Turning textile waste into business value, social impact, and new possibilities
What if the textiles sitting unused in a company’s storage room were not waste, but an opportunity?
For Sílvia Correia, Founder and CEO of IPBN member company re.store®, that question sits at the heart of her work. Drawing on a career spanning marketing, communication, brand strategy, and the Portuguese textile industry, Sílvia founded re.store® to explore how businesses can connect purpose with a viable commercial model, while creating measurable environmental and social impact.
The result is a B2B circular economy model built around what Sílvia calls re.store®’s 3Ps: People, Planet, and Pedagogy for Change.
Today, re.store® works with organisations to transform unused textiles, uniforms, deadstock, and other textile materials into new products, working with social partners to create fair-paid opportunities along the way. Its work also extends into awareness and education, helping organisations turn sustainability from an abstract ambition into something people can see, understand, and participate in.
We spoke with Sílvia about her entrepreneurial journey, the projects currently taking shape at re.store®, the importance of partnerships, and why circularity needs to move from intention to action.
Sílvia’s professional background spans marketing, communication, brand strategy, and the Portuguese textile industry. Over time, she became increasingly interested in the relationship between purpose and commercial viability, and in how businesses could create positive social impact through the way they operate.
That led to a deceptively simple question:
“Can textile waste become a resource, and can that transformation create not only environmental value, but also fair paid opportunities and behavioural change?”
That question became the foundation for re.store®.
For Sílvia, the business brings together many of the disciplines she has developed throughout her career: strategy, brands, partnerships, communication, and business development, while applying them to the challenges of circularity and social innovation.
Her strongest skill, she says, is connecting strategy with execution.
That means moving comfortably between marketing and communication strategy, brand positioning, business development, partnership building, project design, and stakeholder management, while increasingly applying those skills to circular economy, textile upcycling, ESG-related B2B solutions, and pedagogy for change.
“I am particularly comfortable building ecosystems,” Sílvia explains, describing her role as connecting companies, municipalities, social organisations, schools, designers, and production partners around a common objective, and then turning that complexity into something that can actually be delivered.
There is also a strong commercial lens behind the work.
“Impact needs to be measurable, but the solution must also make sense for the client, create value for the people involved, and have the potential to scale.”
One of re.store®’s current priorities is expanding its B2B circular textile solutions for organisations with uniforms, deadstock, fabrics, samples, or other textile materials that could be given a second life.
Rather than treating these materials simply as a disposal problem, re.store® works with clients to identify new applications and create useful products that carry a new story and measurable impact.
One example is the “A EPAL é Pet Friendly” project, developed with EPAL – Empresa Portuguesa das Águas Livres. Through the initiative, discontinued corporate uniforms are transformed into products for pets, including bandanas, raincoats, tote bags, and collars.
It is a straightforward example of the thinking behind re.store®: keeping existing resources in circulation, finding new applications for materials, and turning something that has lost its original function into new environmental, social, and brand value.
But Sílvia sees material transformation as only part of the equation.
The company is also developing circularity and sustainability programmes with companies, municipalities, schools, and public organisations that combine practical upcycling solutions with education and engagement.
“Transforming materials is only part of the challenge; changing behaviours and making circularity understandable is equally important.”
That philosophy is also reflected in the re.store® Circular Lab, a 12-month initiative selected for support through a multinational company’s fund. The project aims to strengthen circular skills, participation, and practical learning, while creating a model capable of continuing beyond the initial funding period.
The scale of re.store®’s work is already tangible.
Across its activity to date, the company has:
Upcycled 10 tonnes of textile materials
Paid more than €76,000 to social partners
Worked with more than 50 B2B clients
Delivered more than 70 awareness and education actions
For Sílvia, these figures demonstrate that circularity can create value on several levels at once: reducing waste, generating income and recognition for people, engaging employees and clients, and making sustainability tangible.
This is also where her commercial background becomes particularly relevant. The objective is not simply to create a “green” product, but to develop something useful, appropriate to the client, and capable of creating value for everyone involved.
One of the collaborations Sílvia is particularly keen to highlight is with Musicmaker, an Irish company and fellow IPBN member.
The relationship began as a client partnership but developed into something much broader, with both companies experimenting with materials, products, and ideas through an ongoing process of co-creation.
Together, they have developed a range of projects, including tote bags, merchandising items, guitar straps made from different upcycled materials, and packaging propositions, all combining circularity, functionality, and brand identity.
For Sílvia, the value lies as much in the relationship as in the finished products.
Musicmaker Dublin has been willing to test ideas, explore new materials, and work collaboratively rather than treating re.store® simply as a supplier.
“This partnership is a very good example of what can happen when a company genuinely supports an impact-driven business and is willing to innovate collaboratively.”
It is also a particularly relevant example for the IPBN community.
A Portuguese impact business and an Irish company have developed a long-term relationship that combines business, innovation, and shared values, demonstrating the kinds of tangible connections that can emerge through the Ireland-Portugal business community.
Alongside re.store®, Sílvia continues to work through Creative Zone on strategy, marketing, and communication projects, particularly in B2B and industrial contexts.
The two areas reinforce each other. Her consulting work keeps her close to business realities and market needs, while re.store® continually challenges her to rethink how companies can create value and impact.
It is a combination that reflects Sílvia’s broader approach to entrepreneurship: impact and commercial value do not have to sit on opposite sides of the equation.
Instead, the opportunity lies in designing solutions where they reinforce one another.
Sílvia’s message to the IPBN community is particularly practical.
If your organisation has uniforms, unused textiles, event materials such as outdoor banners or roll-ups, or branded textile stock sitting in storage, she suggests starting with a different question.
“Do not start by asking only how to dispose of it. Ask what value can still be created from it.”
For organisations looking to move beyond generic sustainability commitments, re.store® offers a way to turn circularity into something concrete and visible, through B2B upcycling solutions, social-impact production, and pedagogy and engagement programmes.
And for Sílvia, there is still plenty of room for collaboration.
She is interested in connecting with companies and partners who believe that commercial value, environmental responsibility, and social impact can reinforce one another.
Those, she believes, are the collaborations capable of moving circularity from intention to action.
Learn more about re.store® and connect with Sílvia through the IPBN network.
| The IPBN is supported by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade of Ireland under the ESP Grant programme |
