Designs on You

The first thing to remember when considering the sustainability of any consumer product is that if the company states that it is 100 percent sustainable, they're either lying or they misunderstand the term "sustainable." No business is 100 percent sustainable unless it uses no fossil fuels to transport its products, no fossil-fueled electricity in its production process, only recycled parts, and products made entirely by hand by people who are fed on only 100 percent sustainable food (you can see where I'm going with this). Every business creates waste, and every business pollutes on some level. The important concept we encourage is the idea of continuous improvement. No business is perfect; the knowledge and will to look for ways to constantly improve your impact on the environment and society is the closest to perfect a business can ever be.

We have experimented with natural dyes in the past, but found that they did not stand up to our quality standards in terms of durability and color fastness. We use low-impact, bi-functional reactive dyes in all our garment-dyeing. These are not natural dyes, but they are the best garment dyes that technology has to offer that can meet our quality standards while maintaining the smallest environmental footprint. They meet the Global Organic Textile Standard and the Okitex European standard for environmental impact, which addresses the largest environmental concern of most garment dyes: heavy metals.

To answer your question directly, there are two reasons. First, included in our sustainable business model are three ideals: people, planet, and profits. The profits piece can be difficult to address, as the environmental movement is very "open source," if you will, and it is encouraged to share information about sustainable methods freely within the community. On the other hand, as a business, we cannot attempt to improve our efforts toward people and the planet without profits, without resources to exist. REHANCE is one of our most important competitive advantages, and to lose it would hurt our business tremendously.

Second, even though we need REHANCE, we have actually attempted to license it to other companies for use. The biggest reason this doesn't work is expertise: it's simply so different a technology that other screen printers have a very hard time using it with any consistent results. Unfortunately we do not have a program put together or the resources to train other businesses on its use, so the licensing idea is on the back burner at this time.

Our environmental mission today has turned toward carbon-emission reduction in the face of increased concern about global warming. We are attempting to lower our own carbon footprint by purchasing as many of our supplies locally as possible, buying more renewable energy, and purchasing carbon-offset credits. We are also set to install one of the first, if not the first, off-the-grid B100 biodiesel fuel pumps in our front yard, sponsored by Piedmont Biofuels.

Unfortunately, environmental and social sustainability are not at the top of the priority list in our local community. We have, however, won a few local awards from our state department of energy, and one from the governor's office in 2003.

We make our stencils with a water-resistant emulsion and clean them with nothing but water. We do use a haze remover, which by its nature is a moderately harsh chemical, if we need to get rid of print buildup in our screens. However, because of the nature of water-based inks, we hardly ever have to use it, as print buildup is practically nonexistent.

We reclaim our screens with a water pressure wash and an emulsion remover. The emulsion remover we use is Kiwo Stencil Remover, which is approved by our local water authority to be completely safe to put down a drain (meaning it can be eliminated through biological decomposition in adapted wastewater-treatment plants). After exposing our screens, we wash them out with tap water from a hose with a regular spray nozzle on it.

VOC, for any readers who don't know, stands for volatile organic compound. Water-based inks have no VOCs, which are a big problem in solvent-based inks. The lack of VOCs in water-based inks is one of their many environmental benefits.