The Body Shop Activist: Fing vs The Dark Side of Cotton

29 January 2008

Fing vs The Dark Side of Cotton

It seems appropriate that this, the first “press release” for fing.com.au should be hosted on The Body Shop Activist. The reason; well frankly without The Body Shop (TBS), Adidem and more particularly the inspiration of Anita Roddick I don’t think Fing would have come about.

My wife Emma works for TBS and over the last few years has learnt so much, not just about retailing but equally as important about how a company can contribute to society, and as many spouses of a TBS employee can testify this will rub off!

Even as I look up for the inspiration to write this piece I am being watched over by Anita, a series of cards celebrating her life looking down from our “inspiration wall”. Fing has grown from Emma’s and my love of t-shirts; I challenge you to think of another product that has achieved such iconic status, is so attainable, has the ability to express so many emotions and yet can look so comfortable in a wide range of environments.

Yep, I love t-shirts!

It became apparent through discussions with friends that we were not alone, everyone it seems has what we have come to call “t-shirt moments”, what also became apparent is that as soon as it came the moment would pass and that flash of inspiration would be lost forever. Then one day last year we had had enough, we decided to somehow create a home for all those lost t-shirt moments. It was then the floodgates opened and the ideas really began to flow.

Personally, I get a kick out of wearing a t-shirt that I designed, but I wanted to give others the opportunity to send their ideas. From there it was a small leap to paying a royalty for other people's designs and donating the royalty to a cause or charity, or designing t-shirts as fundraisers.

We were beginning to see the blueprint for a business which we could truly get passionate about, only one problem we had no way to print t-shirts or no experience in doing so. In Anita’s words:

“To succeed you have to believe in something with such a passion that it becomes a reality”

So we looked for a how. Whether it was fate or luck I can’t say, but after hours, days and weeks we discovered Direct Digital Printing, a new technology which would let us take any digital image whether it be a photo, text, graphics or any combination and transfer the image to fabric. This meant not only could we create t-shirts but also a host of custom products such as cushions, bags, table runners, wall hangings etc. The business was getting tantalisingly closer, but there was still to be another twist to come. We wanted to offer a quality product to our customers so we started looking into blank T Shirts, what we learned was quite shocking...

Cotton has a truly dark side!
Although cotton only occupies about 3% of agricultural land globally, it takes an amazing 50% of all herbicides, pesticides and a cocktail of other chemicals to produce it!

The nature of this intensive farming has an appalling effect on the quality of the land, water, air and people involved in the production. Many of the chemicals are known carcinogens leading to premature death among workers and their families.The land itself eventually becomes so toxic and polluted that it becomes unusable, and the run off enters rivers, water tables and eventually the oceans causing untold damage to people and wildlife on its journey.

There is however a better way; organic farmed cotton. Not only does this eliminate the use of chemicals totally, the rotation of crops also leads to the establishment of habitat for wildlife and -in a lesson Australia certainly needs to learn- cotton can be grown without irrigation as the greater organic content in the soil retains moisture, sufficient to allow dry growth. Naturally yields are lower and therefore the cost is higher.

At Fing we believe (and hope you will too) that as the planet struggles to cope with the demands we place upon it, we begin to understand and appreciate the true cost of an item and not just the price. As we live in the most fortunate of societies we should be prepared to pay a reasonable price, Fing therefore made a choice to use only organic cotton. This adds as much as $7 to the price of our shirts, to us these seems a fair exchange for the peace of mind of knowing what you wear has done no harm. For this reason all our shirts carry the Fing logo.

In closing I would like to thank Adam and the Body Shop team for this opportunity to showcase our business, I thank-you for taking the time to read the piece and hope you will visit the website, and even recommend it to your circle of friends. Emma and I are proud to have come this far and are excited that the ball is now rolling, where Fing goes from here is now beyond our control, but we hope we have established a home for those lost T Shirt moments and to see great designs and we hope that in some small way we can help to further the uptake of organic cotton products. I would like to leave you with a favourite quote from Anita Roddick:

“Get Informed. Get Inspired. Get Outraged. Get Active”

Cheers!
Emma & Jon.