Latest news with #LaurenMason
The Guardian
6 days ago
- Business
- The Guardian
‘Small and mighty, that's what we are': the team turning discarded tents into bags
When Lauren Mason volunteered to help with the cleanup at a festival two years ago, she had no idea it would change the course of her life. She'd heard about the tents being dumped and left behind. Her mother, she says, is 'an amazing seamstress', so Mason thought she might be able to use some of the material to make clothes. 'I originally went to clean up with the idea to make my own jacket. But that's when I realised the problem was bigger than we thought.' As festivalgoers at Creamfields packed up and left, Mason was dumbfounded by the numbers of tents strewn in the fields. Growing up, borrowing kit had been the norm for camping and festivals because the gear was expensive; Mason had always felt a duty of care to the equipment she was bringing. 'It was just a rule that unless your tent got set on fire, you packed it up dry and took it home.' But at Creamfields about 80% of the tents had been left behind, to be bulldozed and sent straight to landfill. 'It is disheartening, when people are doing what they can. It's a hard juxtaposition.' Mason made a TikTok about all the pristine goods left behind at the festival, before switching off her phone and heading off to visit her brother. The next time she switched her phone on, the video had gone viral, amassing millions of views. It was at this moment that Mason realised there was an opportunity to do something bigger. That summer Mason co-founded Retribe, along with her friend Benjamin Harman, with the aim of collecting tents from festivals and upcycling them into all sorts of new items: tote bags, bottle carriers, clothes, accessories. Every piece is unique and made with as little waste as possible. 'Even if your tent's broken, that material is great for loads of other things. That's what we're trying to show people,' Mason says. An estimated 250,000 tents a year are left behind at festivals, according to the Association of Independent Festivals. 'People see it as part of the price tag – as more of a throwaway. It's really sad,' Mason says. 'These tents are made out of nylon or polyester, which takes hundreds of years to decompose. I've got a five-year-old and a seven-year-old son, and when I show them pictures they can't believe it: 'Did the police get them, Mummy?' Even they understand recycling.' This article includes content provided by TikTok. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. To view this content, click 'Allow and continue'. Overconsumption is a very modern invention. After the second world war, rising prosperity, globalisation and technological advancements led to our throwaway culture. Why not buy a jacket in three sizes and throw away the spares when it's mass produced abroad for almost nothing and shipped directly to your door? Each year the UK generates about 1.7m tonnes of textile waste. The clothes that don't go straight to landfill can end up polluting beaches in Ghana or piled up in the Atacama desert. Retribe is part of a wider fight against such overconsumption and harmful waste. In the last few years there has been a global explosion in the secondhand clothes market through sites such as Vinted or Depop. It has grown 2.7 times faster than the overall clothing market, according to research from the resale platform ThredUp. And the culture of repair and upcycling has gone mainstream, with TV programmes such as The Repair Shop, and viral TikTok and Instagram coverage of upcycling furniture or clothes. Last year, the EU passed a landmark right to repair law that means if something breaks, the manufacturer has to repair the product for a reasonable price and within a reasonable timeframe after the legal guarantee period. 'People are learning at the minute,' says Mason. 'Bigger companies, smaller companies, we're all learning about how bad everything we've done in the last 50 years has been for our planet, and what we can do after a product gets to the end of its life. 'Even if we're just encouraging one person not to bin their tent, that's 10 metres of fabric, minimum, going to landfill for hundreds of years. But if we can make a tote bag out of that for them to use for shopping, and now they don't have to buy carrier bags any more, that's amazing! We need to make these small changes to make a bigger difference in the end. Small and mighty, that's what we are.' Sign up to Down to Earth The planet's most important stories. Get all the week's environment news - the good, the bad and the essential after newsletter promotion Retribe has upcycled more than 500 tents and wants to take more. But it's not easy running a sustainable startup. It operates from a small factory floor in Sheffield, primarily making pieces to order so that it doesn't overproduce. Lauren does a lot of the sewing herself, helped by her mum, her best friend, her husband, and anybody who has a minute to spare. 'When I was looking into grants and funding, the main ones were for sustainability around technology, and I just didn't fall into that bracket. It was really frustrating. So I took out a startup loan and some weeks my sales don't even cover those payback costs. 'There's not enough [funding] out there for this sort of thing. I know a lot of companies are upcycling on a bigger scale who get grants from the EU, and that's all finished now for us. I do feel like we're behind in the UK.' Nevertheless, seeing her products out there keeps Lauren going. She also runs workshops teaching people how to upcycle. 'I've not had one person in these workshops walk away without being able to sew, or a product that's saved. People really surprise you, and encouraging other people to upcycle feels like a really big win for me.'
Yahoo
07-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
2025 raises fell short of employers' recent projections, Mercer finds
This story was originally published on HR Dive. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily HR Dive newsletter. Dive Brief: Employers doled out an average merit increase of 3.2% (a base salary increase for merit) and an average total bump of 3.5% (all salary increases, including merit, promotional, cost-of-living and other adjustments) in 2025, according to findings from the March 2025 Mercer QuickPulse® US Compensation Planning Survey, released April 24. That's below the 3.3% in merit increases and 3.7% in total raises that employers said they expected to deliver, per Mercer's November 2024 projections, and under what companies gave in 2024: 3.3% for merit increases and 3.6% in total salary increases, the company said. Mercer said the losses indicate 'an ongoing decline in annual compensation budgets, suggesting a return to pre-pandemic norms, driven by [a] softening labor market.' Dive Insight: 'Our latest data indicates a moderation in base pay increases, reflecting the evolving dynamics of the labor market,' Lauren Mason, Mercer's U.S. workforce solutions leader, said in a statement. 'With heightened economic uncertainty, employers are focused on maximizing compensation impact through strategic decisions, such as proactively rewarding high performance.' In the survey of more than 800 U.S. companies, employers said they expected to promote about 10% of their workforce, up from 8% the previous year, and to award an average raise of 8.5% with promotions. Among the 44% of companies that rely on a five-tier performance rating system, top performers received average raises of 5.6%, while those who fell in the middle on performance earned 3.3%, Mercer said. To better address job satisfaction for hourly workers, companies should consider 'a comprehensive total rewards strategy that integrates affordable benefits, a positive working environment, and clear paths for skills-based career growth,' instead of relying on minimum wage increases, Mason said. 'By investing in these areas, organizations can improve hourly employees' pay progression, financial well-being, and overall engagement,' Mason said. Payscale's chief people officer previously said 2025 could be a 'year of contention' over pay 'between employers tightening budgets and employees advocating for fair pay and better working conditions.' In Payscale's 2025 Compensation Best Practices Report, organizations identified compensation as a bigger challenge than recruiting or retention, and nearly 1 in 3 of those surveyed cited unfair pay as the primary reason they lost talent. Pay expectations for recent graduates aren't being met either, according to an April ZipRecruiter report. About 42% of recent graduates said they didn't get the pay they wanted in their job search. And soon-to-be graduates said they expected to earn $101,500 on average, while the average starting salary among recent graduates was $68,400, ZipRecruiter found.
