Sustainability case study
Sustainable Living Fabrics makes the transformation
Kay Jones is a tireless innovator. She and her husband Bill bought a fabric company that had gone broke in 1998, called Living Fabrics, and rebuilt the business. Then, in 2004, the pair decided to undertake a complete overhaul of their products and their company. “We saw that the environment was a big issue,” Kay says. “We decided that if we were going to survive and grow as a business, we needed to become environmental.”
Sustainable Living Fabrics, based in the Melbourne suburb of Oakleigh, makes furnishing fabrics for commercial interiors. They market their fabrics to architects and interior designers, who will specify SLF fabrics when they present a design to their clients.
It’s been a lot of work to change, and the company was initially ahead of demand. But the decision has paid off, with revenue growing 35% since the decision, profits rising too, and staff enthusiastically engaged.
Early in the transformation, Kay and Bill decided to get independent verification of their products to show that they are environmentally preferable. After sorting through the complex world of standards and labelling, the company adopted the European Union Ecolabel standard for its wool supplies, and applied to have its products accredited through the not-for-profit organisation Good Environmental Choice Australia (GECA). They also used the Federal Government’s program Greenhouse Friendly to become accredited as a carbon neutral office and, later, for its products.
Choosing the right accreditation is one of the toughest steps for companies that want to go “green”. There are a great many organisations offering ticks, logos and verification, but the standards vary from one to another. Quality is hard to determine. “We developed our own criteria for accreditation,” Kay says. “We wanted it to be transparent, clearly identified, verified and audited independently. Our application is on the GECA website for everyone to see.”
The company turned to new sources of wool for their fabrics. They did not want sheep to have suffered mulesing (trimming the skin around their tails without aesthetic). They only buy wool that passes the EU Ecolabel Standard, with lower pesticide use, grazing intensity and land degradation. It comes from sheep grown for meat, which means it shares its load of greenhouse gas emissions across the two uses. A kilogram of SLF’s “leanwool” produces 22 kilograms of greenhouse gases, compared to 62kg for generic wool.
Initially, Kay couldn’t get enough wool that complied with the EU standard. “We have it tested by the CSIRO, and too much was failing.” Now SLF offers farmers a 10% premium for compliant wool, to attract supply. About 160 farmers now supply the wool, and SLF buys about 180 tonnes of wool a year, the product of about 36,000 sheep.
The wool is documented carefully so it can be tracked through the process of making yarn and fabric. The company also makes wool blended with polyesters and nylons, and 100% recycled polyester products.
By 2005, the company was ready to launch its sustainable range, which included 300 fabrics (now 400).
Changing customers’ attitudes has been just as much work as creating the new products, Kay says. She cites a recent example when her sales staff were quizzed energetically by two young architects developing a green project. “She was very sure of her ground, and answered all their questions,” Kay says. “But when she pointed out that the other swatches on their colour board were not environmental, they said, ‘No, no, we just like the colours’.”
However, it is the project managers at the furniture makers whose job it is to actually order the specified fabric, and they are among the hardest to convince to buy eco-products. “That is where the bottom line can become more all important,” Kay says. “They might substitute another fabric, telling the client that ours is not available, for example, or not telling them at all.”
The Green Star rating for buildings has helped because using sustainable fabrics can count towards the ratings, which are given by the Green Buildings Council. Standards are constantly going up. A few years ago, five stars was the leading rating; now most new buildings are six stars.
Kay says greenwashing is a big problem in her industry, and to counter misleading claims by rivals the company’s website is full of information about the company’s accreditation, products and social responsibility program.
This includes prizes for the company’s 12 staff for reducing their water consumption at home, and the opportunity to get 40 hours paid leave to do charity work. “It takes time and money,” Kay says. “But we made the commitment. The payback for us is empowerment and the ability to attract and retain really good staff.”
Steps to sustainability
2003 - Introduced Sustainability Program, a corporate strategy with the sustainability agenda as its lynchpin.
2004 - Extended Sustainability Program to include independent certification of environmental credentials.
2005 May - The first company to have every stock fabric licensed to carry the Good Environmental Choice Australia ecolabel for textile products.
2005 July - Released the Green Living Collection with over 300 environmentally accredited fabrics.
2005 October - Member Green Building Council.
2006 April - Awarded finalist in Eco Innovation Banksia Awards 2006 for the Green Living Collection “World Leadership in Environmental Textiles”.
2006 June - Became carbon neutral and had every fabric carbon neutral from cradle to grave.
2006 June - Established innovative LEAP wool buying program.
2006 September - The Green Living Collection listed on Eco-specifier.
2007 April - Won 2007 Premier’s Sustainability Small Business Excellence award.
2007 May - First manufacturing company and wholesaler to have every product certified Greenhouse Neutral under the Australian Government Greenhouse Friendly Initiative.
2007 June - Won United Nations Association of Australia World Environment Day Lincolne Scott Triple Bottom Line Award.
2008 March - Committed to United Nations Global Compact. Released its first Sustainability Report to the Global Initiative GR3 guidelines.
2008 April - Endorsed the United Nations CEO Water Mandate and the United Nations Caring for Climate statement.
2008 June - Won United Nations Association of Australia World Environment Day Lincolne Scott Triple Bottom Line award for the second consecutive year. Won Monash World Environment Day Business Sustainability award.
2008 July - Awarded a Victorian Premier's Design Mark for its fabric Ecostyle. The addition of Ecostyle to the Green Living Collection takes the number of its fabrics carrying the GECA Ecolabel to over 400.
Source: Sustainable Living Fabrics
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Related Links
Sustainable Living Fabrics — www.greenliving.com.au
8 December 2008