UFF – Briefly in English
UFF is a Finnish, not-for-profit, politically and religiously independent humanitarian foundation that carries out climate action and global development work. The foundation participates in sustainable development through clothing recycling and helping to reduce extreme poverty in the world. In climate work, UFF focuses on clothing collection in Finland, while its global development projects foster education, healthcare, and economic livelihood in Africa and Asia.
To advance its vision UFF implements:
Climate work – UFF’s clothing collection service offers people living in Finland opportunities to participate in everyday climate work by donating unwanted clothes, footwear, and textiles for responsible reuse. We extend the lifecycle of donated usable clothing.
The foundation runs a 24/7 service for collecting re-wearable clothes. The collected items are sorted and handled for sale via retail and wholesale. The sales income forms the financing for the climate and global development actions. The foundation aims for optimal re-use level of the collected items: re-use as such is the primary objective for the goods; use as raw material for manufacturing is secondary; and energy use the very last option.
In here you can find the location of the containers on a map.
Give us feedback or ask about the clothing collection via contact form.
Global development cooperation – With the funds raised through clothing donations, UFF helps people and promotes lifelong learning in the world’s poorest communities. We support the realisation of the UN’s sustainable development goals through education, healthcare, community development, and farmer training. With our projects, we want to be involved in building sustainable and fair development in Africa and Asia.
The foundation partners annually in 30-40 projects building human capacity and sustainable development. The co-operation includes teacher training, improving the quality of education, community development programs, micro entrepreneur and farmer education, biogas projects and education for working children. Lifelong learning via social, ecological and economic sustainability is an integrated aspect in all partner activities.
Communication and advocacy work – on behalf of sustainability. UFF raises issues of sustainable development as topics of discussion and wants to increase climate awareness. We offer up-to-date information on the climate effects of reusing clothing and our global development work. We influence the development of legislation and the operating environment related to clothing recycling, with the goal of increasing the efficiency of clothing reuse.
The foundation communicates about its environmental and global development mission, services, cooperation and impact via events, discussions, panels, interest forums, publications, online channels, social media and on site in clothes-collection locations; and in its fundraising shops with publications and info screen displays.
The foundations’ activities are financed through fundraising by:
– Collecting, sorting, and selling donated clothes, both retail and wholesale,
– Organising opportunities for private individuals and partner organisations to donate for the foundations common benefit work,
– Co-financing specific activities through grants and through the forming of consortiums and partnerships as well as through various financing tools made available by institutional financiers for work for climate and global development action
UFF’s objective is, through participatory methods, to add sustainable value to the society in the form of human and environmental wellbeing. The foundation uses a standardised Enterprise Resource Planning system compatible with the quality management system ISO 9001, the occupational health & safety system OHSAS 18001/ISO 45001 and the environmental impact management system ISO 14001. The operations policy of U-landshjälp från Folk till Folk i Finland sr in its full extent is a public document and made available online.
UFF shops
In 2023, the foundation had 23 shops. Thirteen of the shops were located in Helsinki, three in Tampere, two in Espoo, two in Vantaa, two in Turku, and one in
Jyväskylä. More than one million customers visited our shops during 2023.
The purpose of the shops is to finance the collection and sorting of the donated clothes and to generate funds for development aid projects in Africa and in Asia. The shops are also an important channel for distributing information to Finnish consumers about development projects.
UFF Second Hand Shops are known for their high quality and fashionable selection, clear displays and friendly service. UFF’s registered customers receive special offers via its loyal customer card in the Cardu application. Customers shopping in UFF’s second hand shops are supporting development cooperation and work for environmental protection at the same time.
In here you can find the location of UFF shops on map.
More about UFF
Read more from UFF’s Annual report.
In a Sustainanbility Unwrapped podcast by Hanken School of Economics, Anna Zhuravleva, doctoral researcher in Supply Chain Management and Social Responsibility at Hanken invites two guests from UFF to discuss the future of textile reuse in Finland. Listen to the podcast.
Anna Zhuravleva, researcher at Hanken School of Economics discussing the significance of reuse of clothes and what economic, social and ecological benefits consumer clothes donations have in a blog. Read the blog.