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Catherine Weetman talks to Anthony Burns, Chief Operating Officer of ACS in Scotland. ACS started out as a formal-wear hire business, and is now an internationally recognised and award-winning circular fashion enterprise with clothes rental offerings for woman, men, children and babies. It is now working with a wide range of fashion brands, acting as their Circular Service Provider.
We find out how the business has evolved, its progress towards B- Corp status, and about some of its innovations in packaging and garment cleaning.
Anthony explains how he has focused the business on a social responsibility agenda, by becoming an accredited Living Wage provider, being a disability-confident employer, signing the ‘race at work’ charter and being a ‘good neighbour’ in the local community.
Podcast host Catherine Weetman helps businesses use circular, regenerative and fair solutions to do better, with less.
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Read on for more on our guest and links to the people, organisations and other resources we mention.
Links we mention in the episode:
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthony-burns-7a017215/
- https://www.acsclothing.co.uk/
- https://www.linkedin.com/company/acs-clothing-limited/
- https://twitter.com/ACSClothingLtd
- Recommended Guest – Isabella West, Founder and CEO of HireStreet Limited hirestreetuk.com and https://www.linkedin.com/in/isabella-west-6a063754/ and Christine Hunsicker of Caastle https://www.linkedin.com/in/christinehunsicker/ and https://www.caastle.com/
About Anthony Burns
Anthony Burns is the COO of ACS, an internationally recognised business, which empowers fashion retailers and brands to strategically embed, and easily embrace, circular business models. In his role, he sets the strategic priorities of the business and leads the company in growing all areas, including marketing, technology, product and analytics. In 3 short years, Burns’ vision of creating a new economy for apparel is in full swing.
Under Burns’ leadership, ACS has been transformed into a circular fashion enterprise with clothes rental offerings for woman, men, children and babies. The company has already achieved zero waste to landfill and is making huge steps towards net zero emissions.
Anthony has expanded the company’s expertise into garment refurbishment, transforming clothes normally deemed unusable by retailers, into clothes as good as new, which can be resold, and their lifespan significantly increased.
He is an Engineering Graduate with a Masters in Logistics and also an MBA from Strathclyde University. He has established links with most of the leading Universities in Scotland delivering innovation in garment sanitisation, increasing worker activity in the workplace and embracing technologies such as 3d factory simulations. Anthony is a regular lecturer at universities and business schools nationwide. He is currently working with New College Lanarkshire to establish a Sustainable Fashion capability in Lanarkshire.
Under his leadership, ACS has received recognition as nominees and winners of renowned sustainability awards – including Vibes and Drapers.
Burns has focused the business on a social responsibility agenda, by becoming an accredited Living Wage provider, being a disability confident employer and signing the race at work charter. ACS has also been awarded for its employee health and well-being initiatives and is currently working towards B- Corp status.
Anthony Burns’ mission is to improve the sustainability of the fashion industry, and be more socially accountable, while increasing ACS’s turnover by 10-fold within 5-years.
If you’re new to the circular economy, you might like the ‘getting started’ playlist. There’s also an interactive podcast index, making it easy to find episodes on each of the key circular economy strategies or for a specific market sector. And to dig deeper, please check out Catherine’s award-winning A Circular Economy Handbook, published by Kogan Page.
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