Rapanui
Our lifelong mission is to make clothing sustainable.
100 billion items of clothing are bought each year, and with 3 out of 5 tees bought today thrown away within 12 months, that's a dump truck of clothing going to landfill every second. When Mart was 5, he was worried about waste. Together with his brother Rob, they started a brand in the garden shed with a mission to solve it. Today the team continues that work.
Our products are made from natural materials, using renewable energy, and everything we make is designed from the start to be sent back when it is worn out. We make new products from the materials we recover. Instead of making waste, we make new products from it. It's a circular supply chain.
And in our factory on the Isle of Wight, our t-shirts are produced in real time, in the seconds after they are ordered. We only make what people actually need, when they need it. The conscientious application of technology has enabled us to demonstrate that there is a different way of operating, and it works.
Recently we've been building a platform so that anyone in the world has access to our supply chain and tech. It's called Teemill, and it's free.
We've had our share of ups and downs. Like when this happened to our factory.
(It wasn't our fault)
Rebuilding gave us a chance to totally reimagine the way modern factories work.
Instead of producing in bulk, we took the opportunity to build a new type of production process where orders are produced in real time, one at a time, in the seconds after they are ordered - so there is no waste.
Every product we make is designed to be sent back to us when it is worn out.
We make new products from the material we recover, and the cycle itself is renewable. Our products can be returned and remade again and again and again. A pure material makes remanufacturing possible, and means products that are softer, and not harmful to the environment.
It's free to send our products back to us, and we pay the postage in the UK. We'll recover and remanufacture the material into a new product, and we'll reward you with a coupon that you can use to save money on your next purchase.
Learn more about circular fashion and how to send a product back.
And whilst the technology changed everything for us, we know that sustainability is bigger than just us.
So we share access to the supply chain and the technology that we've developed. Anyone can use our systems and tech to start their own brand, build their own store, and connect automatically to our real time production facilities.
We put all this on a platform online, and it's free to use. It's called Teemill.
Our tech has allowed us to bring more sustainable clothing to more people.
We've worked with some amazing organisations to spread sustainable fashion worldwide.
BBC Earth
We teamed up with BBC Earth to create a unique collection of tees and jumpers celebrating the natural world.
And we've been able to use our tech to design solutions to new challenges.
We set out to design a jacket without all the plastic. It took 5 years. Some challenges are harder than others.
We constantly face new challenges as we learn more. But the same values drive us.
Our purpose is to make clothing more sustainable, using the conscientious application of technology and looking for positive solutions across the entire life cycle of a product. Products that are better for the environment and that people love. And we feel like we're just getting started.
We hope you've enjoyed the journey so far.