Circular Procurement
Transforming discarded materials into usable, quality products.
Building Circular Economies
That Work for Women.
SERA Foundation designs and implements circular procurement systems that connect women producer communities to corporate and institutional markets through ethical, resilient, and standards-based value chains.
Turning sustainability commitments into practical supply systems, we help organizations create measurable environmental and social impact through procurement.
Who We Are
SERA (Sustainable Economies and Resilient Access) is a systems-focused nonprofit organization working at the intersection of circular economy, ethical procurement, and women's economic participation.
We design practical pathways that connect women producer communities to formal markets through circular value chains, procurement partnerships, and standards-aligned supply systems.
Our work bridges the gap between sustainability commitments and the real economies required to make them possible.
The System Problem
The Gap Between Commitment and Reality
Around the world, sustainability and gender commitments are growing faster than the systems required to implement them.
Too often, women producer groups remain excluded from formal procurement pathways, while companies struggle to translate ESG ambitions and regulatory requirements into operational supply chain models that are transparent, measurable, scalable, and commercially viable.
At the same time, circular economy initiatives frequently remain isolated pilots, disconnected from the long-term market relationships needed to create durable impact.
Organizations increasingly face expectations to demonstrate measurable progress on sustainability and inclusion, yet often lack operational models capable of delivering these outcomes through everyday business practices.
SERA exists to bridge these gaps.
What We Do
Building Bridges Between Markets, Materials, and Women's Livelihoods
SERA designs market-integrated systems that embed social impact directly into procurement. Our work is structured around pillars, not projects. These are durable capabilities that connect women producer communities to formal markets through circular value chains.
Women's Economic Participation
Supporting women producer groups through market access, standards alignment, and long-term procurement integration.
Institutional & Corporate Partnerships
Helping organizations operationalize their sustainability commitments.
Systems Design & Knowledge
Developing replicable models, operational frameworks, and practice-based insights for the wider sector.
How We Do It
From opportunity to measurable impact
Our Approach
Built into the economy, not added to it
Unlike charity-driven models or temporary interventions, SERA works where field implementation, institutional strategy, and commercial systems meet.
We believe durable impact comes from integrating circularity into the economy and procurement. We design repeatable systems that connect recovered materials, women producers, and procurement, allowing sustainability commitments to become part of everyday business operations.
We treat circularity as a sourcing question, not a disposal question.
Areas of Work
Four pillars, one system
01
Circular Procurement
We treat discarded materials and underutilized resources as the starting point for creating new value chains. We begin with real market demand, identifying which recovered materials can meet it and what production capacity is needed to deliver products that meet commercial standards.
- Material diversion and recovery mapping
- Procurement specification and standards alignment
- Supplier development and qualification
- Traceability and impact reporting
02
Women's Economic Participation
Producers are economic actors, not beneficiaries.
Our work centers on the commercial readiness, standards alignment, and long-term procurement relationships that allow producer communities to become active stakeholders in the markets they supply.
03
Ethical Supply Chains
For partners facing rising regulatory and reporting requirements, SERA translates ethical sourcing commitments into operational systems that can be documented, audited, and trusted. Traceability is designed into the value chain from material recovery through production to delivery, so that social and environmental claims rest on verifiable practice.
We help ensure that sustainability and procurement claims are supported by documented practice and credible evidence.
- Supplier due diligence
- Social and environmental safeguards
- Documentation aligned with reporting requirements
04
Systems Design & Advisory
Replicable models, not one-off pilots.
SERA helps organizations design circular procurement systems that can be operationalized and scaled. We bring a systems perspective, mapping the actors, incentives, and flows that shape outcomes, and turning strategy into implementable models. Our advisory work draws on direct field implementation, so recommendations are grounded in operational reality rather than theory.
- Circular procurement model design
- Stakeholder and systems mapping
- Implementation roadmaps
- Monitoring and impact frameworks
About SERA
Why SERA exists, structurally
SERA was founded to work between field implementation, institutional strategy, and commercial systems, building the connections that let all three function together. We do not position women as beneficiaries. We work with women as producers, economic actors, and system builders.
Mission
SERA Foundation builds inclusive economic systems that bridge women producer communities, corporate buyers, and institutional actors through circular value chains and resilient market access.
Vision
An economy in which circularity and women's economic participation are built into how markets work, not added to them as afterthoughts.
What Guides Us
Our values
Systems over interventions
We build repeatable, scalable systems rather than one-off projects.
Producers, not beneficiaries
Women are economic actors and partners, central to how value is created.
Operational realism
We design for what can be delivered to standard, at volume, over time.
Traceability & accountability
Claims rest on verifiable practice, documented at every step.
Market integration
Impact is embedded in procurement and commercial relationships, not adjacent to them.
Durable impact
We measure success by long-term participation, not short-term activity.
Leadership
Founder
Izabela Erşahin
FounderIzabela Erşahin is a social entrepreneur and systems-builder with over 15 years of experience working across circular economy, ethical supply chains, and women's economic empowerment. As founder of SERA Foundation and Vice Chair of WFTO Africa, Middle East & Türkiye, her work focuses on building practical bridges between corporate sustainability commitments and women-centered production economies through procurement-driven, market-based models.
Before founding social enterprises in Türkiye, she worked in luxury fashion in Paris, including at Yves Saint Laurent. Her work today sits at the intersection of circular procurement, hospitality sustainability, fair trade, and inclusive economic systems.
Structure & Team
Governed for transparency
SERA Foundation is structured as a Dutch stichting, designed around transparency, mission integrity, and accountable governance aligned with ANBI principles. SERA's board, advisory structure, and wider team will be introduced here as the foundation completes its formation.
Featured Initiative
Diversey's Linens for Life™
Every year, the hospitality industry retires large volumes of linen that still retain significant material value. Diversey's Linens for Life™ transforms these discarded textiles into high-quality products that re-enter hospitality operations through circular procurement, creating measurable environmental and social value with every purchase.
The initiative brings together:
- Textile diversion, keeping valuable materials in circulation
- Ethical sourcing, building transparent and responsible supply chains
- Women's economic participation, creating market opportunities through production
- Operational impact, embedding sustainability into everyday procurement
Designed as a replicable procurement model, Linens for Life™ demonstrates how circularity, ethical sourcing, and women's economic participation can work together within everyday business operations.
A model, not a pilot, built to scale across markets and geographies wherever hospitality operations, recoverable materials, and producer capacity meet.
The Model
A closed-loop procurement model
Our Measure of Success
Building Durable Impact
Success is measured not only by activity, but by lasting participation in the economy.
SERA measures success through durable market participation, operational integration, and long-term economic resilience. We measure what matters and report what can be verified.
Women Engaged
Producers integrated into formal procurement.
Textile Diverted
Material redirected from waste streams.
Income Generated
Value flowing to producer communities.
Circular Products Delivered
Finished goods returned to market.
CO₂ Emissions Avoided
Emissions prevented by keeping textiles in circulation.
Verified impact metrics forthcoming as programs scale.
Partnership
Partnership as Infrastructure
SERA works through cross-sector partnerships that connect corporate actors, institutional stakeholders, operational implementers, and women producer communities.
Our partnership model is built on mutual accountability, operational realism, and measurable implementation. We believe systems succeed when responsibility is shared across the actors that shape them.
- 01 Hospitality groups
- 02 ESG & sustainability teams
- 03 Foundations & institutional funders
- 04 Ethical brands
- 05 Social enterprises
- 06 Standards organizations
Work With Us
Build Better Systems With Us
Whether you are a corporate partner, institutional organisation, producer organisation, or sector stakeholder, SERA collaborates with organisations seeking practical pathways toward more inclusive and circular economies.
If you are ready to move from commitment to implementation, we would welcome a conversation.
Contact
Start a conversation
Location
Netherlands
SERA Foundation, Stichting in formation
Connect
Response
We read every enquiry and aim to respond within a few working days.