of marginalised members of our community.
Our Tech Gifting Project aims to tackle digital poverty and reduce inequalities in digital access by passing on a portion of all the reparable electronics we receive to people in need.
We provide valuable skill-building and training opportunities through our jobs, apprenticeships and work placements.
We also provide free educational workshops for community members who would benefit most from learning new skills and saving money by being able to repair and reuse what they already own.
We teach coding to young people facing barriers to employment, and teach people of all ages how to maintain, repair, and upgrade their laptops and computers to keep them running better for longer.
Our workshops not only aim to build confidence and improve mental wellbeing, they also empower members of our community with the skills they need to live more sustainably.
We champion the circular economy by stopping valuable items and materials – such as electronics - from going to landfill and causing pollution. Instead, we take in working and broken electronic devices, and repair and refurbish these, ready for them to be passed on and used again. We reuse everything we possibly can, and responsibly recycle only those elements that we can't.
By encouraging re-use, we are also reducing the need for new items to be produced, and reducing carbon emissions in the process.
Useful learnings from Edinburgh Remakery
Although Edinburgh Remakery is focused on sustainability and reducing waste, a number of the programmes it runs are also very much about helping people: improving mental health, tackling loneliness, reducing poverty, saving money. This dual-purpose means the organisation is reaching members of the community they may not have otherwise reached. They are able to engage a new audience with ideas around re-use and sustainability, by framing these topics with the co-benefits that are important to each particular audience group.
Edinburgh Remakery has a wide range of offerings and a number of different partnerships, which means they are able to reach more people with their services. For example, they have a partnership with a sustainable tour operator in Edinburgh, which brings in a completely fresh, non-local audience to the organisation.
Edinburgh Remakery's Metrics
Tonnes of electronics collected
Percentage of electronics successfully repaired
Number of educational workshops held
Number of people taught new skills
Number of free devices donated
Number of green jobs created
