Day: 19 August 2025

Nuffield Foundation announces £150 million funding commitment to tackle UK’s biggest social challenges

Stuart Mitchell

The Nuffield Foundation launches a major new Strategic Review, backed by a £150 million spending commitment, to fund research and innovation that addresses some of the UK’s most urgent social and economic challenges. The Foundation will commit £30 million annually over the next five years to generate rigorous evidence on, and shape solutions to, intersecting problems impacting UK society which are holding back the country’s future prosperity and wellbeing. The Foundation’s new strategic focus is a response to current global and domestic pressures reshaping UK policy and politics. Evolving areas…

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Chartered Institute of Fundraising launches updated guidance to strengthen face-to-face fundraising

Stuart Mitchell

The Chartered Institute of Fundraising (CIOF) has unveiled new guidance aimed at strengthening best practice and accountability in face-to-face fundraising across the sector. Responding to sector challenges and evolving fundraising practices, and in the wake of the Fundraising Regulator’s Market Inquiry into sub-contracting in face-to-face fundraising, the guidance sets out clear expectations for charities and fundraising agencies, with new sections covering sub-contracting arrangements, safeguarding of fundraisers, transparent job advertising and robust due diligence. The updated framework – which is the first major revision to this guidance since 2016 – provides…

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Price is irrelevant when it comes to the durability of your t-shirt

Stuart Mitchell

A new academic study by the University of Leeds Institute of Textiles and Colour (LITAC) with global environmental action NGO WRAP has concluded that price has very little to do with the durability of most t-shirts sold in the UK, and that spending more money doesn’t guarantee the item will be more hard-wearing.   The findings were presented by PhD student Kate Baker to the Product Lifetimes and the Environment (PLATE) Conference in Aalborg, Denmark and were developed as part of a clothing durability project through the UK Textiles Pact – WRAP’s ten-year…

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Crisp packets, bread bags and yoghurt tops to get a new life as fruit & veg planters for schools

Stuart Mitchell

Hundreds of thousands of pieces of soft plastics, such as bread bags and crisp packets, dropped off by customers at Tesco stores are helping green fingered kids learn about fruit and veg.  As part of the supermarket’s Stronger Starts programme, around 400 schools across the country, that already receive support from Tesco’s Fruit & Veg for Schools initiative, are receiving fruit & veg planters made from recycled plastic, that pupils can use to try out growing their own produce.   To help them get growing straight away, Tesco and its…

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Resale rises: new Amazon research shows pre-owned online shopping now worth £4.3 billion a year in the UK

Stuart Mitchell

Britain’s second-hand shopping boom has grown into a £4.3 billion economy that’s reshaping retail, according to new research carried out by the Centre for Economics Business Research (CEBR) and commissioned by Amazon. The report, which included a survey of 10,000 adults across Europe, reveals UK consumers saved £5.6 billion in 2024 by choosing pre-owned products, with three key factors fuelling this transition: increasing cost-of-living pressures, wider availability of pre-owned products, and heightened consideration of environmental issues among shoppers. The economic story: second-hand growthThe research by CEBR projects this thriving online…

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