FASHION MADE: How HNST are fully circuclar, with Tom Duhoux

My name is Tom Juul. I'm the founder of Honest, one of the world's first fully circular economy denim brands. I have an economical background, and then after I graduated, I started working for a big waste management company. So that was my first introduction into the world of material loops. And then afterwards, I started my own consultancy company together with two partners where we helped companies and organizations with sustainable business development because I've always been, yeah, I always have believed that true innovation is only feasible when it's part of the business model. Same thing with sustainable business development. Too often sustainability is in the periphery of what businesses do. So, let's use less energy, let's use less water, let's buy a couple of electrical cars and then write a nice environmental report or CSR report and give it to our shareholders. So, it's all in the periphery and at best it saves a little bit of costs, but it doesn't touch the business model. So that way I don't think that can be sustainable at all because you need something that is in the business model with products that are truly sustainable, that have a different business model around it to actually make that step towards a kind of—

So did you see all of this within the waste management company or did you see this before when you were doing your economics?

Well, the waste management company was the first eye-opener. I remember when I was offered the job, my grandmother said, "But you have a university degree, why are you working for a waste management company?" So, she thought I was messing up my life.

Stay European, man.

Yeah, exactly. But that was a remarkable world where all of a sudden I saw the huge amounts of waste And that all comes from bad designed products, because actually that's what waste is. Waste is a design flaw. The fact that designers don't really think about the next steps in the lifecycle of a product is the reason why a lot of shit is being designed and being made. That generates problems at a different stage of life where we don't know what to do with it. We try to get a couple of materials out of it, but then we use them in inferior products. And at the end of the day, we burn them, we incinerate it, and they're gone. So in a finite planet, you don't have to be an ecologist to realize that that doesn't make any sense. If you're in a finite product and you take resources, you put them together in such a way they can never be separated anymore, and then you burn them and then they're gone. So yeah, that's never going to last. So that inspires me to actually do things from a different point of view. And I really like the circular economy principles because they take— that philosophy also comes from nature because in nature nothing is linear. Linear economy is something that we as humans actually developed. We take resources, we make a product out of it, and then we sell it, and then afterwards we chuck it away. So it's a linear process. Well, nothing in nature is linear. Everything is is circular, where everything that falls off trees or animals, everything is food for something else. So, it all keeps everything in balance. So, it's pretty strange that we as humans think that we can come up with a different kind of system that lasts. So, yeah. So, that's a bit what inspires me, circular economy principles. Give a really nice framework for innovation, I think, for looking a different way at how products are being designed, how business models could work, a different way of engaging with your consumers. So, yeah, that's also then why I started with Honest, the same way, seeing whether those circular economy principles could be used in the fashion industry, where innovation was only focusing, in my view, on how to produce more, fast, and cheaper. So all things you don't really want as a society. So I wanted to see whether it was possible to actually make that shift there.

It's quite hard though to balance what society wants and what business wants.

Exactly. Yeah. But maybe that's a challenge that I want to prove. It is actually possible to do things differently, to generate a positive societal impact, and by making good products. Consumers like.

Yeah, that's absolutely, you know, the point. You guys, your number one thing is still to make a good quality product.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely, because that's also what sometimes you see, that sustainable products are of inferior quality or not really fashionable, or you don't really want to be seen with sustainable products. So luckily, that's changing. So when I started doing what I'm doing now with Honest, My first concern was, okay, I want to make a jean made from old recycled jeans, but I don't want to make any compromises on the quality of the jean or how it looks like, because otherwise it's not going to work. So, yeah, that's something that's, I think, that's really important if you want consumers to make that change and that shift.

So tell me about the model then, beyond the product, what happens?

The model is— well, I start from the observation that a lot of old clothes are being thrown away after we use them, especially in times of fast fashion that we're currently living in. Fashion has really become a consumable product. We buy something, we wear it for a couple of occasions, sometimes we even buy clothes to wear once at a party, then we put it in the closets, we never wear it anymore, and then we throw it away. So the use period of clothing has really gone down. As a result, they were producing twice as many clothes as before. So when we chuck the clothes away, we put it in the regular household waste and it's then being landfilled or incinerated. So again, burnt, destroyed. So at the same time, we can't keep up with growing enough cotton to make new clothes. So I started from the observation, okay, well, why not make use of the clothes hanging in people's closets doing nothing and try to harvest those and use them as a resource. So that's how we started in 2017 with our first harvest campaign, where people were invited to bring in their old jeans in the direct city of Antwerp, where we're based. We had more than 80 different collecting points and people could actually drop them off. And in 2 weeks' time, we collected more than 6,000 pair of jeans. So that was huge. We did the same, we did a new harvest campaign last year, so again, the two last weeks of September, and we collected more than 11,000 pairs of jeans. So all those jeans are our resources. We then sort out, and the jeans that's not wearable anymore is then being recycled, so brought back to fiber, to cotton fiber, and is being spun back into yarn in Belgium. So we managed to make a yarn made from 50% of old recycled jeans and added 50% Tencel. And Tencel is made in Austria by a company called Lenzing from wood pulp. So, also, that's cellulose-based, and that yarn is then being used to make our fabric. Fabric is dyed and woven in Italy, not that far from here, in Milan. And then, that fabric is the actual base for our gene collection. Gene collection designed according to circular economy principles. So in order for us to see what we had to change in the design of a gene, we had to look at the recycling process of the old genes that we collected to see what actually was the waste fraction. And there we noticed that the waste fraction was buttons, rivets, labels, those kind of things that couldn't be recycled anymore. So we knew that we had to address that and do things differently. So that's why we developed our removable buttons, buttons that we can just take off and then reuse as buttons again when we get the jean back at the end of life. The rivets are being embroidered so that way you have the same look and feel, but you don't have the problem of not recyclable rivets. Also, you don't make any scratches on on chairs. We don't use any labels. All the information is printed on the pocketing fabric. We have a crotch enforcement of the jeans to make it last longer.

A what, sorry?

Crotch enforcement.

A crotch enforcement? Yeah. Okay, excellent.

Before I had my own jeans brand, my jeans didn't last for more than 6 months before they started tearing on the crotch.

You're a cyclist?

I cycle a lot in the city. So, I thought, "Okay, well, if I'm going to start my own brand, then I wanted a solution for that problem as well." So, that's why we added the crotch enforcement. I first added them only on the men's styles, but then I got the valid remark of women saying that we cycle as well.

Yeah, absolutely.

So, I added also to the women's styles to make the jeans last longer.

So, that's a popular feature.

Yeah, I think that's a feature that still a lot of people don't really know when they see the jeans online. Probably something we need to emphasize more on, that it's a cycle of friendly jeans.

Yeah, yeah.

And then also, with the purchase of every jean, there's also a spray included you get as a consumer. The spray is called Morning After Spray, and the spray is made from probiotics, so positive bacteria. Okay. And that spray can be used to actually refresh your jeans without having to put them in the washing machine.

I was going to say, if you used an aerosol, that would be quite counterproductive if you're trying to make it sort of sustainable, circular.

It is a spray can, but without any aerosols. It's bacteria.

Okay.

In a water solution. Okay. And as soon as you spray them on your jean, they have oxygen, they have food, and they start working. They come back to life and they actually eat the bad bacteria that cause most odours.

Okay.

So it's an active way of actually refreshing your jeans without having to put it in the washing machine, without having to use any chemical.

Yeah, yeah.

Any chemical means. So we did that because 25% of the environmental footprint of a jean is generated in the use phase every time we put it in the washing machine. So I thought it was also our responsibility when designing a jean to not neglect the 25% of impacts that's being generated after jeans being designed and produced. So that's the spray. But we also offer a free repair service. So although the jean has been carefully designed, it's well made and tested, etc., if for some kind of reason you would have a tear in your jean, people can bring them back in and we'll have them repaired free of charge. And at the end of life, when your jean is worn out or doesn't fit anymore, then we like consumers to return their jeans, and they are then given a €15 discount on the purchase of a new Honest Jeans. That allows us to actually repurpose the jeans again.

Do you take them into NewJeans and you resell them, or do you—

Yeah, well, we haven't done it yet, so that's a good sign, I guess. Yeah, yeah. So, but in the future, when we start getting back our old jeans again, then we can decide what to do with it. If the jean is still in perfect shape but consumers have returned because it doesn't fit anymore, then we can clean them and sell them as pre-loved jeans, for example. Or if that's not possible, then we could use parts of the fabric and make it into other commercially interesting products. Or if that's not possible, then, okay, then we take off the buttons to be used again as buttons in a new jean. And then our jeans go into the regular recycling process, back into fiber, yarn, fabric, and then again to do the whole thing again.

Okay, wow. I think there's lots of people around the world that are, you know, coming around that this is, it just makes sense.

Exactly. I think sustainable thinking is a trend that's not going to go away. I think so that's a very positive thing that actually more and more companies are starting to get aware of. So, but now you see that a lot of companies have made a shift that, okay, we have to do something, but are still very much looking in what that can be because it's very much out of a comfort zone. And also, especially in the fashion industry, a lot of those companies have become excellent in actually optimizing their value chain. I mean, because that was what everything was about— how to produce faster, cheaper. And seasonal. Yeah, exactly. So they've looked at every step of the supply chain to take off all unnecessary cost to make that happen. So now asking from those kind of companies that have a perfect linear system to bend into a circular system, that's never going to work. And you see that already happening where a lot of bigger companies have launched initiatives to do things slightly better with collecting or using organic cotton or— so it's good steps and necessary steps, but it doesn't really change the way they are working in the core. So, that's going to be the big challenge. That's hard.

That's really hard to say.

Because they're just victims of their own efficiency and their own way of working because they've become so good in doing that in a very good way. Good way in the sense of—

They're doing a very bad thing in a very good way.

Exactly. So, you can do things a little bit less bad, but it's not going to change the overall system.

You're seeing lots of companies start new companies as well within their companies to sort of take these ventures and see where they go.

That's, that's how the transition usually works, and I think that's also something that's not going to happen with the fashion industry, where it's easy. And that was also the easy part for us because I had the luxury of starting from a white canvas. I didn't have any partners yet that I had to convince. Yeah, I could start from a white sheet of paper, draw the circular model that I thought could work, and then look for the partners to fit into that model. So, that was easy for me, relatively easy for me. But that makes it difficult for companies that have their partners, that are depending on their partners. And if they don't ask to do things radically different, then, yeah, then that's probably not going to be that easy. So, it would be easy for them to to start new innovative hubs next to the mother company that have the freedom to operate and generate new things and make those new daughter companies grow and then finally cannibalize the mother and hopefully become bigger than the mother. So, that's probably what's going to happen in the industry.

Yeah.

In the transitional phase.

I have a question here. I'd say, how brave do you have to be? But I feel like maybe it's not maybe, bravery is probably the wrong word.

Yeah, it's more the fact that you have to actually take that step. I think most, like we said earlier, it's clear that sustainability is here to stay and we have to go that way. So the mindset is already there, but now More the question is, okay, how we're going to do that? And then so that's more the challenge, not necessarily the bravery of starting to do it, but it's more the how. And of course, there are still a lot of questions and for bigger brands that are producing at low costs, how their consumers are going to react because that's probably going to be the most exciting thing for them because I know my cost buildup is— I have higher costs than my competitors, but that's because I take all costs into my model. I don't shift my costs onto society because that's a bit what's also happened. I mean, the biggest economical success was from those companies that managed in externalizing as many costs as possible onto in society. So if you want to move the change the way you work and put those costs into your model, then automatically you're gonna increase your costs. So how is your consumer going to react when they're not used to that? So that's going to be probably the biggest hurdle for companies doing it in a different way. Moving forward.

Yeah. For you, do you find this prohibitive or do you just think, well, this is what it has to be and if it makes sense, then people will go for it?

Yeah, I think it's going to be the latter. Yeah, it's— people have lost sense of what the true cost actually is. Somebody is always paying the costs. So, and now we're not seeing the consequences because it's far away in many cases. But eventually it's going to come back. So we are living a lot on credit and that has to change and whether we like it or not. Yeah, absolutely.

It sounds like you have a very philosophical approach to this. Did that come— have you always had that or did you come when you studied economics?

Not necessarily because when I was studying economics, it was more the traditional way of thinking and business and internal growth.

Yeah, it seems a bit at contrast with your new business.

Yeah, it's— yeah, it's— there's still a lot of old principles around there. So, but the circular economy thinking has been there for decades as well. I mean, it was there in the '70s and from time to time it pops up. But under a different name or different packaging.

Well, in fashion, I mean, you would have your suit made by the tailor down the road with materials that are made, and you would never throw it away. You'd just get him or that company to repair it, or you'd hand it down to your son and things, you know. So, we've gone a long, long way from that.

Oh, yeah, yeah. It's globalization gone mad, actually, the last couple of years with all negative results because it's a bit, yeah, strange situation where we expect cheap products that we can buy. At the same time, we're complaining that all the jobs are going away. And then we, with every election, we go and choose for people that defend our rights and then because we're scared of people coming here to take this because there's not enough jobs anymore because we keep— yeah, we'd like to buy cheap products that we import. So it's a lot of strange things if you would look from it from—

Yeah, it's quite contradictory.

Yeah, exactly. So I think a lot of problems that we face today could be tackled if we would start bringing production back and looking at doing things differently.

Well, you're leading the way in that, you know, and you should feel some pride in that a little bit, you know.

A little. Of course, we're still a very small company, but it's good that I can make bigger brands think about how they are working, and also with the way we are working, we are honest as a consumer brand. That's with our proof of concept. But as we control the entire production process, that also allows us to offer that production process to other brands. So we also offer the fabric that we made to other brands that they can then use for their own designs. So under the brand name Urban Fibres. So because I think that's going to be the big lever for positive change. I mean, with every Honest pair of Honest Jeans being bought, and then okay, that's a positive impact. But yeah, our sales figures are not enough to actually compensate a lot. So the bigger impact is only going to come if the rest of the industry actually follows. So it's satisfying for me that as a small company, I can actually make others think about how they're doing and actually prove it is possible to make good quality products with using resources that are already out there and looking at the different way of their process with the toxics being used, etc., the way it's been, and also making products that are recyclable and yeah. So that's nice. I mean, that's a satisfactory thing in what I'm doing.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, Tom, thank you very much for coming to meet us.

Thank you for having me.

Pleasure.