Profile for 13strong - Green Thread

13strong aka Graeme McGregor is a 27.46 year old boy, has been a member since March 26, 2007, has scored 1329 submissions, giving an average score of 2.82.

Nov 26 '08 by 13strong

19 Comments

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Green Thread

I've been more and more reluctant to buy Threadless T's in the past year or so, because increasingly I can't justify the idea of buying a product that's

- manufactured in Bangladesh
- shipped to the US
- flown to the UK (often via Germany?)

That's just not a sustainable approach to manufacturing and selling, and it'll be interesting to see, given the inevitable rise in oil prices and the consequent restrictions on importing/exporting, how long Threadless will be able to keep it up.

Now, I'm not really criticising Threadless - they're hardly the main offender when it comes to wasteful manufacturing and business practices, and in many ways their approach to business is brillliantly innovative, if not revolutionary. And I love what they do. Just not everything about how they do it.

So I'm wondering - are the green aspects of their business something the Threadless overlords have been thinking about, and if so, what ideas do they have for making their business more sustainable, less harmful, and generally greener?

Would be great to get a discussion going.

13strong on Nov 26 '08 at 8:50am

For example, would it make more sense to return manufacturing to the USA? (God knows your economy needs the investment...)

How about starting up a European and/or Australasian manufacturer/distributor/store?

trindli on Nov 26 '08 at 9:01am

i also stopped buying shirt since they have the new ones.. well, not stopped, but I only bought two since then and I am not planning to buy anymore because I really don't like this flying around of shirts

taz-pie on Nov 26 '08 at 9:04am

that's nothing guys! mine then get flown BACK aroud the world, to south africa, and i pay the same amount of value as the tshirts in customs duties. gahhhh

i wish mine could come straight from bangladesh/ chicago, but not both

taz-pie on Nov 26 '08 at 9:05am

they could make a killing if they started printing/ manufacturing in south africa.
$1 = R10

taz-pie on Nov 26 '08 at 9:05am

oh and in case i sounded like awhiny little cow, i still love you threadless!! mwahhh

tracerbullet on Nov 26 '08 at 9:12am

americans' fingers are much too fat to handle the t-shirt manufacturing machinery. perhaps once we get our ridiculous obesity epidemic under control we'll be able to push those buttons.

noodlezoop on Nov 26 '08 at 9:14am

just curious, how far would you want to drill down with this? like, for instance, t-shirts manufactured in the US, with 100% US-grown cotton? and t-shirts for Europe would be manufactured and shipped out of...uh...Greece, I guess?

tracerbullet on Nov 26 '08 at 9:15am

lucky europeans will get Olympian Thread of the Gods :-(

tracerbullet on Nov 26 '08 at 9:15am

lucky europeans will get Olympian Thread of the Gods :-(

tracerbullet on Nov 26 '08 at 9:16am

there's no reason that should have posted twice. the system is down!

noodlezoop on Nov 26 '08 at 9:18am

and there can be another manufacturing & shipping hub in Peru, where they shall substitute certain inks with their fine, naturally multicolored cotton species

tracerbullet on Nov 26 '08 at 9:21am

i want a vest made from real gorilla's chest

taz-pie on Nov 26 '08 at 9:23am

why are you wearing that ridiculous man suit?

13strong on Nov 26 '08 at 12:18pm

noodlezoop - I would say that they should "drill down with this" (appropriate phrase...) as far as possible while still being able to operate.

The whole organic vs non-organic cotton, and where it's sourced, is a tricky one, but I'd pay for locally sourced organic cotton (or a substitute) if it meant reducing the environmental impact overall.

But really I'm curious to know whether Threadless have considered new greener measures themselves.

I think they could look at where their t-shirts sell most (I would guess the USA, Western Europe and Australia?), and consider relocating production. But I'm really just askin'.

Why did you pick Greece?

noodlezoop on Nov 26 '08 at 12:25pm

high cotton production

noodlezoop on Nov 26 '08 at 12:31pm

relatively high anyway. I dunno. slightly closer than Egypt? (maybe?) and it's part of the EU, so...*shrug*? seemed like a good one to throw out there.

noodlezoop on Nov 26 '08 at 12:46pm

it would be interesting to see some kind of series of crazy graphs that showed cost of the cheapest way to do a thing vs. the cost of the "greenest" way to do a thing, and then project the effect of those combinations of methods on international trade balances, and where a business would have to get its profits, and the psychological condition of the workers operating within the constraints that certain business practices put on them, and so on.

business model Shangri-La, here I come, haha

13strong on Nov 27 '08 at 6:40am

It would be nice, wouldn't it? Not going to happen, though.

But at the same time, Threadless would be better to abandon cotton t-shirts altogether. Organic or otherwise, as I understand it, cotton is an incredibly earth-damaging crop that really could be replaced with better materials such as bamboo fibre, hemp or some tree pulps, all of which are better for the environment.

I'm not saying that there is one correct, right way of doing things, just that Threadless' current practices seem to me to be unsustainable and possibly unnecessary.

13strong on Nov 28 '08 at 8:09am

The other reason for using alternatives to cotton is this:

Shipping foreign cotton to Bangladesh will become more and more expensive.
The international price of cotton is kept artificially low due to massive US government subsidies towards US cotton growers.
As the US stumbles further into debt and economic problems, it's very possible that they will be unable to afford the billions of dollars paid out every year as subsidies to US cotton farmers. As a result, the price of US cotton will rise, in turn raising foreign cotton prices.

Which means your overheads, and your t-shirts, are going to get a lot more expensive.

Just putting it out there.

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