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Repurpose with Purpose is Southwest Airlines’ global environmental sustainability initiative that upcycles aircraft seat leather, helping keep waste out of landfills.
After traveling millions of miles in the sky to connect Southwest Customers to what is important in their lives, this aircraft seat leather is then transformed into new products by community partners. We collaborate with nonprofits, foundations, schools, and social enterprises to achieve the main goal of our program: minimize waste while maximizing social impact. The program includes 12 partners benefitting diverse communities including veterans, active-military members, women overcoming addiction, students, artisans, rural and indigenous communities, survivors of human trafficking, and people experiencing homelessness.
Repurpose with Purpose was founded in 2014 after Southwest updated its seat design to utilize “ELeather,” a recycled material manufactured using leather offcuts destined for the landfill. The change had both environmental and financial benefits. The new, lightweight leather reduced the weight of each aircraft by up to 600 pounds which increased the fuel efficiency of each flight. However, this change also left Southwest with 43 acres of aircraft seat leather that was no longer needed. Today, the program utilizes leather acquired through ongoing aircraft renovations and retirements.
Since 2014, Southwest has donated more than $2 million in grants and 1.4 million pounds of leather to provide employment, skills training, and other social benefits for communities. This includes over 52,000 individual seat covers which have been donated since January 2023.
The aircraft seat leather is used in a variety of ways to maximize social impact across the U.S. and Costa Rica.
- Help Heal Veterans utilizes the leather to create art therapy kits which are provided free of charge to veterans and active-duty military members to aid their recovery. Since 2023, more than 100,000 kits made with aircraft seat leather have been delivered to thousands of military members.
- Rethreaded employs women to handcraft products made with Southwest aircraft seat leather. The Jacksonville, FL nonprofit has sold over $1 million in products made with Southwest aircraft seat leather, resulting in more than 30,000 hours of employment and support services for survivors of human trafficking.
- Unshattered uses the donated leather from Southwest to create their Possibilities Take Flight collection of sustainable travel bags which are designed and handcrafted by women in addiction recovery. Unshattered has generated over $100,000 in revenue since 2023 from products made with Southwest aircraft seat leather to support women overcoming addiction. This revenue covers the employment of two of Unshattered’s twelve employees for an entire year.
- Houston-based nonprofit design house, Magpies & Peacocks, dedicated to the collection, curation, and sustainable reuse of post-consumer textiles to disrupt the cycle of waste in the fashion industry.
- Many of our partners joined together to provide unique opportunities for students when we launched Repurpose with Purpose Goes to School. This collaboration first began when leather was donated to art classrooms across the Metro Nashville Public School District. Since our initial launch, the program has grown with the help of another partner organization — EcoRise. As our program expands, we will continue to work with our partners to scale Repurpose with Purpose Goes to School in other school districts throughout Texas and Georgia. More than 12,000 students have been positively impacted by the program.
In addition to leather, Southwest has donated numerous salvaged airplane items to nonprofits and schools. These include rows of seats for aviation classrooms, engines for student training, refurbished airplane carpet for Ronald McDonald House locations, and portions of a fuselage to create a nonprofit’s arts and crafts space.
What makes this program unique and forward-thinking is how Southwest collaborates with and supports its community partners. We support organizations holistically through grant funding, tickets, volunteer activations, and in-kind donations.
Our goal is to allow discarded materials to be transformed in ways that make a positive impact in the communities we serve.
Nomination Title: Southwest Airlines Repurpose with Purpose: From Trash to Treasured Social Impact
