Excerpt from Future Fashion White Pages
Contributed by Coral Rose of Eco Innovations
Posted with permission of Earth Pledge

Good for Business, Good for the Environment

In 2004, as the ladies' apparel buyer for Sam's Club, the warehouse club division of Wal-Mart Stores Inc., I found myself responsible for the economic, environmental and social impact of more than five million pounds of toxic chemicals used each year in the production of our conventional cotton merchandise. Of course, my job description did not specify those responsibilities; my conscience held me to them. I had experienced too much tragedy related to pesticide use to ignore the threat it poses.

I became aware of the danger of pesticides in the 1970s and 1980s with the malathion helicopter sprayings in the L.A. basin. First our family dog fell victim to pesticide poisoning. He developed numerous cancerous tumors all over his small body and, a short time later, one of the best friends anyone could have was buried.

I began to think, “Yikes, if that happened to Pee-Wee, what will happen to us?” A decade later, my mother passed away from cancer. Then a neighbor. At the same time, another neighbor (who survived) became ill with cancer. About five years later, my father passed away, also of cancer.

Given my personal history, the adoption of an organic lifestyle came naturally. For most of my life, I have been a consumer of organic food and organic clothing. I am often asked, “If you don't eat it, why would you care if your t-shirt is organic?” I care
because of how cotton is produced. It is one of the most heavily sprayed crops in the world. Many of the agents used to spray cotton were originally developed in World War II as nerve gases. By the way, indirectly, you do eat cotton. Its oil can probably be found in your favorite junk food, and its seed is fed to the poultry and livestock that we in turn eat, and to the dairy cattle whose milk we drink.

Fortunately, cotton hasn't always been dependent upon chemicals. They have only been applied to cotton (and other farm products) in the last 60 years or so. Organic cotton, which is cultivated without these dangerous agents, is a completely viable alternative to conventional cotton.

As a buyer for a mass-market retailer, I realized that by buying organic cotton instead of conventional cotton, my colleagues and I could improve the quality of life of millions of people. After that insight, how could I not do something?

My perseverance resulted in a success story for Sam's Club and provided Wal-Mart with crucial economic evidence that doing the environment good would be good for business. I began looking for a supplier of organic cotton in 2003. Just when I thought I'd exhausted all my contacts, a current supplier called and asked me if I was interested in organic cotton. I was thrilled.

I knew that the success of a test in organic cotton would depend on the desirability of the end product. Ladies' apparel happened to be the number one volume category of organic textiles, and also one of the fastest growing. Next, I looked for the number one category in ladies' wear: active wear. Where does organic cotton fit into activewear? My answer was easy: yoga wear. I understood that organic cotton wasn't about trend. It was a lifestyle choice. The kind of person who would value organic would also probably value the comfort and health associated with yoga. So I developed yoga pants and tops in a selection of pastel colors. They were priced at a similar point as their conventional cotton counterparts would have been. My decision was logical, and based upon years of experience. We sold over 190,000 units in ten weeks, a number that speaks for itself.

When the sets hit the floor, I visited stores in several states to observe consumer buying patterns. I wanted to gain a fuller sense of their reaction to this ground-breaking product. I noticed that the typical buyer would be attracted by the item—the style and color—and the price; then she'd notice how soft it was. Then, I'd hear, “Oh, it's organic!” Some of the consumers, ones who fit the profile of conscientious “Patagonia-type” consumers, also seemed more apt to buy multiples. Clearly, they recognized the value.

What I learned, and what I'd like to drive home, is that it's about the item. The average Sam's Club member purchases on impulse. When she finds the right item, she will buy it. When she realizes it is organic, it fuels her enthusiasm. Organic cotton is a great added value for the consumer, but what makes her put down her money is finding the right item.

Of course, the Sam's Club member is not necessarily the same person as, say, the Patagonia customer. I'm guessing that the latter is more likely to shop at Patagonia because she knows that it sells organic products. Over the past decade, Patagonia has built quite a reputation for being a destination for organic cotton. Sam's Club does not seek to cater to a niche textile market, and environmental issues do not guide the average member's shopping decisions. That said, as the yoga clothes showed, Sam's Club shoppers do appreciate the chance to buy organic.

The yoga sets let me demonstrate decisively that choosing organic cotton could help a mass-market retailer meet or even surpass its immediate sales goals while doing the environment right. If I had developed the wrong yoga set, then the story would stop there. As it turns out, those yoga sets changed how retailers now view the opportunity to offer organic cotton to their customers, and it did transform a niche market fiber into a mass market fiber seemingly overnight.

Several months after ordering the yoga sets but before they hit the floor, I met Andrew Fraser, Fabric Manager for International Merchandising at Wal-Mart. His job was to source fabrics and then persuade buyers to buy them. Together, we drafted a one-page vision. Our goal was to develop a new business model for organic cotton and other sustainable materials, one that engaged stakeholders in horizontal collaboration throughout the supply chain, beginning at the farm gate.

Just as we were preparing to present it at the first meeting, my yoga sets hit the floor and began outselling every other item. Perfect timing. Andrew and I were able to present our vision to the executive committee with the economic business case in hand. The sales figures proved that, for Sam's Club, organic cotton was more than just a good idea.

Andrew and I began assembling a team in earnest. We launched a grassroots movement in the company. We talked to everyone, sent e-mails and posted flyers. We also had a secret weapon: kitty litter. Andrew and his three children spent one weekend creating the invitations to our first meeting. They were small note attached read, “The kitty litter in this bag weighs 1/3 pound, the amount of chemical fertilizers and pesticides used to conventionally grow enough cotton for a single t-shirt. Think of how many t-shirts we sell in one year!” It really grabbed people's attention. Everybody who was on our team joined not because they had to, but because they wanted to. They realized how important this issue was.

As we built support internally, my subsequent organic cotton purchases were coming through. There was not one weak sale among them, a fact that pleasantly surprised some people. It didn't surprise me. As I liked to say, “it's just cotton!” By that, I certainly didn't mean to belittle a $334 billion industry. Rather, I meant that organic cotton could be manufactured into any piece of clothing that conventional cotton is manufactured into. If the item sells well in conventional cotton, why should we doubt that it would sell as well in organic cotton, assuming the price point is close to the same? My sales figures supported that reasoning.

I kept hammering home the message that what we were making organic affordable for everyone. This statement in particular has become a mantra for the organic movement at Wal-Mart. It was the success of the organic fiber at Sam's Club, as well as the success of the energy and fleet teams, that gave crucial support to Wal-Mart's corporate environmental initiative. Across departments, the Sam's Club's success story has served as an example to build enthusiasm for organic products.

One particularly gratifying consequence of the Sam's Club success story was that it burst the classic lifetime adoption stages model. This model uses four stages to represent consumer conversion to organic buying habits. The model predicts that consumers enter the organic market with dairy, making that a stage one purchase. Fiber is a stage four, the last product type predicted to be adopted. With the affordably priced attractive yoga sets, we coaxed many consumers to enter the market at stage four. This indicates that proponents of organic clothing should not feel as though they have to wait for consumers to sufficiently evolve to buy organic. Consumers are ready and willing, as long as the product is also appealing in the dimensions that the consumer typically cares about: style, quality, and price. As you can imagine, as soon as I knew my
goods were selling, I was over in the food area, sharing my story. The fact that I'd achieved a stage-four success story gave my colleagues in the food department the boost of confidence they needed to make their own organic purchases.

Whether they're dealing in apparel or food, because of their sheer size, big box retailers are in a privileged position to make organic widely affordable. This is in part because of the relationship they can build with the farmers. One challenge for the organic cotton farmer is the fact that, unlike the conventional cotton farmer, he or she must plant a rotation crop in order to maintain soil health. Wal-Mart has transformed that handicap into an advantage. In many cases, it is able to offer a market for the rotation crop as well.

This affordability trickles down to the customer. Making organic affordable for consumers was one of my personal motivations. In 2004, I visited my daughters, who are both raising young families—one in California and the other in Arkansas. Shopping together, I noticed that neither of them purchased any organic products. When I asked why, they explained to me that, as many mothers find, they just could not afford to. Their situation saddened me and brought into focus the real benefit of big box retailers' going organic. The ability to purchase healthy products (healthy both for the consumer and for the individuals involved in their manufacture) should not be a privilege determined by income level. Buying organic has an ethical dimension. It is not just about benefiting you or me. It's about benefiting others. Many people ask me how the Wal-Mart/Sam's Club experience changed my life. I reply that it never was about changing my life! It has always been about improving the lives of countless farmers, their families and their communities. Buying organic supports cleaner water, soil, and air. preserving the integrity of our ecosystems, as well as protecting the health of our children and grandchildren.

I have found that one of the most effective ways to impress this philosophy onto the corporate team is to take as many of them as possible on a farm tour. In 2005, we took several Wal-Mart buyers and suppliers to tour organic cotton farms in California and Texas. The trip was important to me in many ways. When I stepped off a bus in the San Joaquin Valley and smelled freshly-cut alfalfa, it took me back 40 years to when I spent all my summers on my grandparents' 120-acre farm there. However, I found that the valley wasn't the same beautiful place where, since the age of two, I had wanted to spend all my free time. While I recognized the smell of the alfalfa, the air did not smell clean and sweet as it did in my memory. Since my childhood, the area has transitioned from family farms to agricultural corporations. Many days, the pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers swirling in the air make being outside almost unbearable. Alfalfa is not the culprit crop. Cotton cultivation and other agriculture are the reason why nearly 194 million pounds of chemicals were dumped in the State of California in 2005.

Together with my team, I watched as crop dusters sprayed the conventional cotton fields with chemicals to defoliate the leaves from the cotton plant. Then we visited an organic cotton field. Organically grown cotton uses a natural process occurring during a seasonal freeze for defoliation. The contrast between the two fields was clear. The conventional cotton was brown and lifeless; the organic cotton vibrant with leaves that were glossy and green. At lunch that day, we listened to a local doctor speak about treating her patients, primarily farm workers and their young children, who suffered from mild to life-threatening illnesses caused by the chemical spraying of agricultural fields.

Usually, a buyer or supplier would never step into a cotton field. They normally get involved at the yarn stage. However, all of those who participated said that they wished that their colleagues from every department in the company could have come along. Before they went on the tour, they were making decisions with the organic farming projects because of the corporate initiative. After the tour, they better understood the environmental and social repercussions of their purchasing decisions.

Though Wal-Mart has certainly been an important force for change in the area of organic cotton and environmental reform in general, many companies are realizing that considering environmental impact and social responsibility are as critical as (and, in the long run, inseparable from) economic growth. I founded Eco-Innovations to support companies in integrating sustainable value into their services, strategies and products. I am currently leading a task force of industry experts that are committed to moving the market forward. They are among the top innovators and leaders in this industry: Levi's, Patagonia, Timberland and others. This group's intention is to make truly sustainable garments a reality by 2008. There is much work to be done in ensuring the total integrity of a garment. Fortunately, there is also a great community of industry leaders who are working hard to make it happen, and I feel privileged to be a part of it all.

Posted with permission of Earth Pledge. To order the entire book, Future Fashion White Pages, visit: www.earthpledge.org

Visit The Organic Pages Online for a list of OTA members with organic cotton items.