Nordstrom encourages consumers to clean out closets via seamless donations

Department store chain Nordstrom is working to offset the billions of pounds of clothing that ends up in landfills each year through the launch of a lightly-worn apparel donation program.

Working with Give Back Box and Goodwill, Nordstrom will launch an apparel and accessories solution to help give new life to used clothing. Consumers are increasingly conscious of their own environmental footprint, and are more inclined to shop brands and retailers that mirror their sustainability efforts.

Giving back
Nordstrom’s Give Back Box partnership allows consumers to donate used clothing by mail at no cost. Consumers can also drop off their Give Back Box to participating Nordstrom locations.

All donated apparel and accessories will be directed to local nonprofits, such as Goodwill, where it will be sold to fund community programs such as job training and education initiatives.

Products such as gently-used clothing, shoes, jewelry and small household goods will donatable through Nordstrom’s Give Back Box partnership.

“Our customers have told us they want to be able to clean out their closets in a more environmentally friendly way,” said Erik Nordstrom, co-president of Nordstrom, in a statement. “By extending the life of their used items, and encouraging them to reuse the box from their recent Nordstrom order, we’re trying to make it easy and convenient to help reduce waste while also being able to support local nonprofit organizations.”

When a Nordstrom ecommerce order arrives, consumers are encouraged to save the box and pack it up with unwanted clothing, accessories or shoes they would like to donate. The program includes a prepaid shipping label available on givebackbox.com/Nordstrom.

Nordstrom delivery boxes can be repurposed to make a clothing donation. Image credit: Nordstrom

Once the prepaid shipping label is attached to the Nordstrom box, consumers can either drop it off at any UPS or United States Postal Service location.

Later this week, Nordstrom will begin testing an in-store donation program at six of its western Washington locations including its Bellevue Square, Downtown Seattle and Tacoma Mall stores. All participating stores will have white, Goodwill-branded donation bins located either at the mall entrance or on the lower level.

Items donated will directly benefit Seattle Goodwill and Goodwill of Olympics and Rainier regions in Washington.

A number of retailers have taken strides in lessening consumers’ environmental footprints while in-store as well as at the corporate level.

For example, British department store chain Selfridges is prolonging the life of its paper coffee cups through a newly launched upcycle program.

Selfridges now recycles used coffee cups from its in-store dining options, as well its internal offices, and repurposes the paper goods into its iconic yellow shopping totes. The British retailer launched the upcycle program after scientific research found that paper cups could not be properly recycled, resulting in 2.5 billion paper cups used annually in the United Kingdom (see story).