Hello!
we just won the most environmentally friendly web shop in Finland award.
before we promised that if we win this award we'll tell everybody that we are not environmentally friendly
so here it goes: we are not environmentally fucking friendly.
so why is that? is because environment is not important? No! it's because environment is super important and we are not going to put up with pretentious bullshit.
We are not environmentally friendly. you are not environmentally friendly. And every company in the competition was not environmentally friendly. It's just different levels of unfriendliness or un-sustainability.
Sustainability is also a bullshit word that doesn't mean anything. or actually it means the exact opposite.
Yeah. we are making a lot of noise about this because we on a brink of an apocalypse. not Varusteleka spesifically but the whole world. This is because of global warming.
if we don't stop global warming we are going to drown all the coastal cities and we're going to get billions of refugees. and this is billions
People were fretting about a couple of millions refugees in Europe but we are going to get billions of refugees
and not only from outside of Europe to Europe but the Southern Europe is going to come up here north. And that's not good because you know I don't want to live among frenchmen
Okay there is nothing wrong with frenchmen but if we drown their cities and they come here as refugees that's not good.
The trouble with our unsustainability and everybody else's who are selling textiles online is threefold.
we produce greenhouse gases, we produce other pollutants and because of us the amount of natural habitats (for animals) is diminishing.
greenhouse gases come from Varusteleka's offices, storefront and warehouse and of course the factories that are producing the stuff for us.
this is not a big problem. it's a problem but not the biggest problem. We already have the technology to make these emissions small.
There is no emission-free energy but some energy producing methods produce very small amounts of emissions.
The trouble is logistics because to get things from the materials factory to the sewing factory to our warehouse and then back to you dear customer
that requires logistics which in our case means ships, lorries, trucks and airplanes.
All these burn oil to move and that's a problem. Burning oil no matter what oil makes carbon dioxide emissions to the atmosphere and those stay there for hundreds of years.
There are currently absolutely zero companies available to us who would move our stuff without producing carbon dioxide emissions so that's a problem.
Other pollutants are the water and the chemical waste used in the factories that we buy stuff from and basically
Basically clothing industry makes a lot of immediate pollutants near the factories which is a big problem.
And then there is problem with natural habitats. Especially natural fibers like cotton and wool require field to grow
either we grow the cotton or grow grass and then sheep eat it so on. Anyways it needs space
This is basically away from natural habitats and that is why we have such a terrible extinction rate (of species) right now.
Species are dying because of human actions and those species are not coming back the rate they are dying.
So yeah what are we going to do about these things?
We make noise like this video here. The whole point of this video is to wake people up
And to make other people admit that we have problem.
After that
The biggest thing we can do is to calculate our emissions and then compensate them.
This is problematic because it would be better not to emit at all than to compensate.
And it's also problematic because it's very hard to calculate our emissions.
When we started doing that it almost seems that we are the first ones doing it. It's really hard.
And then we have to select a compensating partner that actually compensates. That's also not so simple.
Well then regarding logistics
What we can do is not move stuff around so much.
The good job we have done is about returns.
Most of our customers (finnish) get free returns but still our return rate is about 5 %
which is very very low especially considering that we are textile company
and then secondly we just move things less and use bigger containers. bigger moving units.
So basically we have already uttered aloud the words: "Logistics center in North America"
It's not going to happen soon but at least we can say it out loud.
If we could move production away from Asia
Not all of our stuff is produced in Asia. Not even half.
but if the rest could be moved to Europe
the stuff wouldn't need to travel so much.
And regarding other pollutants. well are still a small company and don't have much leverage about this.
But it's a thing we look into when we select new factories or negotiate with the existing ones.
It would be good that they don't destroy their immediate environment around them.
Natural habitats well...that's.. a big problem because what you gonna do? Not use cotton? Not use wool?
We try to use recycled materials as much as possible not much is available. so that's a problem.
Well basically the only thing we can do is when we produce something out of virgin materials. Then we try to make the product so that it last for years and years to come.
and preferable for many people not just the first one who buys it.
The other things is that we buy stuff back from our customers. Especially Finnish and European customers
We have the Kierto system
where we buy (back) products that we sold to people. We buy them back and then re-sell them
at half the price
but the problem with that is that people don't return much stuff back to us so most of things we sell are new.
16 % of what we sell is military surplus
we aim for 20 % but
the problem is that availability of military surplus is very low in these times.. which I guess is good?
We sell more military surplus than ever before but we are also bigger than ever before
So the amount of new stuff we sell obviously much more
yesh there we have. in essence the problem is that humanity has no experience of being sustainable
And currently humanity is very big and it's getting even bigger
We've found fossil fuels which we didn't use a couple centuries ago
and that's a big problem
Yeah basically the message goes out not so much to customers
yeah it goes out to YouTube but mostly this goes out to other companies.
because if you
say that you are environmentally friendly that's just sticking your head in the sand and not doing anything.
not doing enough at least
And if you say that it's the customers problem well if you sell things
that are made in very unsustainable way
then someone is going to buy them
but if you don't sell those things then no one can buy them
I think as an entrepreneur other entrepreneurs should really get up and do something about this.
And the first step is to admit that we have a problem.
and then we can think of ways to
solve the problem
yeah that was that rant. thanks for listening.
We'll be releasing our emission report soon so if you are interested then stay tuned.
Jawolh! – Cut!