Provocative Contradictions on Greenwashing

Bret Schnitker  00:01

We live in a world of social media, constant communication, blogging, walking your clientele via social media through hey, look, we really want to do this. Here's our dialog on what our next steps look like. Here's what we're doing internally to make a pathway toward a more sustainable future.

Emily Lane  00:24

Welcome to Clothing Coulture, a fashion industry podcast at the intersection of technology and innovation. I'm Emily Lane.

Bret Schnitker  00:42

and I'm Bret Schnitker. We speak with experts and disruptors who are moving the industry forward and discuss solutions to real industry challenges.

Emily Lane  00:51

Clothing. Coulture is produced by Stars Design Group, a global design and production house with more than 30 years of experience. Welcome back to another episode of clothing Coulture. Today we're back at the bar,

Bret Schnitker  01:06

the coffee bar,

Emily Lane  01:07

that's right,

Bret Schnitker  01:07

yeah, its a little early.

Emily Lane  01:10

Is it? Is it wrong to be at the bar at any time?

Bret Schnitker  01:14

probably not,

Emily Lane  01:15

especially when you haveing coffee

Bret Schnitker  01:16

the first sign of having a problem?

Emily Lane  01:20

Well, we're here today because we like to have kind of our quick turn conversations of topics that are trending, which is a little bit of a different cadence than our normal podcast. And we have had a lot of conversations and questions around greenwashing. Of course, we know greenwashing is not great, right? But this is a very complicated landscape, and there are a lot of things to consider when really understanding greenwashing and the challenges in the sustainability initiatives. So let's kind of break through some of the key topics here. Yeah,

Bret Schnitker  01:57

I think, as you've stated, greenwashing in its purest form. You know, falsely advertising that you're eco friendly to gain commercial market share and revenue is really not a great thing. And there have been a number of companies that have been kind of slapped on the hand or or worse for that. And, you know, I think that it's raised awareness from a consumer level, with decision making on what's truly eco friendly and what's not. When that awareness has been raised, it raises also a very complicated landscape with respect to eco friendly, sustainability, carbon credits, because there's so many different ways to view eco friendliness, right?

Emily Lane  02:41

And a lot of a lot of these various solutions are provide challenges to the the other side of it. You know, as you mentioned, you know, carbon friendly versus sustainable, eco friendly like, yeah, and we've talked a bit about those for

Bret Schnitker  02:58

sure. And you know, awareness is on the rise. 85% of the consumers out there, especially the youth, are saying, Look, we'd love to buy eco friendly. They there's no argument, I think, in general, for most logical, sane people, that we want to preserve our planet and that sometimes they're willing to pay more. That may not translate always to reality, but in thought process and theory, they're willing to pay a little bit more to have eco friendly products, as we've talked before. The real challenge is, there's just not a ton of eco friendly materials on the market. Only about 13% of all materials now that's a little bit on the rise, are really available today. They think, you know, with growth patterns and tagger rates and everything else, that the sustainability market is picking up steam. You know, it's still about 19% of the overall market in all industries, but it's very small. Yeah, and the more that you dive into the conversation, you realize the challenges that exist out there. And you might solve something on a eco friendly front, and on a carbon front, you're not solving it, and people view it in different ways. The more you come to the realization that this is going to be a journey. And like all human journeys, industrialization journeys, our life, journeys, the path for humans going back 1000s of years. It's always been messy. You know, human beings are messy, and it's fraught with not a perfect trajectory upward. Yeah, right,

Emily Lane  04:32

yeah. You, you know, you've mentioned that this is not something you just flip a switch on. I mean, that might be a bit of a misconception among people who are new, rare in the industry, and consumers as well, like, why aren't they? Why aren't they doing this? And you've addressed a little bit of it in just availability of materials. But there's other challenges in this, in this picture of why it's not just a flip the switch, kind of. Thing, yeah,

Bret Schnitker  05:00

for sure, availability being one of them, and and we've talked about that already, but it's just when I've been in conversations, especially with people that aren't in the industry of all ages, but the ones that are more aware of sustainable initiatives are the younger generation that they they really haven't done the research to really understand. They think the reason that we don't have more sustainable products is sustainability requires more effort and more cost, and therefore companies driven by profit don't want to do it. Yeah, they think it's that simple. So just embrace sustainability. Do the right thing, and let's move forward. Let's recycle heavily. Let's do all those. The challenge you have with even recyclability is that, you know, people are kind of staggered by understanding that only 9% of all products are recycled today. 9% Wow, single digit numbers, and we're constantly surrounded by recycled, you know, bins and materials. And you really think that's a much bigger number. But when you take a look at, you know, overall recycling efforts, it's really minimal. And that's why I always push that sustainability must come from the source, the source of material, the source of production, the source of process. Because for years, there's been this initiative, you know, if you remember, years ago, the chief of the tribe with the tear going down, seeing all the pollutants going in and that every consumer must do their part on recycling, it was a failed initiative. There's no infrastructure to be able to digest sustainability. It definitely doesn't really trip a whole trigger, and by putting that on the consumer in general, rising consumer awareness is important, but if you really want to make a lasting change, it comes at the source of all of the production and processes and things that we do,

Emily Lane  06:54

and even that requires a significant investment in resilience. You know, you think about these manufacturing centers, mills and production factories and so forth. You know, for them to all of a sudden flip the switch to 100% sustainable methods is would also require time and significant financial Yeah,

Bret Schnitker  07:17

thankfully, governments are weighing in to provide credits and support and large organizations, like large countries that we saw within or large organizations within countries that we've traveled to. To be very specific, we're seeing this support and growth happening solar power, wind power, recycled water. You know, a lot of these things are happening at a pace that's increasing, which is great news for sustainability. A lot of people question whether it's too late. You know, we're seeing impacts globally that that people are concerned or irreversible, but at least that process is is moving forward, and that's why, you know, wrapping back to the whole very quick to slap and label green washing can be a double edged sword, and the reason that we're kind of jumping on today is that what the the alarming thing that I'm seeing in companies that genuinely want to move down the path of a sustainable, eco friendly front are too nervous to do so, because if they don't do it absolutely perfect, someone slaps the green washing label on them, it becomes a negative as opposed to a positive. And therefore, out of concern, companies are really just dodging the whole entire eco friendly movement, because it can be too painful, because one, they don't understand enough about it, and rightfully so. When you really look at carbon neutral, eco friendly, sustainable initiatives, the complexity in the world, the lack of transparency in terms in terms of manufacturing, that's a huge, monumental task, and people just don't sometimes feel up to it or have the qualifications to be able to monitor it correctly. That, for me, is a concern. Yeah, that for me is that that we need to figure out ways to to support those that are going to go on this journey, albeit a bit messy and slow and slow, right? But, but the messy part is really what I want to call out in terms of this whole quote, green washing concern that's been raised in the media is that that companies are going to step into it, and they're going to do some things right, and they're going to do some things wrong if we embrace and dialog about, hey, here's what you've done right, and here's what you've what you've missed in a holistic and positive way, companies are going to be more more driven to continue that journey if it impacts them negatively, because they've honestly tried to move down. And I am separating those from people that are blatantly utilizing eco friendly, you know, initiatives for profit, but people that are generally walking down this path to learn and make progression in there. And then we all of a sudden, someone comes up and slaps them upside the head for something that wasn't quite right. We're going to slow this movement of better manufacturing towards sustainable initiatives, and we need to be very careful.

Emily Lane  10:35

What do you think a company can do to protect their reputation if they are acknowledging that? Hey, I know this is a journey. I'm not going to be perfect, but I'm going to go for it. You know? What can how? How could a company protect themselves from coming under media scrutiny?

Bret Schnitker  10:57

Yeah, the first step along that path, and and most companies kind of take this initially, is that they pull in a sustainable officer. They do all sorts of diligent research. And that's definitely something that you know. You want to do your research. You want to understand the level of the playing field and what's what you can and can't do in terms of different steps and but not every company of every size. You know, we're, we're a we're also small business. Drives a lot of economic growth and employment, so they don't all have that benefit. To do a large organizations do smaller don't, but at least take the effort to understand the landscape and what you can and can't do. Some companies adopt, hey, we're going to, we're going to tiptoe out there and try, and we're not going to really talk about it. We may put some initiatives that we feel comfortable with on a hang tag or in with a little bit of marketing. And because for fear that they might not have all their act together, they're very, very cautious about that. That's where kind of the green washing challenge comes up, is because they don't communicate. I would say that we live in a world of social media, constant communication, blogging, walking your clientele via social media through, hey, look, we really want to do this. Here's our dialog on what our next steps look like. Here's what we're doing internally to make a pathway toward a more sustainable future and let the media have some conversations. Have dialog about your process, share with the learnings and the challenges that you're dealing with in terms of that. And I think the constant communication as it relates to a sustainable journey reduces media concern. And you know, because you're out there, you're communicating in terms of, hey, we really genuinely want to do this. And here's what we here's the steps we're going to take, and those worked, and this one may not have worked, or we're finding challenges with getting volume up to place, and we're working with different dialogs about that. I think that that, that this communication vehicle exists like no other time in history, and a proper communication with a consumer base, a constant ongoing dialog about that path helps reduce some of that friction that might might bring about. Yeah, someone labeling greenwashing.

Emily Lane  13:32

I think that's smart. You know, communication does a few things. Not only does it educate and engage others around, but it does open the door for other opportunities. As soon as you start sharing the message that this is of importance, and you're seeking ways to embrace this, and you're sharing your your ongoing progress, as soon as you get that information out there, you kind of start attracting other people that are doing similar things. And you know, you can open the door for other options. And it's

Bret Schnitker  14:02

pretty amazing today how we're seeing a change where communities are coming together, manufacturing communities, retail communities, are coming together to dialog about all these initiatives. And when you start reaching out, saying, Look, I'm making a choice on a path, you find that people come back and say, I might have a solution here. I might have an idea, and that helps, you know, propel that. The second process, too, is using companies that have established and well accredited certifications from manufacturing levels. You know, we we've had the president of rap on rap has 1000s of factories under its umbrella as an ongoing effort. And that's one leg of sustainability, right? People plan it, right? Certified materials is a good, safe process to go down the path, because they've taken the extra steps to be oko tech, certified, or sustainable certified, or cradle to grave, or there's just a blue sign. I mean, it goes on and on, and there's all these different certifications that you can have. They're somewhat limited. The materials are somewhat limited, but at least if you're using kind of certified processes and organizations that also helps support, you know, a more solid foundation to you know, to move along that path, is

Emily Lane  15:31

it difficult to find those certified resources?

Bret Schnitker  15:34

It's not difficult to find, depending on the overall volume, it's difficult, difficult to find. We're finding it's difficult to find the volume and metric tonnage that can balance these larger organizations needs for, you know, eco friendly or sustainable product. It's just there is an imbalance today, right? And we'll be having a upcoming podcast with a super exciting group, CiCLO that I think, is this huge game changer in the industry, where, you know, as I started speaking at the very beginning of our our talk here, that it needs to happen at the source. That's something that's happening with CiCLO and I, and if it can be an additive that doesn't necessarily add a lot of cost, but radically change the eco friendly nature of of synthetics in our environment. You know, reducing micro particulates, allowing things to biodegrade and and it's being done at the source. It furthers the ability to rapidly increase sustainable initiatives for all involved. And so more and more of those companies are coming up. They're addressing more and more volume. And so that's going to be exciting. It's just hopefully that happens sooner than later. Yeah, well-

Emily Lane  16:58

Thank you. I think I do want to circle back before we wrap today, um, on that key point too, that the sustainability initiative is bigger than eco friendly, the people, planet profit side of it. And I do think that as an industry, we, we've got the people part really figured out.

Bret Schnitker  17:19

It's, it's, it's definitely come a very, very long way from years and years ago. Yeah,

Emily Lane  17:23

and I wanted to bring that in as a note, because, as you mentioned, having a plan in place that as a as an organization, you are setting, setting, setting up goals to to embrace as you go along this journey, you know, recognizing those multiple pillars and making sure that your plan attacks each one of those pillars will make sure that your sustainability plan is indeed holistic. Yeah, for sure. Any other thoughts,

Bret Schnitker  17:55

I think it's the more people that embrace this, the more people that jump in, the more that we can show some compassion to those that may not do everything, right? Yes, it establish a dialog, as opposed to a wall, right, right? The more that we get more people involved. That's the that's kind of the name of the game. Let's let's all step into it. Let's all continue a dialog, knowing that some things will be perfect. Some things won't. It's perfectly okay, after due diligence and understanding calling out those that are radically violating a sustainable or eco friendly kind of stance for profit or gain, that's okay, but also be willing to understand that we live in a gray world. We don't live in black and white. There's all this kind of thing in the middle for people that are going to do things more effectively and less effectively, because it's really based upon a learning curve, I think is going to help us all empathy

Emily Lane  18:49

and good intentions. Yeah, right. Well, thank you for your thoughts today at the bar, and we look forward to future conversations, and thank you for joining us today, don't forget to subscribe to stay apprised of upcoming episodes of Clothing Coulture.

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