Farm-to-closet fashion

By Di on October 25 2021
Evergreen

For $200, you can now invest in the eco-fashion label Christy Dawn. The label is selling "plots" in the organic, sustainable cotton farm in India that provides the raw materials for their clothing. At the end of the season, you're paid back with store credit. If the harvest is good, you might get back more than the initial $200 you invested. On the other hand, if it's a bad year for cotton, you could lose most or all of your money. 

Store credit is actually a pretty good return on investment, if you like Christy Dawn's style—loose, flowing, bohemian—think 1960s hippies for the modern world. Their clothes are expensive (a dress runs about $200–300), but people with $200 to spend can become part of the solution to a big environmental problem. Manufacturing fabric is an energy-intensive, chemically-laden process when done on an industrial scale. Even so-called "natural" fabrics like cotton are terrible for the environment, using vast amounts of resources. For instance, it typically takes up to 2,700 litres of water and produces about 2.6kg of CO₂ to make a single cotton t-shirt.

So Christy Dawn began their own cotton farm in India to oversee the environmentally sustainable production of raw materials. You can support their efforts, and get a good return on investment even if it's a bad year for cotton. Long-term, you're earning a more sustainable Earth to live on.

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Discussion
As a business person, what is your opinion of Christy Dawn's new business plan? Will it be successful? Why or why not?
As a consumer, would you be willing to spend more for sustainably produced clothing? How much more?
If agriculture continues at the current pace, the United Nations predicts there will be only 60 growing seasons left until soil will no longer grow crops. Can we change this in just 60 years? How?
Can the business world save the Earth?