“I Don’t Want To Waste Any More Time”: 6 Female Eco-Pioneers Shaking Up The Fashion Industry From Within

But before joining Vestiaire Collective, I hadn’t really imagined how the fashion industry specifically had such a major impact on the planet and society. Joining Vestiaire Collective pushed me to deep dive into that industry and understand how the system worked.

What does your job entail? What do you love most about your job?

My job is to make sure that somehow, in the future, this job won’t need to exist anymore. More concretely, my everyday job is to build a strategy and a vision for the company to have an impact. This means educating and sometimes evangelizing, from setting the standard and acting as an example to moving the [goalposts] in the entire fashion industry. My ultimate goal is to [help achieve] this much-needed systemic change in the industry for a more sustainable future.

The most important thing for me is looking at my two children and knowing that everything I do is for them—they are the generation of tomorrow. For me, having a purpose in my job is non-negotiable.

What are the main changes that you’d like to see in the industry moving forward?

I want to see circularity taking more and more space in public conversations and I want brands to start entering circularity across the world to create more impact globally. I also want to start seeing more policymakers talking about the topic. We all know that hundreds of studies and articles have already emerged on the impact of fashion on the environment. It’s now time to take action.

Natasha Franck, CEO & founder at Eon

When did you first become interested in sustainability?

I started my career in smart cities and urban planning. The more I studied the city, the more I saw the interconnected systems at play. I was dedicated to creating a future city and world where our environment and economy benefited human health, happiness, and well-being. I asked: how do we build business models that sustain our health and economy? I spent over a year researching and it became clear to me that smart, connected products could change the rules and incentives in which businesses operate today. Once that idea came into being for me, it took hold—and I knew I wanted to start Eon.

What does your job entail?

My role crosses over a number of areas, from tech and product strategy to business development and team building to raising capital. Day to day, my team and I partner with brands, resellers, recyclers, policymakers, and other stakeholders to integrate digital ID technology into their existing ecosystem. Like with any new technology, a big part of our work is education and preparing the industry for this shift. Seeing the rapid progress over the last couple of years has been empowering. We’re in the midst of a new wave of digital transformation and it’s exciting to play a role in architecting this infrastructure.

What are you most excited about when it comes to sustainable fashion?

This year, in an industry first, Eon launched Instant Resale through our partnership with Chloé and Vestiaire Collective. Just like one-click shopping automated the checkout [process], Eon Instant Resale is bringing automation to the resale customer journey. Imagine how it will change our economy when it is just as easy to sell, as it is to buy? Customers can scan their products’ digital ID and instantly resell: the listing is pre-filled with data from the ID and the price proposal is immediate, creating a frictionless experience. We are powering the “global barcode” of the world’s products.

Hana Kajimura, head of sustainability at Allbirds

When did you first become interested in sustainability?

I became interested in sustainability, and climate change in particular, when I was working on an urban farm in Cape Town, South Africa in college. I saw how directly people relied on the land for food and how that was getting harder and harder each year, particularly as access to water became more scarce. I decided to study Earth Systems at Stanford because I felt that climate change was going to be the biggest issue of my lifetime and I wanted to dedicate my energies to being part of the solution.

What does your job entail? What do you love most about your job?

I was excited to join Allbirds as an early employee because it represented the chance to reimagine the role of a company if it put sustainability at the center. Instead of retrofitting products and supply chains for sustainability, we could build them from scratch. I think businesses can be a force for good and create tangible, positive change in the world. My favorite part of my job is building a business that balances the needs of all stakeholders, including the environment, and not just shareholders. This can mean collaborating with competitors, open-sourcing material innovations, advocating for policy change, or educating customers about carbon footprints.

What are the main changes that you’d like to see in the industry moving forward?

I’d like to see more accountability in the industry moving forward. Over the past few years, there has been no shortage of pledges to get to net zero, but very few proof points that the industry is making progress towards those goals. If a company is going to make a commitment, it should have to show its progress annually towards that goal. We label all of our products with their carbon footprints, and report on our progress annually within our Flight Status report. On our way to zero emissions, we also think companies should be accountable for their pollution, which is why we’ve committed to being a carbon-neutral company.

Dr. Amanda Parkes, chief innovation officer at Pangaia

When did you first become interested in sustainability? How did your journey begin?

My journey in sustainability was a gradual evolution that began with my studies at Stanford in mechanical engineering—building an understanding of how products are manufactured and the complex material and process supply chains involved. During my PhD at the MIT Media Lab, when I was doing hybrid research across smart materials and computer science, I came to see how the overwhelming focus of material technology development was around functionality and performance but without consideration of end-of-life or sustainability.

Throughout all my studies, I have always loved and appreciated fashion as a wonderful art form and important cultural means of personal expression, but at this point, I came to realize that involvement in fashion could be a definitive part of my scientific career—shifting materials inside fashion to a place that combined innovation and sustainability was a feasible place to make massive industry impact.

What does your job entail? What do you love most about your job?

My overall focus is to set our scientific strategy and R&D [research & development]. This may involve creating partnerships around emerging innovations, tapping early-stage ideas to bring them to commercialization, or identifying holes or opportunities in the market to begin research from scratch. I also spend a significant portion of my time on communication—working on making our scientific messaging accessible and representing Pangaia across industries.