The most successful example of social entrepreneurship in Croatia, which employs people with disabilities and provides textile waste management as well as textile production, would not be the success story it is today without the B2B collaboration.

Smarter and stronger through collaboration | Humana x RGNC

Humana Nova

is a Croatian social cooperative founded in 2011. They employ 51 persons and over 60% of them are people with disabilities. Humana Nova does logistics and sorting of textile waste management, sales of textile waste, both B2B as a resource for recycling and B2C in their second-hand shop. Humana Nova is also a textile manufacturing company. They also do service sewing, and have their own textile products: aforementioned B2B products, totes, slippers, T-shirts etc, and upcycled fashion line clothes for women.

It is a stable medium sized company that operates with stability in two industries: manufacturing of finished textile goods and textile waste management. Furthermore, they are the champions of social entrepreneurship in Croatia and admired by all who know their work. But a little known secret is that it took a decade to get there, with some luck, a lot of persistence, much help and even more learning.

The RGNC Group

The RGNC Group story is 70 years long. The company was founded in 1954 as a sorting of textile waste and until March 2023 was doing business under the name Regeneracija. Today, it operates as a holding company consisting of two production companies: Regeneracija non-wovens ltd and reGALERIJA ltd.

Regeneracija non-wovens ltd. combines the collection and recycling of textile waste, the production of raw materials and the production of finished products for various industries, such as construction, furniture and automotive industry, etc.

The partnership

Regeneracija non-wovens ltd. decided to manufacture finished products from regenerated textile fiber and this is how the partnership started in 2013. Humana Nova collected textile waste and sold it to Regeneracija non-wovens, ensuring the employment of their target group. This collaboration is still ongoing, and it is the result of the Humana Nova CEO Ivan Božić being persistent . He saw an opportunity for a potential client and a great chance for a strong partnership and didn’t miss it.

‘’ In waste management, ten plus years ago, the truth is that we were a nobody, but then Regeneration non-wovens came along. And it was like, let's try this. The rest is history. Humana Nova wouldn’t be what it is today without this partnership and the opportunity and knowledge they gave us.’’

Ivan Božić, Humana Nova CEO.

‘’For us, the choice was simple - to use the fact that we are bigger and stronger and to eliminate them or to decide to take a go at it together. I think together is much better! Because of this collaboration Humana Nova is much better today, but we are much better too. We, as a society, cannot be only profit oriented, that is not sustainable, and everything cannot be reduced to the success of one over all and the creation of more and more material value. We cannot live only on simple ideas, we must complement each other and cooperate. Otherwise, we risk destroying everything.’’

Anđelko Švaljek, CEO of RGNC Group

The Impact

The cooperation with RGNC Group currently ensures the income of 11 employees at Humana Nova social cooperative, and majority of these employees are people with disabilities.

The amount of textile handed over to RGNC Group grows every year, in 2023 only it was over 375 tons. In total, the 11 years of collaboration resulted in the impressive mutual impact: 1900 tons of textiles recycled, 6,333,333 m2 of felt created, 1,952,351 m2 of felt packed in the Humana Nova plant.