Translator: Meral Öztürk Reviewer:
For ten years, I thought that I was a green superhero.
The story begins back in 2003,
when I founded a Danish kids' fashion brand, called Katvig.
I came from a career as a TV presenter,
and it's fair to say I had absolutely no idea about the industry I'd entered.
The truth is I had a couple of kids and wanted to dress them up nicely and cheap.
But this naive beginning of story soon grew more serious.
I discovered that the glamorous fashion world has a dark side
where bad workers' rights, exploitation of scarce resources,
and tonnes of harmful chemicals are the rules, rather than the exceptions.
So I decided to do something about it.
I decided to make the world's most sustainable kids' fashion brand.
And after 10 years of cleaning up our supply chain,
implementing organic and recycled fibers,
banning a lot of chemicals, ensuring good workers' rights,
we had super nice sustainable products.
We became well-known pioneers all around the world.
The Danish politicians called me to get my opinion on sustainable issues
We even won prizes, so everything was good.
Until one day, I realized that I got it all wrong.
The epiphany came to me one day in 2013.
Like many times before, I asked questions to our customers at our Facebook wall.
This time it was -
"How much clothes do you have for your child?"
"How much of it do you use?"
The numbers were shocking and made me realize that up until then,
I had totally misunderstood the concept of sustainability.
But, before I reveal to you what the numbers were,
I'd like to tell you a little bit more about the industry that I tried to change.
The textile industry has basically been the same for 150 years.
Back in the mid 19th century, we went from unique,
tailor-made or homemade clothes to reproduction of garments.
And the way we produce garments today is the same more or less:
We take a lot of machines and a lot of people into a big room
and tell them to hurry up.
Back then the textile industry - it was a revolution
because more people could afford good clothes.
It was a great progress.
At that time, clothes were a practical thing
that kept you warm and dry.
And you bought the clothes you needed,
and you wore it until it couldn't be worn anymore.
And then you made a carpet out of it or something like that.
If only the consumer had stayed the same, we wouldn't have such a big problem today.
But the consumer has changed dramatically.
Check out these facts:
In UK, women wear their clothes 7 times
before it ends up in the attic or in the garbage bin.
In the States, 30% of the clothes never left the closet last year.
And in Denmark - and this is my favorite fact -
young people tend to buy new clothes instead of washing their dirty ones.
The textile industry has become a vicious circle
because, the thing is, the fashion brands have heard about these facts, too.
That means that they can speculate in very poor quality
because they know that the consumer will wear the clothes very few times.
Actually, it wouldn't make sense for them to produce in high quality.
From a business perspective, it would simply be a waste of their money.
On the other hand, we have the consumer
who wears the clothes very few times
and she expects it to be very cheap.
The result is an accelerating consumption.
Today's fashion brands no longer launch new collections two times a year -
summer and winter collection.
They launch pre-spring collection, spring collection, party collection,
classic collection, pre-summer collection,
summer collection, high summer collection,
resort collection, collab collection, pre-autumn collection, autumn collection,
pre-winter collection, winter collection, high winter collection,
and Christmas collection, just to mention a few.
(Laughter)
Fashion brands launch collections all the time.
And they do it because they want to create a consumer craving -
an artificial need that manipulates the consumer into their shops very often.
This is the essence of today's buy-and-throw-away society.
Of course, it leaves a messy backstage area.
Behind the scenes, we see giant regions, rivers and ecosystems destroyed
by the fashion industry's use of saddest chemicals.
These chemicals destroy the possibilities of growing the land
in the producing countries because the soil
and the ground water are heavily polluted.
We see factories laid in ruins
because the owners won't pay for secure buildings,
killing thousands of low-paid workers.
And we see enormous landfills,
filled with consumer textile waste - clothes.
And most of it have more than 75% of usage life left.
The way we consume clothes and many other products today creates a lot of losers.
Actually, it is hard to find any winners in this setup
because in the end, the planet will collapse.
Don't you want to change that?
I do and I thought I did for ten years.
But no!
Back to Facebook, that day in 2013.
Remember the questions?
How much clothes do you have for your child?
The answers went from 100 to 200 pieces.
And how much of it do you use?
The answer was on average less than 25 pieces.
What a lot of passive clothes!
What a waste of resources!
And what a bomb in my face because suddenly, I understood
that my contribution to the world
wasn't the most sustainable kids' fashion brand.
No, it was a giant pile of more than 1 million pieces of clothes.
And yes, the clothes were organic, but it was still a pile.
The way we work with sustainable consumption today is not very clever.
We produce a lot of stuff.
We convince the consumer that she needs the stuff.
She buys the stuff.
We produce some more stuff, convince the consumer once again,
and she buys this too.
And so on and so on.
This way of consumption doesn't make sense.
And while we do it, yes we try to minimise the footprint
by reducing the emissions, harmful chemicals, and so on.
But you could say it's like turning down with one hand,
while the other one is turning up.
And in the end, the result is the same.
And it's all about "buy some more stuff".
Sounds familiar?
Well, it's because it's just a replica of the very unsustainable recipe
from the traditional buy-and-throw-away society.
And the consequences are a replica, too:
exploitations of scarce resources and a massive waste problem.
This way of consumption doesn't really make sense,
even though it's organic or sustainable.
And what I realised that day in front of my Facebook wall,
reading all the answers,
was that up until then the way we work with sustainability,
not only us but in general, is completely misunderstood
and very stupid, and in the end it is fatal.
A few months after that Facebook post, I had to close down my company,
and that was not a great time in my life.
But after a while, a new ambition grew in me.
I wanted to do it again.
I wanted to make the world's most sustainable kids' fashion brand
and this time it should be right.
I spent all of Spring 2014, trying to figure out how to do it.
As the trees went green, it slowly occurred to me.
It wasn't so complicated after all.
The key was to change the focus.
So, instead of focusing on the product as the first thing,
like we had done in Katvig,
we needed to focus on how the product is used,
and then design the product and a service to back it up.
Rethink instead of reduce.
We simply needed to invent a whole new consumer model,
instead of using the old one and doing it a little less bad.
Let me take my own example.
How do parents use kids' wear?
Well, since kids grow very fast, and clothes do not grow,
the clothes are used very few times.
Actually, a child outgrows 8 sizes before its 2-years birthday.
8 new wardrobes.
And that means that the parents have to buy new clothes all the time.
Even if these parents act responsibly and buy organic certified clothes,
it's still a problem.
In the small perspective, it's a waste of their money.
And in the big picture, it's a waste of resources.
We took inspiration from the way
families have been circulating clothes for centuries.
And we created two things:
A high quality sustainable kids' fashion brand,
and a circular subscription service.
It works like this:
The customer signs up and for a monthly subscription fee of €48,
she always has sustainable designer's clothes in the right size for her child.
When a child grows one size, she receives a bigger collection,
and return the outgrown collection to us.
We inspect the clothes, repair it if necessary,
and then we wash it at a professional laundry,
and then it's ready for a new child.
And because we produce in such a high quality, the clothes stay very nice,
and offer a great experience for every subscriber,
even number 7 or 8 in line.
It's like a great hotel room.
I mean you don't think about all the people who slept
or whatever they did in the bed before you because it's nice and clean!
We think that we've come up with a model that has the potential
to become a new way of consumption in big scale.
We think that this model can be copied into many other product groups
like cars, bikes and strollers, furniture, toys, tools, just to mention a few.
Don't look a the product first.
Think about how the product is going to be used
and then design the product and the service to back it up.
This way of consumption makes much more sense.
And this simple change of focus is like a magic wand
because suddenly, everybody involved benefits.
The consumer gets access to super high quality at a low price point.
It's convenient for her, she saves a lot of time,
and she reduces her footprint, in our case by up to 80%!
The model also holds a motivation for companies to produce in high quality
instead of poor quality.
Because the better the quality you're producing
the more times you can circulate and the better your earnings are.
You could say that high quality and sustainability
become the main drivers in your business model.
This is a clever way of consumption.
It's clever because it creates no losers, no compromises.
And what I really like about it is that it's no longer a matter of belief.
Working with sustainability for many years now, I had so many discussions
with people who think that organic or sustainable concepts are bullshit,
or they think the climate change is totally exaggerated.
I hate those discussions.
But this concept, this consumer model, it just makes sense.
Whether you're an eco-freak,
or a sceptical conservative, it makes sense
because it gives you a better offer than the traditional way of consuming.
I think I got it right this time, but what about you?
Do you think of yourselves as green superheroes, too
because you buy organic, fair trade or triple A whenever you can?
Try to check out your consumer pattern
and see if you too are part of the buy-and-throw-away society.
You probably are. Most of us are.
In the States, one of the fastest growing businesses these days is self-storage.
People simply haven't got room for all the stuff they buy.
Do you have the same problem?
If you do, I have a simple exercise for you.
Three basic rules to follow:
Number one: Change your focus.
Instead of thinking at the product first, step back,
think about how you are going to use the product,
and base your choice upon that.
Number two: Buy high quality and extend the product's life.
It's a very effective way to reduce the footprint.
And number three: Share whenever you can.
And actually, I think we need a rule number four.
Because suddenly it occurs to me -
and it might actually be the most important one -
the rule number four could be something like this:
Ask for better solutions.
I mean if we consumers,
we just keep on playing the main character in the buy-and-throw-away society
and not asking questions at all, we will not have better solutions.
We will not have a more sustainable way of consumption.
If you follow these three or four rules,
you will be part of a whole new consumer behaviour.
A behaviour that I deeply believe has the potential
to become a great alternative
to the meaningless and dangerous buy-and-throw-away society.
And a behaviour that, most importantly,
gives room for this world to grow without the problems growing with us.
(Applause)