What’s Carbon Negative Fashion? Interview with Sheep Inc.

Anne, The Climate Optimist, is an expert on how to change the narrative on climate change so we can act from curiosity and excitement, not fear. In this podcast episode, Anne sat down with Sheep Inc.’s founder Edzard van Der Wyck.

Sheep Inc. is a revolutionary, new fashion brand that is creating carbon negative, fully traceable, 100% biodegradable, ethically sourced, Merino wool, unisex ZQ certified jumpers.

What is carbon negative fashion and is it even possible to produce clothes that sequester more carbon than the process of making the garment produces? If this seems too good to be true, dive into the interview because Sheep Inc. is proof that carbon negative, 100% biodegradable, permaculture approved clothes are the future of fashion.

The below podcast interview has been adapted and edited for Illuminate Magazine readers.

Interviewer: Anne Therese Gennari

In October 2019 you launched Sheep Inc. and created a “carbon negative, fully traceable, 100% biodegradable, ethically sourced merino wool, unisex z q certified jumpers.” What does this mean exactly and what made you jump on a mission like this?

Interviewee: Edzard van Der Wyck

Well, I’d actually set up a fashion ecommerce company in 2015, which was very different from the one that that Sheep Inc. has turned into today, but it was actually a women’s underwear company.

As I was scaling the underwear business, and it was a very traditional kind of venture capital backed business, I started to really become aware of the impact of fashion on the environment.

Within six months to a year, I really began to understand the devastating effect that the fashion industry was having on the environment. In 2015-2016, people just weren’t talking about fashion in that context, they were talking about the climate crisis, of course, but they weren’t putting fashion as one of the sources of the climate problems.

At the same time, I had a son and as these things tend to happen, you start to also think more generationally, and about what kind of legacy I was going to leave behind. So I left the business in 2017, to really explore how I could address this climate + fashion topic.

But, the big problem was people weren’t conditioned to ask questions about the fashion industry.

I think that because the fashion industry had been so opaque for so long, we don’t go into a store and pick something up off the shelf and go,

Where does this come from?
Can you please tell me the history behind this garment?
Was it made sustainably?
Were the people who made it where they paid a fair living wage?

So the thing that I wanted to address was, how do you get people to ask those questions? How do you build the awareness piece? How do you get people to start asking those questions? How do you make them curious?

And then the other piece of the equation, which was something that I was very much shocked by was actually the progress fashion was making from a sustainability point of view, was all too little too late.

I started exploring the concept of carbon neutrality, which became this kind of Alpha and Omega of sustainability, it became this kind of perfect endpoint. But my co-founder and I thought carbon neutrality can’t be the endpoint, because we have to start having a regenerative effect on the environment, especially because the fashion companies that were committing to carbon neutrality were so few and far between.

So I started creating what eventually became Sheep Inc. and the pillars of the business were:

How do you address transparency and storytelling?
How do you actually become sustainable in a way that is more forward looking than what the industry is currently doing?
What products are sustainable fashion products and what does that mean?

Also, after selling women’s underwear for quite a few years, I was desperate to sell a product that I could wear and I could enjoy and, and so the product that I quickly ended up with was sweaters.

two sheep inc sweaters — COURTESY OF SHEEP INC.

Interviewer: Anne Therese Gennari

What was so special about sweaters?

Interviewee: Edzard van Der Wyck

The reason sweaters was such an interesting product for us to start with is that it’s actually been such a wardrobe staple for such a long time now, it’s something that’s fashion permanent. I inherited sweaters off my father and sweaters have an incredibly long shelf life in your wardrobe.

The next question was if you want to make a sustainable sweater, then how do you make it and what do you make it out of?

We did a deep dive into materials, looking at everything from new innovative materials made of pineapple peels to incredibly luxurious cashmere. We wanted to find the fabric in the middle of the Venn diagram of luxury, quality and sustainability.

We also wanted the material to be 100% biodegradable, something that would not leave a trace. The two materials that worked from that point of view, and we’re also incredibly soft touch and luxurious, were cashmere and merino wool.

Now the problem with cashmere is its currently having a devastating effect in Mongolia and its very, very hard to argue for sustainably made cashmere from Kashmir. And so we very quickly diverted our attention to merino wool.

Merino wool is a fascinating fiber, it has this incredibly good ability to adapt to temperatures and it also self cleanses itself so you don’t need to put it into the washing machine. Therefore, once again, it has less of an environmental impact.

However, the huge problem with merino wool is that it comes from sheep, and sheep are methane producing animals. To address this, we went to New Zealand to talk to this group called GQ Merino, who also work with brands like Allbirds, and we asked if we could truly create regenerative merino wool.

Interviewer: Anne Therese Gennari

What does the supply chain look like behind a sweater?

Interviewee: Edzard van Der Wyck

We now work exclusively with three regenerative farms that actually sequester more carbon than the sheep and all the activities on the farm produce, therefore our supply chain journey starts with a carbon negative impact.

We then spin the wool in Italy using a very amazing old yarn mill in the north of Italy, which runs on 100% renewable energy. Next, we manufacture the sweaters in both Spain and Portugal using Japanese Hogan 3d knitting machines. Shima Seiki knitting machines are zero waste, they produce very, very little waste during the manufacturing process. And also run on renewable energy.

Then we pulled this all the way through to our solar powered logistics warehouse in the UK, which is the first it’s kind to have a triple plus energy certification.

Interviewer: Anne Therese Gennari

How did you add traceability into the sweaters?

Interviewee: Edzard van Der Wyck

We thought that if we’re selling a merino wool garment that starts with sheep, why not have people adopt a sheep from the farm that they buy the sweater from. So through that, there’s an NFC chip that sits in the sweater, and you can scan it with your phone to trace your sweater all the way back to the farm. The sheep have RFID tags so we can track their whereabouts and you can basically follow your sheep’s journey in the flock.

sheep inc flock of sheep going through water — One of Sheep Inc.’s New Zealand farms. COURTESY OF SHEEP INC.

Interviewer: Anne Therese Gennari

I will say there’s no one can ever accuse you for being greenwashing. Because I don’t think I’ve ever talked to someone as committed and as passionate about making change in the industry, as you seem to be. It’s just incredible. I’m just sitting here smiling.

Interviewee: Edzard van Der Wyck

Well, thank you. I mean, again, we’re just getting started. But it’s been amazing to see the response. And it’s not necessarily telling people about our sweaters, it’s more telling people about the impact of fashion.

Interviewer: Anne Therese Gennari

Ok so I’m someone who has struggled to navigate the path between veganism and sustainability, because this is a product that comes from animals, and a lot of vegans, or people out there will say, well, that’s not good.

Where does it land on the ethical scale? Does it in any way harm the sheep when we use our wool for clothing?

Interviewee: Edzard van Der Wyck

There are people who treat animals badly and there are people and farms who treat the animals well. It’s not so much a black or white conversation.

For our farms, none of the animals can be harmed during shearing.

Additionally, the sheep roam on these vast New Zealand landscapes with plenty of vegetation and plenty of water. We have a list of freedoms that all the farms must abide by: freedom from hunger, thirst, distress and the freedom to roam free. The sheep help make the regions more biodiverse and the sheepherders really care about their farm, because it’s their livelihood.

Overall, I’m definitely not saying that all products are good for the animal, there is a nuance to it, but our sheep are completely loved and important for the land.

sheep inc white wool — Ethical treatment of Sheep Inc.’s sheep. COURTESY OF SHEEP INC.

Interviewer: Anne Therese Gennari

What would you say is the thing that upsets you the most about the fashion industry?

Interviewee: Edzard van Der Wyck

The concept of setting targets for 2030 and 2035 is the biggest problem for me. Because first of all, as we all know, we don’t have time. Today is already too late.

The pace of the fashion industry is moving as an adolescent. I understand that a huge fashion conglomerate has incredibly complex, intricate supply chains, but we need to move faster.

What we do outside of our sustainability pieces, is donate 5% of our revenue to biodiversity projects and bettering society. We invest in projects at the farm like protecting endangered lizards and preventing deforestation across 105,000 hectares of pristine rainforest in the Amazon basin. Another project in Kenya builds sustainable livelihoods through community reforestation activities which, among others, helps protect an area designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, containing dozens of rare and endangered species. We also invest in society like the Black Lives Matter movement, because climate racism is a real problem.

Interviewer: Anne Therese Gennari

I’ve talked to a few smaller fashion brands like yours, and it’s always the same frustration of the small brands doing so much and pushing the movement forward because the big guys are not doing more.

But when large brands make changes in their supply chain it takes time and they need to show profit in the next quarter for their shareholders. Our short term obsession is really frustrating.

Interviewee: Edzard van Der Wyck

Yeah. The big argument in your country is about the Green New Deal, right? We’re just so focused on short term, rather than on the long term benefits. But the economic impact of the climate crisis on us will vastly outweigh any type of investment now, to make the green New Deal. Look at what you can do today, because tomorrow’s too late, it has to be today.

sheep inc brown sweater — Sheep Inc.’s merino sweater. COURTESY OF SHEEP INC.

Interviewer: Anne Therese Gennari

If you were to give a few pieces of advice, what are the next steps to become the most conscious, mindful, fashion consumer in today’s world?

Interviewee: Edzard van Der Wyck

It’s going to be such a boring answer and I’m not saying don’t consume anything…but if you are going to go and buy something, ask the person working in the shop… can you tell me the story behind this garment? If they cannot tell you the story then just don’t buy it!

If we as consumers start to no longer buy from brands who are not telling us the story, brands are going to have to change their act incredibly quickly and otherwise they’re going to be out of business.

One positive thing we’ve seen in our kind of post-COVID pandemic world is people are becoming more aware. Recently, I’ve been visiting schools with my three-year-old son and sustainability is top of the agenda. Which is incredible, right? The world is changing, it is picking up pace, but at the same time, within fashion, the power does lie in consumers asking that single question…where does this come from?