How to green the supply chain? How can consumers become truly green if suppliers – of fashion products and designer-brands – don’t come up with the goods? Here’s a band of designers who are opting out of the mainstream to spend time focusing on supply chains and waste prevention. Meanwhile, working with a global conservation organization, the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), Interface has created a partnership called Net-Works that works with local people in 26 villages in Danajon to collect, clean, and bale old nylon fishing nets. Carpet tiles out of the blue are the result. Read More

Amy DuFault in Guardian Professional (16 September 2013)

A band of independent, sustainable designers tired of keeping pace with mainstream fashion are opting off the traditional fashion calendar this season. Many designers who have routinely shown at New York fashion week in the past, have this year declined paying thousands for an opportunity they say doesn’t help generate sales.

Still presenting themselves to the buying public and boutique owners, these designers are now relying on multimedia catalogues, pop-up shops, film and creative collaborations, and are going on record declaring that by venturing away from the traditional fashion route, they are finally turning a small profit after years of barely breaking even.

Carrie Parry, a Brooklyn-based designer of an eponymous womenswear label and recipient of the Eileen Fisher 2012 business grant for women entrepreneurs, says she decided to recreate her fashion model this year, putting a stop to shows in order to spend more time exploring her supply chain.

“Consumers want to buy pieces that can be worn when they see them in the media. The fashion industry’s system of showing collections six months prior to shipment and selling collections out of season is no longer applicable to today’s culture,” says Parry.

Parry adds that by delivering meaningful design with quality workmanship and fabrication, her fashion business model no longer needs to sacrifice these points for pace. She explains that getting off the fashion calendar makes for increased flexibility in production time, more time to develop and produce during the off-season, giving her factories consistent work and managing inventory better to prevent waste.

Known for pioneering zero-waste garments, Tara St James, founder of Study NY, has shown during New York fashion week for the past three seasons but has also opted out of the spring/summer 2014 showing to take a closer look at her business model.

When St James started Study in 2009 with the Square Project, a collection of zero waste garments made using squares, it was intended to be more of a research project than a collection – hence the name of her line.

“I was quickly absorbed into the fashion system and therefore the calendar by buyers and press. It took until now for me to realise that I didn’t have to subscribe to anything, and I could create my own calendar,” says St James.

She says it has become increasingly obvious that not only do the production methods used by fast fashion companies and designers have a huge impact on the environment and the socio-economic wellbeing of other human beings, but our consumption has got so out of control that a statement needs to be made.

“My goal is to limit the availability of the brand to customers and hope they will carry these consumption values to other items. I only produce what I believe is beautiful and wanted,” she says.

But when it comes to creating limited quantities of cherished garments, the public might be scratching their heads wondering how that model equates to profit. St James says that her boutiques have been incredibly supportive of her changes and it has allowed her to learn more about their needs.

“If I’m being completely honest, not all designers – including myself – are good at all seasons or all commodities, and by eliminating those weaker points, changing the business model accordingly allows designers to focus their time, energy and money where it will be most beneficial and least wasteful,” says St James.

Adrienne Antonson of State draws parallels to St James and says she sees opting off the fashion calendar as not so much a re-creation of a fashion model, but more so charting her own course.

Coming to fashion from a background in art allowed Antonson a different path from the beginning. Whereas many fashion designers are taught to design on the calendar, Antonson realised early on that the frantic fashion pace never felt right.

“At the end of the day we’re just making clothes – it doesn’t need to be so stressful. I try to remind myself of that every day, though it’s difficult in New York. The pace is contagious,” says Antonson.

Antonson recently created a printed Secret Summer catalogue, which served as a fashion meets multimedia art project bringing together her favourite designers, photographers, and friends. More than a collaboration, she says it was a way to reach customers and get them excited about new ways of shopping.

“We’re all so over-saturated as consumers that as a brand it’s key to think of new, sideways approaches that get people engaged,” she says.

While interacting and selling directly to customers might seem only for the lucky or “in the know,” designers like Antonson see the relationship as vital.

“There’s a lot of talk in the design community about the ‘broken system’ and wasteful industry. But, ultimately, the calendar is how the money flows,” says Antonson, adding that stores buy on the calendar, and designers also need stores.

“A fellow designer recently told me I was brave for not doing market this season, and instead opting to slow down, take better care of myself, and focus on the online shop. I’m taking that as a compliment, and seeing where it leads.”

Amy DuFault is a writer and sustainable fashion consultant. In addition to being a former co-owner of an eco-boutique and a rep for sustainable designers, she coaches and connects the sustainable fashion community

Source: www.theguardian.com

How Net-Works fishes for a triple bottom line

By Mikhail Davis for greenbiz.com (19 July 2013):

How Net-Works fishes for a triple bottom line

An impoverished and spectacularly biodiverse region of the Philippines, Danajon Bank, boasts one of only six double barrier reefs in the world. But it is also one of the planet’s most degraded coral reefs due to unsustainable fishing practices and the dumping of enough worn fishing nets to circle the earth 1.5 times if laid out end to end.

Working with a global conservation organization, the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), Interface has created a partnership called Net-Works that works with local people in 26 villages in Danajon to collect, clean, and bale old nylon fishing nets. Thanks to the Econyl Regeneration System, an innovative process developed by nylon producer Aquafil, the nets can then be recycled into new carpet fiber.

Less trash in the ocean, new income for impoverished people and beautiful new carpet from recycled materials. What’s not to like? Could this nascent supply chain initiative be a path to the kind of triple bottom line fantasy we’ve all been searching for?

In last month’s column, I examined a commercial about turning PET bottles into carpet that sounded good until we took a closer look. How does this happy recycling story in Danajon Bank hold up under scrutiny?

1. Does using the recycled material reduce the use of virgin materials and reduce the life cycle environmental impact of producing the product?

This brings clouds of doubt over our Danajon Bank recycling fantasy when you consider that the fishing nets are shipped from the Philippines back to Aquafil in Europe, and then to one of Interface’s carpet factories in Europe, the United States or East Asia as finished yarn. Doesn’t all that transportation offset any environmental benefits of using recycled content nylon instead of virgin materials?

Actually, it doesn’t.

This is exactly the kind of comparison that life cycle assessment (LCA) is good at making. Patagonia has made these LCA calculations for its own global supply chain for polyester garment recycling. Even after accounting for transportation of recycled materials from California to Asia and back, using recycled polyester emits 71 percent fewer greenhouse gas emissions than making polyester from virgin petrochemicals.

The Net-Works global supply lines are bit longer than Patagonia’s, but the carbon footprint of virgin nylon is also about five times that of virgin polyester, so sourcing recycled nylon from the Philippines still has 56 percent less climate change impact than using virgin nylon. The Danajon nets become part of Aquafil’s Econyl nylon-6, made entirely from non-virgin sources by regenerating fishing nets, carpet waste and industrial scrap (including 50 percent post-consumer materials), yielding all the durability required for commercial carpet without the egregious environmental footprint associated with making this plastic from virgin oil.

2. Does using the recycled material reduce the negative impacts associated with end-of-life disposal?

If the first question took some serious explaining, the second is more intuitive. Just the removal of the fishing nets from reefs, beaches and other habitats in Danajon Bank would be ecologically beneficial, even if no one recycled them. Fishing nets discarded in the ocean do not know that no one will pull them up again. They continue entrapping fish, turtles, seals and other sea life. This phenomenon is known as “ghost fishing” and is one factor that has degraded the fisheries and damaged the economy of the Danajon Bank and other ocean-dependent communities worldwide.

In 2011, Aquafil launched a program to source new waste streams to feed its Econyl plant, including collection of used nylon nets from the aquaculture and fishing industries. This led Miriam Turner, Interface’s assistant vice president of co-Innovation, to ask, “Could we take this down to the community level and benefit some of the poorest people in the world? What if we could build a truly inclusive business model — buying discarded nets from local fishermen and giving them extra income — while cleaning up the beaches and oceans at the same time?”

Building in the right economic incentives, including community banking systems, ensures that Net-Works will not be a one-time, feel-good beach clean-up, but instead a viable system to keep nets from ending up on the beaches and in the water to begin with.

3. Is the recycled material used in a way that it is recoverable to cycle multiple times through a circular economy?

Once again, we come to the question of whether putting this recycled material in carpet is a dead end, inherently a “one and done” process, rather than a circular one.

The Net-Works material will live out its second useful life as the type of Aquafil yarn used for about half of Interface’s U.S. carpet tile production. At end-of-life, any nylon that can be separated from other carpet tile components can be sent back to Aquafil’s Econyl Regeneration System to become carpet yarn again, so the first challenge is not technological, but logistical. Our ReEntry program recovers our products from all over the United States and Europe for recycling, but we don’t get everything back and the technology to cleanly separate yarn from backing exists only at our facilities in Georgia (U.S.) and the Netherlands.

In the United States, separating nylon for recycling presents a second challenge in that a substantial amount of the nylon face fiber of the carpet remains bound to the backing, even after shearing. Sheared nylon-6 “fluff” from our carpet tiles goes back to Aquafil. The remaining bound nylon is still recycled with the backing into new carpet backing, but this represents a form of downcycling for this expensive and technical material. Innovation in product design and recycling technology are required to ensure that the nylon fishing nets recovered by Net-Works live on as carpet yarn for many cycles, rather than being shifted into the recycled backing material over time by imperfect separation.

At the end of the last column, I promised to show you our perfect recycling fantasy, and this is the best we can do right now. Did we nail it yet? Well, to be fair, only a single ton of Danajon nets has been processed by Aquafil, so our fantasy is still far from realized. We hope that Net-Works, though small and new, proves that it is possible to make a product that is a solution, not a cause of global problems, as Method is attempting to do with its ocean plastic bottle. The biggest promise of recycling is to help build a better economy, one that grows the things we want more of, such as healthy ecosystems and thriving communities.

The ultimate test of recycling systems is to imagine what the world would look like if we scaled them up dramatically. If we could spread the Net-Works template to fishing communities all over the world with the right local partners, we could grow our supply of raw materials while restoring fisheries and coastal ecosystems, creating more stable and diversified local economies and reducing the environmental footprint of our products.

There’s much work to be done to make this triple bottom line fantasy a global reality, but it’s one more step toward proving that we really can leave the world better with every yard of carpet we make and sell.

If a carpet company can do it, maybe any company can.

Mikhail Davis is director of restorative enterprise for Interface in San Francisco. Interface is the world’s largest manufacturer of modular carpet and has promised to eliminate its negative impact on the environment by 2020.

Source: www.greenbiz.com