We're on a mission to be London's answer to sustainable fashion. Find out what that means, how shopping and donating to Trinity contributes to this goal and how we're working to reduce our environmental impact at every stage of our charity shop operation.​

Our business model uniquely positions us to pursue our goal to be London's answer to sustainable fashion: the resale of secondhand fashion in our charity shops helps to save over 300 tonnes of goods from landfill every year and is inherently circular. We understand that addressing the product element of our business is only part of the journey, improvements are needed across all areas of our operation if we are to authentically and whole-heartedly embrace our commitment.

We are pleased that our Sustainable Seven programme has been recognised with a Draper's Conscious Fashion Award for Best Carbon Footprint Initiative in 2025 and an Environmental and Sustainability award at the 2023 Charity Retail Association Awards. You can read about the programme below.

Sustainable charity retail is not skin-deep  

In 2022 we embarked on a review of our retail operations to ensure that sustainability is at the heart of everything we do, whether it is visible in our shops or not. From this work we have identified a set of priorities we call the Sustainable Seven: 

• transportation
• procurement
• waste
• reuse and recycling
• printing
• utilities
• people

These seven key areas for improvement have shaped a comprehensive action plan. We share this publicly to hold ourselves to account, and to share our journey to become the most sustainable version of ourselves with our community of ​customers, donors and supporters. In April 2025 we published an updated version of this plan, listing our progress against our 24 goals. 

READ THE PLAN

Taking our commitment to sustainability one step further 

We run 23 shops across the capital to help fund free end of life and palliative care for Londoners. Last year, Royal Trinity Hospice shops helped save over 300 tonnes of goods from landfill, including reselling over 350,000 preloved items.  

At Royal Trinity Hospice we are here to make shopping preloved fashion enjoyable, welcoming and accessible to everyone in London and beyond. A recent survey of our customers placed the desire to buy sustainably as the number one reason attracting people through our doors. Our plan lays out our continued commitment to improving our sustainability credentials, in both behind-the-scenes operations and on the shop floor. 

​All of the fashion, books and homeware that you will find in our stores are 100% donated; we never purchase any stock other than our Christmas cards, which are completely sustainable. ​

We passionately promote our sustainable way to consume fashion, because fashion shouldn’t cost the earth. 

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Read the plan

Global context 

We love fashion, but its environmental impacts are destroying our planet and causing suffering to many of the workers who make our clothes.​

• ​The fashion and textiles industry alone accounts for 5% of global greenhouse gas emissions. That’s more than the emissions of the UK, France, Germany and Italy combined. ​
• The industry consumes 98 million tonnes of non-renewable resources and 93 billion cubic metres of water annually.
• It is also a major polluter of water, and accounts for 20% of industrial wastewater pollution worldwide.​
• The average person today buys 60% more clothing than in 2000. It is predicted that if demographic and lifestyle patterns continue as they are now, global consumption of apparel will rise from 62 million metric tonnes in 2019 to 102 million tonnes in 2029. 
• Much of the clothing we no longer want ends up in landfill on the other side of the world, where an average polyester garment can take up to 200 years to decompose.​

Not only are people buying more, they are also discarding more, creating a huge waste crisis across the globe.​

TRUST-certified

At Trinity we have pledged to only deal with organisations accredited with The Trader Recycling Universal Standard (TRUST) when trading donated items that cannot be sold on the shop floor. TRUST was devised by a coalition dedicated to boosting standards in the recycling sector and has the backing of more than 2,500 charity shops across the UK as well as the Charity Retail Association, Textile Recycling Association and other waste reduction and recycling experts.

Textile traders are important to the charity retail sector because they buy textiles that charity shops are unable to sell to the public. This ensures the charity has income from these donations and that the items are reused and recycled, and do not end up in landfill. 

Find more information on the TRUST website. 

Find out about how we recycle textiles that can't be sold

Join us: find out about how you can donate goods to our shops