Instituto Lojas Renner completes 15 years
The Instituto Lojas Renner celebrates its 15th anniversary, with the aim of fostering female protagonism in the fashion chain and focusing on transforming women’s lives and community development. The Institution manages the private social investment of Lojas Renner S.A. and, in this period, has already executed or supported almost 1,000 projects that have directly benefited more than 250,000 people across Brazil, allocating about R$ 85 million in the retailer’s own resources or raised through incentive laws. There are three main areas of investment: job and income generation, promotion of agroecological cotton and community development.
The Institute fosters the productive inclusion of social groups in vulnerable situations, especially women, through projects such as Empoderando Refugiadas, in partnership with UNHCR and Global Compact, Empreendedoras da Moda, a digital acceleration project for fashion businesses, and the Edital Empodera, which invested R$3 million to 35 women’s initiatives on fair, inclusive and responsible fashion.
With the community development program, the Institute aims to improve living conditions and social integration in the regions where Lojas Renner is located. This includes partnerships with entities such as the Projeto Pescar, focused on the socio-professional training of young people, and actions with residents and leaders of the Bom Jesus community in Porto Alegre.
The program for the cultivation of agroecological cotton, free of pesticides, benefits more than 330 families of small farmers led mainly by women in the states of Minas Gerais, Paraíba and Ceará. The work, which began in 2017 and as of 2021 takes place through an agreement with the Brazilian Micro and Small Business Support Service (Sebrae), is focused on the implementation, monitoring and qualification of family production. Among the numerous results obtained, we highlight the increase in income for the producing communities and the qualification of their productive capacity. The program has already generated more than 26 tons of raw material, 15 tons last year alone, that were used in the collections of the Re responsible fashion label, from Lojas Renner.
Most of Lojas Renner’s own funds for the Institute are raised by the #AllWomenMoveForwardTogether movement from a percentage of the revenues of the Renner, Ashua, Youcom and Camicado brands and also from Realize, the company’s financial institution. In 2022, the collection reached a record R$ 5.4 million.
Other sources of funding include donations from customers, employees and users of Repassa, Brazil’s largest online second hand selling platform that is part of the retailer’s fashion and lifestyle ecosystem. In addition, the company has a Corporate Volunteering Program that last year alone mobilized almost 500 employees in 3,000 hours in actions with projects and social organizations supported by the Institute.
