Dive Brief:
- DTC scrubs brand Figs recycled more than 40,000 healthcare professionals’ scrubs as part of a recycling program it launched in honor of Earth month, a company spokesperson confirmed to Retail Dive.
- The “Scrubs that Don’t Suck” digital campaign launched April 1 and encouraged shoppers to mail in their old scrubs with a prepaid shipping label at UPS to receive $50 off a purchase of $100 or more. Having reached its goal, the campaign will end Monday.
- The company in early April said it had already collected 43,000 pounds of scrubs through the recycling trade-in program and handed out more than $2 million in gift cards to invest in new Figs scrubs.
Dive Insight:
Figs launched its “Scrubs that Don’t Suck” digital campaign earlier this month, joining the growing list of retailers promoting sustainability as it grows its physical presence.
The company leveraged what it sees as a gap in the comfort and fit of healthcare professionals’ uniforms to launch the campaign, “making it easy to upgrade,” the company said in an email.
The company partnered with RoadRunner, a provider of modern waste and recycling services, to recycle the old scrubs and repurpose them into new products.
Sustainability is “at the core of Figs’ values” and why it was integral to have a recycling component involved in this campaign, the company said.
“The way Figs sees it, the healthcare community fundamentally exists to promote and protect humanity. So, serving that community means that Figs must respect humanity at every stage of its business, from how its supply chain partners operate their factories and treat their employees to the materials that they use in their products,” a company spokesperson said in an email.
The Figs scrubs recycle campaign is among the latest to promote sustainability. In 2022, Anthropologie launched its first denim circularity program to mitigate denim waste in landfills, which turned customers’ denim into insulation materials.
That same year, DTC underwear brand Parade expanded its sustainability efforts with the launch of a similar initiative, called Second Life by Parade. Under the program, consumers could return gently used underwear from any brand in exchange for a 20% Parade credit.
Last year, electronics retailer Best Buy announced a nationwide service where consumers can order a prepaid Best Buy Technology Recycling Box from the retailer’s website to fill with cords, laptops and tablets to be recycled.
The recycling program comes as Figs expects revenue to be down mid-single digits to flat this year as new competition looms. In February 2023, DTC apparel company Fabletics announced it added a medical scrubs collection.
Earlier this month Bank of America downgraded Figs’ stock to underperform due to macroeconomic conditions. Among analysts’ concerns were consumers getting squeezed financially, meaning buying new work uniforms won’t be a priority.
Figs opened its first brick-and-mortar store at Century City Mall in Los Angeles last year. It will open its second store in Philadelphia this summer, which will follow the same “Community Hub” concept catering to healthcare professionals as the first store, according to the company.
