EnvironMental with Dandelion

This episode of EnvironMental is about Marketing!

On this episode of EnvironMental we had an inspiring conversation with Sara Ibrahim around sustainable personal fashion.

This week we're welcoming Toby Radcliffe, Cofounder of ZeroBees, to the podcast!

ZeroBees is on a mission to make it easier for small and medium businesses to reach net zero.

They focus predominately on helping businesses reduce their CO2e by making short and long term plans with quantifiable benefits.

Toby talks to us about shifting our language from "reduction and offsetting" to "CO2e reduction and climate investment."

And he reminded us of the best ways to reduce is to start with the low hanging fruit: make sure your electricity is renewable, that you're minimizing travel, and that you're engaging your employees in the reduction too.

And then when you've reduced as much of your carbon footprint as possible, consider climate investment with a small project that is robust, accountable, permanent, and that you're paying a decent amount for it!

You can learn more about Zero Bees at the website: https://www.zerobees.com/

and you can reach Toby via email here: [email protected] 

This week we're welcoming Grace Moore to the podcast to talk about her brand, Atlo!

Atlo is pioneering the refillery movement in Atlanta, Georgia with a mobile refillery and an online accessories shop.

We talk about what it means to be focused on a low waste lifestyle (not to to be confused with zero waste pressure) and how refilling your products can help people on their low waste journey.

In this episode you hear about how Atlo is dedicated to helping normal people make simple, sustainable changes to reduce the use of containers and single use packaging over time. Because lots of people making a simple shift is better than a few people huge changes.

Learn more about Atlo and their refillery mission here: https://www.helloatlo.com/

This week we're welcoming Lizzie Horvitz, sustainable entrepreneur, onto the podcast to talk about her business, Finch!

Finch is a new browser extension that is about to be a serious game changer in the sustainable ecommerce space. It's going to make it easy (!) to find the most sustainable products on the market, right as you shop!

Imagine that you're browsing around on Amazon, looking for something like, wipes. You choose a product that SAYS it's sustainable - but heck, how can you really know? FINCH! You just open up your Finch browser extension, and you can see both the sustainability rating for the product you're viewing AND a few sustainable alternatives to check out instead. (how incredibly helpful is that, right?) 

It's launching in January of 2022, so head over to their homepage to sign up for their waitlist!

https://www.choosefinch.com/#/

Lizzie invites you to reach out to her with any questions - but do it quick. Because they're still small enough that she personally answers questions right now, but we have a sneaking suspicion that it won't be long before Finch is a sustainable-household name!

This is one launch we are waiting in anticipation for! 

Less than 20% of textile waste either stay on the market or get recycling Another quarter is incinerated which is CO2 intensive and the rest ends up in the landfill!  

Like most things, the problem came up before we had even thought about the future. Literally millions of tons of textile waste is created globally every year and there isn't a clear solution yet.   

There are a lot of people that have taken up the challenge though!  There are thousands of homesteader articles giving you a lot of ways to upcycle your old clothing. From making kitchen rags and reusable food wraps to makeup removal pads and scrunchies - you can turn your favorite old clothes into new beautiful accessories.  

You can also compost your 100% natural textiles and take back programs are cropping up around the world.  And there's tech in its infancy that pulls apart clothes, and respins it to twine that can be used to make new fabric!  

References and Promised Links: 

TerraCycle Program: https://www.terracycle.com/en-AU/zero_waste_boxes/fabrics-and-clothing-en-au 

Wolkat: https://www.wolkat.com/ 

New Order of Fashion lab for recycling clothing: https://neworderoffashion.com/lab/ 

Fashion Waste Index: https://labfresh.eu/pages/fashion-waste-index 

BBC stats : www.bbc.com/future/article/20200710-why-clothes-are-so-hard-to-recycle

In this week's episode, Courtney answered the question:

This week on our sustainability podcast, we're still covering Fast Fashion  - and it feels like we're getting to the nuts and bolts of the problem here.

Sources: 

https://ehjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12940-018-0433-7

https://highline.huffingtonpost.com/articles/en/the-myth-of-the-ethical-shopper/

https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/The-Big-Story/How-the-death-of-fast-fashion-is-transforming-Asia-s-garment-industry

Last week, we learned that getting legitimate data on the impact of the fashion industry is a real challenge. So we decided that the best way to take a look at the industry is to break down the supply chain.

This week, aub shares the lay of the fabric-land. 

There are tons of fabric types out there, so she covered the most popular.

 - Polyester and Nylon (AVOID)

 - Rayon/Viscose (AVOID)

 - Cotton (CHOOSE ORGANIC)

 - Lyocell (GREAT)

 - Linen (GREAT)

 - Bamboo (CHOOSE OEKO-TEX CERTIFIED)

 - Hemp (GREAT)

 - rPET (OKAY FOR THINGS THAT DON'T GO OFTEN THROUGH THE WASH)

The best suggestions we have for choosing fabric:

 - your best solution is choosing recycled, organic, and natural fabrics. 

 - go with all natural fabrics

 - make sure they are grown organically

 - and look into how they're processed

 - look for certifications like GOTS or OEKO-TEX

Three fantastic resource guides for you:

https://www.sustainyourstyle.org/en/fiber-ecoreview

https://www.sustainablejungle.com/sustainable-fashion/sustainable-fabrics/

https://greenstory.ca/resources/sustainability-guides/green-fabric-guide/

Other Resources for this episode:

Rayon is bad for the environment: https://www.bbcearth.com/news/fashion-materials-you-didnt-realise-were-bad-for-wildlife

The Soil Association's cotton guide: https://www.soilassociation.org/causes-campaigns/our-climate-in-crisis/thirsty-for-fashion/

The World Counts difference between organic and conventional cotton:  https://www.theworldcounts.com/challenges/consumption/clothing/cotton-farming-water-consumption/story

This is the first podcast of our fashion industry sustainability topic.

In this episode,  we're feeling a little frustrated. We've been talking about, learning, and working within the sustainability sector for a while.

And the issues within the fashion industry are inescapable!

Especially right now, it seems like everywhere we turn there's a new finding or data point or study talking about the impact of the fashion industry on our planet.

But actually - it turns out that a lot of those sound bites are from out-of-context sources.

And it is very hard to find real, clear data around the fashion industry and the impact it has.

This is partially due to the intentionally opaque nature of the industry, the massive scale on which fashion is produced, and how intertwined this industry is with a lot of the other polluters on the planet.

Throughout the conversation, we decided that for this topic, we want to break down the supply chain and dive into each part of the fashion industry to understand it better!

Here are some resources we turned up as we were searching:

The Vox Article we mention in the episode: https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2020/1/27/21080107/fashion-environment-facts-statistics-impact

Here's some info about the mushy and intermixxed the fashion industry is: https://ecocult.com/now-know-fashion-5th-polluting-industry-equal-livestock/

The Geneva network offers stats from well known sources like INEP, the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, UNCTAD, and the WTO. Are those stats real? Hard to tell, but here's the article for you to read what we know so far: https://www.genevaenvironmentnetwork.org/resources/updates/sustainable-fashion/