" Good for Business, Good for the Environment"
Authored by Coral Rose
Excerpt from Future Fashion White Pages: this is an excerpt click here to read in full version
I knew that the success of a test in organic cotton would depend on the desirability of the end product. Ladies' apparel happened to be the number one volume category of organic textiles, and also one of the fastest growing. Next, I looked for the number one category in ladies' wear: active wear. Where does organic cotton fit into activewear?
My answer was easy: yoga wear. I understood that organic
cotton wasn't about trend. It was a lifestyle choice. The kind of person who
would value organic would also probably value the comfort and health associated
with yoga. So I developed yoga pants and tops in a selection of pastel colors.
They were priced at a similar point as their conventional cotton counterparts
would have been. My decision was logical, and based upon years of experience.
We sold over 190,000 units in ten weeks, a number that speaks for itself.
What I
learned, and what I'd like to drive home, is that it's about the item. The
average Sam's Club member purchases on impulse. When she finds the right item,
she will buy it. When she realizes it is organic, it fuels her enthusiasm.
Organic cotton is a great added value for the consumer, but what makes her put
down her money is finding the right item.
The yoga
sets let me demonstrate decisively that choosing organic cotton could help a
mass-market retailer meet or even surpass its immediate sales goals while doing
the environment right. If I had developed the wrong yoga set, then the story
would stop there. As it turns out, those yoga sets changed how retailers now
view the opportunity to offer organic cotton to their customers, and it did
transform a niche market fiber into a mass market fiber seemingly overnight.
Whether
they're dealing in apparel or food, because of their sheer size, big box
retailers are in a privileged position to make organic widely affordable. This
is in part because of the relationship they can build with the farmers. One
challenge for the organic cotton farmer is the fact that, unlike the
conventional cotton farmer, he or she must plant a rotation crop in order to
maintain soil health. Wal-Mart has transformed that handicap into an advantage.
In many cases, it is able to offer a market for the rotation crop as well.
This affordability trickles down to the customer. Making organic affordable for consumers was one of my personal motivations.
I have found
that one of the most effective ways to impress this philosophy onto the
corporate team is to take as many of them as possible on a farm tour. In 2005,
we took several Wal-Mart buyers and suppliers to tour organic cotton farms in
California and Texas.
Together
with my team, I watched as crop dusters sprayed the conventional cotton fields
with chemicals to defoliate the leaves from the cotton plant. Then we visited
an organic cotton field. Organically grown cotton uses a natural process
occurring during a seasonal freeze for defoliation. The contrast between the
two fields was clear. The conventional cotton was brown and lifeless; the
organic cotton vibrant with leaves that were glossy and green. At lunch that
day, we listened to a local doctor speak about treating her patients, primarily
farm workers and their young children, who suffered from mild to
life-threatening illnesses caused by the chemical spraying of agricultural
fields.
Usually, a
buyer or supplier would never step into a cotton field. They normally get
involved at the yarn stage. However, all of those who participated said that
they wished that their colleagues from every department in the company could
have come along. Before they went on the tour, they were making decisions with
the organic farming projects because of the corporate initiative. After the
tour, they better understood the environmental and social repercussions of their
purchasing decisions.
Though
Wal-Mart has certainly been an important force for change in the area of
organic cotton and environmental reform in general, many companies are
realizing that considering environmental impact and social responsibility are as
critical as (and, in the long run, inseparable from) economic growth.
I founded
Eco-Innovations to support companies in integrating sustainable value into
their services, strategies and products.
To order the entire book, Future Fashion White Pages,
visit: www.earthpledge.org
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