Episode 18: Sustainable Apparel with Jeff Denby (The Renewal Workshop)

Businesses-Going-Green-Sustainable-Apparel-Image

You probably have some awesome retro clothes in your closet because you want to get as much use out of your clothes as you can. We're with you, but unfortunately, in the USA, 80 pounds of apparel per American per year ends up in the landfill. Luckily, there is a superhero to the rescue. Our guest this episode, Jeff Denby, is the co-founder of a business called The Renewal Workshop that is going to take this linear model and make it circular. It partners with apparel brands to take returned and damaged clothing, clean it and repair it at a factory in Oregon, and then resell it. No matter the state the clothes are in, when they are sent to The Renewal Workshop, there is a no landfill guarantee. After this episode, we guarantee that you'll never look at clothes the same way again.

Learn how more businesses are going green here!

Episode Intro Notes

What We’ll Cover

  • The apparel industry by the numbers

  • Resource use and pollution in the apparel industry

  • Physical apparel waste

  • How to be a responsible consumer of apparel

  • The Renewal Workshop & Jeff Denby

Conventional Apparel Production Numbers

Conventional Apparel Resource Use and Pollution

Conventional Apparel Waste

  • Each year 80 billion pieces of clothing are produced worldwide. Only about 15% of clothing and shoes in the United States are recycled - so the leftover 85% of usable materials are being sent to the landfill. That ends up to 70 pounds of waste per U.S. citizen.

  • According to the Council for Textile Recycling, charities sell only about 20% of the clothing donated to them at their retail outlets. The rest get sold to textile recyclers that then ship it overseas. So much secondhand clothing is flowing into Africa that it’s hurting local manufacturers and creating dependency. In early 2015, a summit of East African leaders actually proposed a ban on the importation of second-hand clothing.

  • The waste issue has not been helped by the emergence of fast fashion (think H&M, Zara, Mango, Forver 21, Topshop).

    • Americans buy almost twice as much new clothing as they did just twenty years ago, averaging a new piece of clothing every four to five days.

  • The fast fashion brands are trying to help their image. H&M has released a goal for 2020 that all of the cotton used must come from sustainable sources.

    • H&M also released a Conscious collection that has clothing items that are made from 100% organic cotton and recycled fabrics

    • In 2013, H&M released a garment collection initiative to do their part in reducing the amount of waste materials that end up in the landfill

      • Since the launch of the initiative, more than 32,000 tonnes of garments have been donated to be recycled or reused. H&M promises one of three fates for your donated clothes: 1) reused in a different capacity; 2) resold in second-hand stores; or 3) recycled into new textile.

      • According to H&M’s sustainability director, only about 0.1% of all clothing collected by charities and take-back programs is recycled into new textile fiber.

How to shop with your morals in mind

  • Focus on the source of the clothing that you’re buying - including where the materials originally came from and where the clothing was manufactured.

    • Most all retailers have a commitment of some sort now but it’s hard to know exactly whether your specific shirt was made in a factory with decent conditions.

  • Check out companies like Jeff Denby’s other brand PACT which focuses on creating apparel that is not made in sweatshops, is ethically produced, uses non-GMO organic cotton, and non-toxic dyes

  • See if the clothing is made from recycled materials and thus is getting close to the holy grail of closed-loop sourcing.

Who’s trying to change the apparel industry

  • The Renewable Workshop’s tagline is that they “Partner with the world’s best-loved apparel brands to bring their big piles to our factory where they’re refurbished to become Renewed Apparel”

  • It works like this: Instead of the store putting a damaged shirt into a warehouse to sit forever, The Renewable Workshop will take it, fix it, and make it into a useful product. 

  • Every garment that makes its way into The Renewable Workshop’s factory in Oregon will leave as a newly repaired and functional piece of clothing, with a no landfill guarantee.

  • The Renewable Workshop is focusing on the backend of clothing production - something the consumer never sees or thinks about - what happens to the clothing that is not perfect 

  • It’s like the ugly/imperfect produce initiatives that are working to end food waste - but for clothing

    • Take a defective shirt and make it work again - avoid the landfill and create a product that can be used for what it was originally was created to be

Jeff Denby

  • Received his BASc in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Waterloo

  • Went on to receive his MBA in Social Responsibility from the University of California, Berkeley, Haas School of Business

  • While pursuing his MBA, Jeff worked on brand and sustainability programs for Gap, Jack Daniel’s and eBay. 

  • Before founding The Renewal Workshop, Jeff was the co-founder of PACT - an apparel brand that aims to change the apparel industry for good. 

    • PACT makes organic cotton basics in a transparent supply chain that aims to improve the lives of the farmers who grow the organic cotton and the workers who make the clothing. 

    • Now, PACT is available in more than 500 retail outlets with partners such as Whole Foods, Nordstrom, and Amazon.