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In the sustainable fashion world, we often focus on the materials that are used in garments and their particular environmental impacts. I myself have written about innovative textiles like Tencel and apple leather in the past. But thinking beyond just materials, there are other ways to craft sustainable products. We often think of sustainability as reduction of impact but what about creating a net positive? What about generating an output that helps the environment? That’s the aim of going carbon negative–emitting less than zero carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gasses.
Carbon negative principles are difficult to put into action for clothing brands. Think of the amount of industrial machinery and transport that go into making just one shirt. But it’s not impossible.
Sheep Inc. is one of the leaders in the movement toward carbon negativity in clothing. They’re an innovative sustainable knitwear brand with a wide range of simple, clean, well-executed designs. One of Sheep Inc.’s most notable pieces is their take on a plain T-shirt, aptly known as “The T-Shirt.” The most recent innovation to their line of T-shirts, is the Raw White version, launched on July 18th. This piece is a conversation starter–as far as T-shirts go, it’s an investment piece retailing at $140. But it just so happens to be completely carbon negative; from supply chain to manufacturing the non-dyed Merino wool shirt has a negative carbon footprint.
To learn more about carbon negativity, “The T-Shirt,” and what comes next for Sheep Inc., read on for my interview with CEO, Edzard van der Wyck.
Sheep Inc. prides itself on being a carbon negative brand. What does carbon negative mean and how does it work in your case?
Carbon-negativity is when you take more CO2 out of the atmosphere than you produce. Rather than achieve this through buying carbon offsets, we have managed to achieve this naturally — meaning this happens within our supply chain, through manufacturing partners naturally sequestering more CO2 than they produce.
We do this by working with farms that adopt regenerative farming methods. They manage land in a way that results in more CO2 getting taken out of the atmosphere, through natural plant and soil sequestration, than the amount of total CO2 that gets produced on the farm. Including, for instance, a sheep’s methane output. In addition to using regenerative farms to source our raw materials, we then knit all our products totally carbon-neutrally by having all our suppliers running their machinery on solar power.
In addition to having a naturally carbon negative impact, we also invest 3% of our revenue into a biodiversity fund that creates additional positive impact. Important to add is that all the data we have on our impact is third party verified to ensure impartiality. And is all assessed according to the Carbon Neutral Protocol.
Note: The Carbon Neutral Protocol is a third party organization that offers science and policy driven guidelines for businesses aiming to achieve carbon neutrality or carbon negativity. They are one of a handful of organizations that offer validation and certification related to carbon emissions for businesses.
Being a pioneer in carbon negative clothing, what inspired you or gave you a jumping off point?
Our approach was very much around how you could change the behavior of both an entire industry and how consumers behave within that industry. So, we looked at brands like Tesla and Oatly – who have not only created amazing products but through their existence have changed entire industries and shifted general buyer behavior towards more sustainable purchasing habits and away from legacy (i.e. more damaging) products. And in the fashion space itself, a brand like Patagonia has been a huge source of inspiration for us.
What other environmental and ethical considerations does Sheep Inc. take in producing its sustainable knitwear?
We are continuously looking at every part of production and the supply chain to figure out how to improve our impact further. From using recycled wood pellets to power the steamers in the finishing process of manufacturing, to introducing products like the Raw White T-shirt that doesn’t use any dyes. We also introduced bonus payments for any employees at our manufacturers working on our products. To ensure that they are paid more than a fair living wage. But this approach is a continuous journey. It’s never enough. We need to always be interrogating and improving our impact in all areas of the business.
What inspired your endeavor to make carbon neutral clothing?
Whilst running my previous business (also in the fashion space), I saw the impact of fashion on the environment first-hand. So I left my last business to set up Sheep Inc. with the idea of creating a new model for how a fashion business could behave. One that would allow you to create beautiful products, whilst still addressing the climate emergency head on. And I had a real passion for knitwear, so wanted to create something special around that product category.
We built the whole brand off a central question of “how do you set up a fashion brand in today’s world?” — knowing the cliff edge we’re standing on.
We wanted to be representative of how you can operate in fashion in a way that ensures you are part of the solution, not the problem. We wanted to create an example for other brands and future brands to show that there is a better way of doing things.
The T-Shirt is a bit of a departure from your other clothing. What was the genesis for that garment in particular?
We consider ourselves a knitwear specialist, and T-shirts very much still sit in that category. I think our approach was how you could create the best T-shirt out there. And Merino wool really is uniquely suited for the product. With our wool in particular being highly temperature regulating, giving off a cooling effect when the temperature gets high. It also doesn’t absorb moisture or odor. So you can wear it without getting unsightly sweat patches, and you don’t need to wash it often. Rather than needing to wash it, you can just hang it for a while to refresh it. It really is an amazing natural material.
Note: Per Sheep Inc., the raw white T-Shirt boasts a carbon negative footprint of -3.856kg CO2e and requires no need to “offset.”
What can we expect to see from Sheep Inc. moving forward?
Continuous innovation. We don’t want to stop. From the products to the yarn treatments we use, to our use of technology. We want to continuously be ahead of the curve when it comes to our approach to creating products for the fashion industry.
What are some of your sustainability goals for the rest of the year?
We have invested in some great projects on the farms that we work with. Some of these projects take a while to get going, so we’re really excited to see them starting to come to fruition and evolve over the next stretch. This includes protecting endangered wildlife and conservation areas on the farm to ensure cleaner water ways.
The farmers we work with are hugely focussed on ensuring they operate in a way that has a positive impact on the planet — as their industry (in many ways rightly so) is so vilified. So, like us wanting to show that fashion can be done differently, they want to show the same thing can be done in the farming industry.