How To Create A 100% Environmental Fashion Brand? Look At How Ecoalf Did It.

Spain's environmental fashion brand Ecoalf will expand its international market in the future. Its first target will be Amsterdam in Holland, followed by Tokyo in Japan.

Javier Goyeneche, the founder of the brand, is very dissatisfied with the modern society's excessively exploiting natural resources and polluting the environment. In order to leave a better environment for the future generations, he founded Ecoalf in 2009. The second half of his name comes from his son's name Alfred, in order to commemorate the original intention of her brand creation.

Javier Goyeneche said: "when my son was born, I began to look around and think about what kind of world we would leave to future generations, which made my abuse of natural resources more intolerable. I hope to create a truly sustainable fashion brand, which uses all the raw materials, but the products are still no different from the ordinary fashion products. "

Create "sustainable" fashion products from the source

In order to achieve the goal of brand setting, Ecoalf uses six different criteria to determine the sustainable development performance of a material, including:

Energy consumption and carbon dioxide production in the production process

Water consumption in production process

Area required for production facilities

Usage of chemical products

Association with biodiversity

The amount of solid residue produced during the production process.

All the materials used for their products come from the recycling of waste, and ensure that environmental impact is minimized in the process of recycling and production. For example, the raw materials used by Ecoalf Sea Yarn fiber are recycled plastic bottles from the Mediterranean sea floor. So far, Ecoalf has recycled over 20 million plastic bottles.

Ecoalf's products range from $50 to $300, depending on the category. Some of these products include rainproof ladies' jacket made from recycled nylon, vests made from recycled nets and sports shoes made from marine recycled waste from Spain and Thailand. They also launched the first professional yoga series this autumn, which is made of recycled PET plastic and nylon.

Ecoalf's environmental protection does not stop at the stage of "being alone". They are very active in various global fashion forums and conferences, and disseminate knowledge of environmental protection and sustainability to consumers and practitioners. Ecoalf has established a long-term cooperative relationship with a large chain cafe in Thailand to recover the coffee residue produced by the other side and reclaim it into a high-performance fabric.

Spanish fashion brand Desigau (Desigual) has also launched the first sustainable development series with Ecoalf. "They want to advance their efforts in sustainable development, so we share the technology and fabric with them," said lvarez-Osorio, marketing director of Ecoalf. The series can be purchased on Desigual stores and e-commerce platforms.

Ecoalf also has a project called "Upcycling the Oceans", which provides the necessary tools and training for 3000 fishermen in Spain and Thailand to help them recycle fishing nets and nylon, so as to avoid these old tools being thrown into the sea. Ecoalf regularly collects these materials from fishermen and reclaims them into new fabrics. Since 2015, Ecoalf has avoided more than 400 tons of waste into the sea. This project will expand to the entire Mediterranean region in the future.

100% environmentally friendly stores

The Ecoalf store opened in Amsterdam has also been adhering to the consistent environmental protection style. The store is located in Utrechsetraat, covering an area of 140 meters. All the materials used are from recycled waste. The walls are environmentally-friendly mineral pigments. Indoor illumination also simulates natural lighting as far as possible, and there is no air conditioning to reduce energy consumption. This is also the second brand of overseas stores. Its first overseas store was located in Berlin and opened in 2017.

Carolina lvarez-Osorio, the brand's marketing director, said: "this is a 100% environmentally-friendly store. We will integrate design, architecture, fashion and technology to better interact with consumers."

A large number of natural plants have been placed inside the store, and a special "Act Now" space has been set up so that consumers can get information on how to reduce the environmental impact of the fashion industry.

This is just the first step for Ecoalf to enter the international market. They completed the 4 million 500 thousand euro financing this spring to expand the international market. At the beginning of next year, Ecoalf will enter the Japanese market and cooperate with the fashion group Sun Yang chamber of Commerce to open its first flagship store in Tokyo. The expansion of other regions is already under planning, but no specific information has been released.

"We invest a lot of time in every country," lvarez-Osorio said. We hope that we can build a unique store for every country based on the brand DNA, which requires a lot of input. At this stage, our focus is to stabilize the performance of the existing market. We will explore the possibility of further opening other international markets when the time is ripe. "

At present, Ecoalf has stores in Madrid, Barcelona, Malaga and Berlin, and sales in fiscal year 2017 are 4 million 130 thousand euros.