SwagCycle has reached another major milestone.

The sustainability platform designed to solve the growing challenge of responsibly disposing of obsolete branded merchandise has facilitated more than $10.9 million in charitable donations and diverted more than 3.13 million promotional products from landfills through donation, recycling and upcycling initiatives since its founding in 2019.

SwagCycle partnered with Delivering Good to solicit donations from industry companies, including Counselor Top 40 distributor Kotis Design (asi/244898), to support California wildlife relief.

Over the last six years, SwagCycle has become an enabling technology for suppliers, distributors and end-buyers striving to meet environmental and social impact goals, offering turnkey solutions to manage excess inventory – whether due to rebrands, mergers and acquisitions, regulatory compliance or simple overproduction – while aligning with broader environmental, social and governance commitments, according to Ben Grossman, co-president of Somerville, MA-based distributor Grossman Marketing Group (asi/215205) and founder of SwagCycle.

“We created SwagCycle to give companies a better way to handle excess branded merchandise – one that’s good for the planet, good for communities and good for business,” added Grossman, part of Counselor’s Power 50 list of the most influential people in promo and a member of ASI’s Promo for the Planet Editorial Advisory Board. “We’re incredibly proud of the momentum we’ve built and the industry-wide collaboration that’s making this impact possible.”

SwagCycle helped facilitate a number of high-value donations in the past year. As part of alphabroder’s (asi/34063) merger with Counselor Top 40 supplier S&S Activewear (asi/84358), SwagCycle facilitated the donation of hundreds of thousands of apparel items to Provision Ministry, a Massachusetts-based nonprofit serving veterans, children and families.

In response to the California wildfires earlier this year, SwagCycle partnered with Delivering Good to launch a nationwide call for support. Outreach to SwagCycle’s promo industry network resulted in nearly $500,000 in donated goods, including contributions from companies that include Counselor Top 40 distributor Kotis Design (asi/244898), Little Pepper Promotions (asi/377408), Social Imprints (asi/164607) and Probitas Promotions.

The platform also provided ongoing support to organizations including the Chicago Refugee Coalition and Birth Brite Foster Closet, furthering its mission to place high-quality branded goods in the hands of communities that need them most.

In addition to facilitating donations, SwagCycle worked with companies that needed to recycle items, rather than keeping them in circulation, for security reasons. For instance, the platform worked with several financial institutions and Fortune 500 companies to securely recycle branded uniforms after rebrands and acquisitions. These projects helped mitigate brand security risks and comply with internal policies while also keeping branded items out of landfills, according to Grossman.

SwagCycle also helped a distributor to recycle thousands of high-visibility safety vests used by a major technology client, ensuring the materials were diverted from landfills and directed toward alternative industrial uses – underscoring the broader sustainability potential of often-overlooked product categories like workwear.

Grossman noted that sustainability has been shifting from a “nice-to-have” to a business imperative, and SwagCycle meets that need by helping to redefine how the promotional products industry manages end-of-life inventory. By combining charitable giving with scalable recycling and upcycling solutions, the platform is helping to reshape how brands think about product responsibility and environmental impact, he added.

“We’ve always believed sustainability shouldn’t be complicated,” said Grossman. “SwagCycle exists to make it easy for brands to do the right thing – while aligning with their values and compliance goals.”

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