﻿Hey, it’s Noni from Printful! You’ve probably heard—the fashion industry has
a sustainability problem. It is responsible for 10% of the global carbon emissions and
is the second-largest consumer of the world’s fresh water supply.
On top of that, there’s a serious problem with overproduction and waste in the industry.
According to McKinsey & Company, global clothing production has more than doubled since 2000,
and fast fashion retailers are offering new collections every week, instead of just for summer
and winter seasons. 92 million tons of textile goes to waste in the fashion industry each year.
And the cheap prices retailers offer also come with a downside—a reduction of quality,
according to NPR. Using cheap, synthetic materials and rudimentary manufacturing processes
result in clothing that easily rips and tears, and ends up in the dumpster
sooner rather than later. That is the downside of fast fashion—fast to produce, fast to wear down.
Printful is committed to making a difference, and the print-on-demand model might just be
it. In this video, we sat down with our partners and colleagues to talk about the
future of shopping and sustainability. On-demand is more sustainable
Currently, overproduction is considered a norm for the fashion industry. That means
one in five garments end up in a landfill, without being worn even once. Why? Because when apparel
is produced in bulk, it's saving money for the companies. And because it's very hard to predict
the ever-changing consumer shopping trends, having a bulk of different apparel can come in handy.
In print-on-demand companies like Printful, a product is created only when a customer places an
order. This approach helps avoid overproduction, keeping an excessive amount of products away from
the landfill. Creating products on-demand means reducing the harm by at least 20%.
Another way the print-on-demand industry shows its sustainability is by placing its
fulfillment centers closer to the customers. And that's an important part of the conversation as
the whole transportation sector makes up for one-quarter of total global carbon emissions.
Printing each order in a facility that's closest to the end customer
significantly reduces carbon emissions. 78% of the orders Printful fulfills are produced in the same
region as the end consumer is located. We believe that the on-demand model,
in combination with other efforts to reduce the negative impact on the environment,
is the way forward. Product quality matters
Printful is exploring ways to become more environmentally conscious while giving you
quality products that last. But the choice is yours to make—both as a customer and a business
owner, choosing quality and eco-friendly products creates demand for them, and brings
us all closer to a more sustainable future. Let’s talk about why product quality matters
and what are eco-friendly products. The product quality is important because it
determines how long the product will last and when you’re actually going to throw it away. If you
buy a five dollar t-shirt and then throw it away after the first wash because it's ruined, you're
very much contributing to the problem that fast fashion is right now.
If you invest in a quality piece that's going to last you longer,
is going to be more durable and you take good care of it by washing it responsibly, drying
it responsibly, you're not polluting as much. Our team makes sure that we actually use and wear
the products ourselves to make sure that it feels and fits right. The materials have to be of good
quality, but there are of course different price points. When you consider adding a budget item,
a basic t-shirt, we're not gonna expect that it's going to look fresh after ten washes. We try to
find the best options for each price point. For us an eco-friendly product is one that uses
some content of sustainable materials, whether that's organic cotton or recycled polyester or
any other type of eco-friendly material, but it has to have significant contents of it.
For example, a t-shirt that's 95% regular cotton and then 5% recycled polyester. It is technically
considered a sustainable product, or a more sustainable choice than a regular t-shirt,
but we won't necessarily label it as fully organic or fully eco-friendly.
This year we added 10 eco-friendly products and next year we're planning to double this number.
We're also planning to increase the transparency in terms of content for this product category,
so we plan to publish information about our suppliers and what they're doing to ensure that
these products are made responsibly. By choosing quality over price,
you are making a sustainable choice, whether you're shopping for yourself, or choosing what
products to sell in your store. Responsible production is key
It’s clear that producing on-demand and in high quality is the way to go. However,
another area to pay attention to is production. How we fulfill our orders matters to us,
that's why we've partnered up with Kornit whose printers are among the best in the industry.
Sustainability is not only important to me, it's important to all of us.
Because we are dealing in a textile world, so it's important for all of us to make it a bit greener.
Kornit is all about print-on-demand. One of the issues of this industry is
the waste. Brands are trying to focus on what the consumer will order and they are not always
being able to sell the products. So, by moving to print-on-demand you actually produce
what the consumer needs. And by that you eliminate all the waste that’s being generated.
On the base of our technology is the wet-on-wet technology. We can actually print on any material,
if it's on DTG and DTF, without pretreatment,
without post-treatment. Printing directly into it and just drying the material, and the material is
ready to wear. In the process of producing the product, producing the garments, there is today,
if using conventional technology, is a lot of waste being done - water waste and pollution
that's being generated during this process. On top of that our inks are approved by
GOTS (Global Organic Textile Standard) and is really safe to use both for the fulfillers,
but also to wear it for the consumer. As well, looking into the future, soon,
actually the beginning of 2021, we are going to move into our new ink factory, which is the latest
and greatest, with a lot of focus on becoming greener. A lot of activities that we're doing
in the ink plant, in the production of the inks, to be more sustainable
in terms of the energy consumption, all the equipment, the safety of our employees and many
more aspects. And we will take the ink even more further in terms of sustainability
and helping the industry become greener. A big part of the conversation of why
print-on-demand is more sustainable is based on the waste—or lack thereof. Although we
produce items on demand, some waste in the manufacturing process is inevitable,
and we have to choose what to do with it. Let's learn more about that with Vince.
So production waste comes from a few different areas. That can be a part of the process
or just the damages as a result of production. Typically with damages or waste in production,
it depends on the department, but what we'll do is either
recycle, repurpose or donate the item or the consumable that's being used.
So to minimize the waste in production, we either look at the production process,
try to make improvements so there's less waste involved. Sometimes the machinery,
the supplies of the consumables that we use don't coincide very well with the process and
create higher damages. So we look at ways to improve or changes we can make to reduce that.
Or we just look at our damages and try to go back and retrain employees. To find a better
success rate with all operations that we run. So every year, every department, we look at
the packaging that we're utilizing, making sure that we're not wasting a lot of space or using
an excessive amount of void fill. We also try to reduce the amount of shipments that get damaged in
transit and the amount of plastic that's being used in each shipping site, we try to reduce
so that most of the contents are recyclable. The journey of becoming more environmentally
aware is a long one, and we remain open-minded and welcome customers' suggestions and opinions.
We are not perfect, but we're heading in the right direction and are far from being done.
We're starting with realistic, tangible goals, and looking ahead to find new ways to improve.
For more information on this, including the latest updates on our efforts,
check out our Sustainability and Responsibility page, link in the description below. And don’t
forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel to never miss out on what's new with us.