🛒 The Check-Out: Rebecca James, Seasalt Cornwall
+ 5 cool climate events + what's in our basket - Lumie, Fuel10k, Environmental Voter Project....
Happy Thursday! Welcome to The Check-Out - your weekly dose of climate x consumer goods inspiration, and your discovery box of products and events the Following the Footprints team are loving this week. It’s great to have you here.
Beautiful clothing. Responsible sourcing. The Cornish coast. Rumour has it these are the three ingredients to a deliciously generational brand… or maybe we’re just talking about why we love Seasalt Cornwall. We’ll let you decide. Today we’re catching up with Rebecca James, Sustainability Manager at Seasalt Cornwall. Following the Footprints started with a simple goal - support sustainability managers - which is why profiling them in this Check Out edition every week truly warms our hearts.
After we chat to Rebecca, we’ll share what the Following the Footprints team has loved and consumed this week and 5 Climate x Consumer Goods events coming up. Let’s dig in…
> Brand Spotlight
🎙️ Behind the Brand: 6 questions with Rebecca James, Sustainability Manager at Seasalt Cornwall
👉 We’d love the non-LinkedIn lowdown on who you are and some history about Seasalt!
Love the “non-LinkedIn Lowdown”! I am Rebecca, Sustainability Manager at Seasalt Cornwall. Seasalt is a clothing brand taking inspiration from our Cornish Heritage, creating collections that are crafted to bring creative, confident dressing through responsible choices, to people of all ages.
Originally from South Wales, I moved to Cornwall a good few years ago to study for my BSc and MSc. Understanding our natural world and how we interact with it has always interested me and it has allowed me to forge my career in the sustainability/impact world. After working for several years in London, the pandemic brought, as it did for many others, a time to reset and evaluate. During this time, I decided to leave the corporate world behind and set up as an independent consultant, which led to myself and my partner moving back to Cornwall and closer to our stunning coastline. Living by the coast is certainly my happy place!
Working with a wide range of amazing brands as a consultant, I supported them with embedding impactful principles into their businesses. I really love seeing companies who truly care about operating responsibly see their values turn into tangible impact! I am now working internally at Seasalt and really enjoy being a part of a business who authentically weave their values into all areas– that isn’t to say we still have a lot of work to do but that is what keeps each day interesting and different!
At Seasalt, our goals have always been simple: to craft beautiful clothing that inspires and endures and to reduce our impacts on the environment. Our deep connection with our coastal home inspires us to care for the planet and people now, and for the long term.
👉 You recently became B Corp certified. What unexpected challenges did you encounter? What was a highlight of that experience?
Getting certified is an exciting milestone in Seasalt’s impact journey! I am certain anybody who has been through the process of becoming a B Corp can vouch for it not being a simple tick box exercise. Like many businesses, impact can be found organically within our processes but the need to formalise them was an improvement that we worked through. The B Corp process allowed us to look at the impact we make, especially in a controversial industry, and dig into our data to showcase the positives we are creating and where improvements are needed. This new added layer of governance to our way of working internally gives us confidence and structure to continue to improve.
The certification is a brilliant architecture to shine a light on what our teams have done naturally so far.
👉 How does Seasalt think about impact? Any impact-related milestones or achievements you’re particularly proud of?
You can’t be a part of the textiles industry without addressing the fact that it is a controversial industry to operate in. However, I do truly believe that by incorporating innovation and design, over time we are able to continue to provide high quality garments that give our customers confidence and creativity day to day.
I must admit that I am relatively new to the Seasalt team but the one thing that has stood out to me since joining is the passion and openness the entire business adopts when it comes to operating responsibly. The choices we make around sourcing and our product design are fundamental in championing that.
For example, we have long been an advocate of the use of certified organic cotton in our products. Our internal teams have worked closely over the years with the Soil Association to truly understand how making responsible choices in our sourcing process can make an impactful difference. We are also proudly on track to meet several other product related impact targets by the end of 2024:
100% of our leather to be sourced from gold and silver rated Leather Working Group tanneries.
100% of the wool used in our collections to be certified by the Responsible Wool Standard.
100% of the viscose used in our collections to be from responsibly managed plant sources and made using closed loop systems.
Fashion can be an incredibly powerful force for good, providing opportunities to not only empower culture but also lead the way for social change. Whilst we are doing great things already, there is a long journey ahead and one that we hope to continuously build upon in the future.
👉 Ok, magic wand time; if we could grant you three wishes for the fashion industry, what would they be?
It really does require a magical wand but a societal shift towards making responsible and impactful fashion accessible to the many not just the few.
I would love to see more of a spotlight shone on our incredible makers. The supply chain that fashion brands engage are uniquely talented and their stories deserve to be heard along with being supported. We are all at a different stage in our impact journey and collaboration is key. Our wonderful supply chain is the cornerstone of our success, and our teams work hard to engage and support them as often as possible.
Open and collaborative discourse between brands and suppliers I think is fundamental in making tangible impact for future – we can’t gatekeep learnings and challenges. Sharing these is key in making informed decisions and will collectively contribute to a more prosperous future.
👉 How do YOU keep up with regulation, industry innovations, climate news and other brands?
I feel that keeping up with regulation, innovation and climate news in general could make up most of my day – I am that person who loves the detail!
At Seasalt we are very fortunate to have a wonderful internal Compliance Director who is often bombarded with many random questions from myself and keeps us on the straight and narrow when it comes to new requirements! We also have a dedicated international product compliance team who do brilliantly at keeping us up to date with upcoming legislation. Collaborating with them allows me to keep up to date with many requirements and it often leads to exciting innovations – the Digital Product Passport requirement is such an exciting step forward for the industry.
When I am not asking a million questions to our teams, I like to make time to attend webinar sessions, as members of the British Retail Consortium, we have access to on-demand sessions as well as open webinars which are extremely useful for technical updates as well as industry innovation. I also subscribe to a range of climate related newsletters my current favourite is The Crisps by Tanita Hecking.
👉 Finally - we’d love some recommendations; one climate-related resource, one person to follow online and one consumer brand that’s killing it!
This is such a hard question as there are so many of all three out there right now!
If I had to narrow it down, my go-to resource for all things Impact Reporting is a website called “The Impact Reporting Archive”. It’s a brilliant repository of impact reports that have been published.
There are so many amazing individuals championing issues around the world but one that I have always been drawn to is the work of portrait and documentary photographer, Paddy Dowling. His work gives space to amplify underrepresented voices. The interplays between climate, social issues and instability leave an impact not only on the environment but also, on individuals across the globe.
I am in the midst of a house renovation, so I am constantly searching for new and exciting brands and the one that I have fallen in love with is House of Hackney, I currently have my eye on their Mycelium Ceiling Rose!
A huge thanks to Rebecca for jumping into the hot seat today!
> In Our Basket
🔎 What we loved and consumed this week:
From Leone in London: I’ve been aware of the Environmental Voter Project for a while, but the sheer SCALE of their work in the run up to the recent US election is kinda mind blowing. Last time I checked, their efforts have led to 386k+ first-time climate voters casting their votes in this election! I also did my first ‘friend banking’, even though I’m not a US citizen, with Climate Changemakers last week too - it was a thrill.
From Ruby in London: I’ve been on the hunt for a nut-free granola to eat in my nut-free office for a while now. While most on offer are chocolate, I have been enjoying the Fuel10K Super Berry Granola which is also high in protein. Plus, they are a B Corp, which means it’s an even better start to the day.
From Katherine in London: With the clocks going back, I know it’s time to start using my Lumie alarm religiously! As someone who loves an early morning start, my Lumie does a great job of waking me up slowly with its warm light, helping my body adjust for the day ahead. I’m also keeping my eye out on their energy lamps which help with SAD for those really wintery days!
> Monthly Events Roundup!
📆 5 Consumer Goods x Climate Events:
Browse 20+ upcoming consumer x climate events, and submit yours.
11th November - Fashion Tech Impact Mixer
Organisers: No.29, Lilian Liu, Rachel Sterling
Location: New York, USA
13th November - Accredited Carbon Literacy for SMEs in Spain
Organisers: Carbon Literacy Project
Location: Virtual
14th November - Dinner Table Revolution
Organisers: Wildfarmed, Hodmedod’s, Old Hall Farm, Tate Eats
Location: London, UK
14th November - Hands-On: Recipes for Reducing Food Waste with Too Good to Go
Organisers: Eataly
Location: San Jose, USA
19th November - The role of the food industry in the road to Net-zero
Organisers: Ecology, MyEmissions
Location: Virtual
That’s it for today!
Know a brand we should spotlight next? Let Leone know!
Have links that can make the team learn or laugh? Share them with us, we might just share them in The Check-Out next week.
Hungry for more? You’ll see us on Monday! That’s when we suit up and get serious, digging into a topic that is guaranteed to make you look smart at standup.
Much love,
Team FTF
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