Platforms like Teemill have democratised the fashion industry
Founded in 2014, Teemill is the world’s biggest dedicated circular economy platform. It works with more than 10,000 brands, including global NGOs and businesses, media, online content creators, influencers and side hustlers, providing an open-access circular design and supply chain platform. In an interview with Fibre2Fashion, Teemill Co-founder Rob Drake-Knight talks about designing and selling sustainable and circular clothing.
When did you start Teemill? Who are the founders?
Teemill was launched in 2018 and grew out of our fashion brand Rapanui, which was founded in 2008. Teemill took the tech and supply chain solutions used to create Rapanui and made them available for anyone, anywhere to use for free.
How did you come up with the idea for Teemill?
When we read that 10 per cent of worldwide CO2 comes from clothing, that 60 per cent of clothes are made from or with plastic and that a dump truck of textiles waste goes to landfill or incineration every second, we knew we wanted to be part of the solution, not part of the problem. That’s why our products are made from organic materials, using renewable energy, and designed to come back to be remanufactured when they’re worn out.
In business-as-usual, clothes are mass produced speculatively resulting in massive amounts of waste: 40 per cent of clothing is never worn. By printing in real time, we only make what people need when they need it. That saves money that we spend on making organics and renewables affordable. Our robotics do the same thing, making the pack process 30 per cent more efficient. That means we can afford the 10X increased cost of using packaging made from plants, not plastic. We share this technology openly on the internet with other brands via our platform at Teemill.com
How does Teemill work?
Teemill is an open-source circular and sustainable supply chain and e-commerce platform. Anyone can use it to create their own online store and plug in to our circular supply chain to start designing and selling sustainable and circular clothing. Products are made from 100 per cent organic cotton, or our recycled Remill yarn. Our factories are powered by renewable energy, and everything is designed from the start to come back to us so we can turn it into new products.
Which machinery is used to print on T-shirts?
We print every item on demand, in the seconds after an order is placed. This means there is no overproduction, no waste, and no warehouses full of stock waiting to be sold. Our printers mix the inks in real time, using only what is needed for each print. We use Brother GTX DTG printers, but the most important thing is not the hardware, but the software. We write it to work with any digital printer and we also build our own machinery and 3D print parts that we can imagine, but that don’t exist on the market yet.
How many brands have you onboarded? How many styles on an average does a brand display on its store online?
We have around 10,000 stores using the platform – from global organisations like Greenpeace, WWF, BBC Earth, to online content creators such as Yoga with Adriene, as well as many individual designers and creatives. The range of products varies hugely. Some of our most successful stores have just a couple of well-designed products, while others are continually adding new designs. Because everything is print on demand, we only print what is needed when it’s needed—meaning stores can have hundreds of different designs that exist on the cloud, without having to worry about over-stocking.
Which are your major markets in and outside the UK?
Outside of the UK, our biggest markets are the US and Europe, but we are looking to expand our work in Asia through our partners in India.
What is the turnaround time once an order is placed?
Most orders are printed the same working day. The shipping time depends on where your order is being sent to and the delivery option selected. Domestic orders should arrive within 5 days.
Do you have your own manufacturing facility?
Yes, we have two factories in the UK and another in Tamil Nadu, as well as third party facilities in the Czech Republic and Spain.
What kind of fabrics, dyes and prints are used to make t-shirts?
As a certified organic company, we use low-waste digital printing tech and inks that conform to the GOTS/Soil Association organic criteria. Our printing technology allows for an almost unlimited range of colours and provides a quality feel. Our inks contain no animal derived products and are not tested on animals.
Please tell us about latest campaign.
For #TakebackFriday we’re reversing Black Friday. So, instead of asking customers to buy lots of new things, we’re paying them to send back their old Teemill products. Because every Teemill product is made from 100 per cent organic cotton or our recycled Remill fibre. It means that we can turn those old products into new products and reward customers financially for doing it. We’re trying to involve as many of the 10,000 stores that use our platform as possible, and we have the backing of some big names like WWF, Rapanui, and BBC Earth.
What are the major trends you see in T-shirt in terms of design, colours, prints and fabric compositions?
T-shirts have a long history of being used to support campaigns, causes and activism and we are seeing this trend accelerate as the tools make it easier for anyone to create their own brands and products. Platforms like Teemill have democratised the fashion industry and empowered people to become their own fashion designers and hyper-personalise their clothing in a way that reflects their values.
In terms of fabric composition, there is growing understanding of the issues around synthetic fibres, such as microfibre pollution and poor recycling. That is sparking more and more interest in natural materials such as wool and cotton, as well as a focus on how those materials are produced. From the outset we have focused on using 100 per cent certified organic cotton, grown in India.
What are your future plans at Teemill?
Next year, we will grow our impact and partner manufacturing from the UK and EU to US and EMEA, via a partnership in India, which will help us to serve customers in India, Singapore and the rest of Asia.
We’re also working on being able to take back clothes from other brands. It’s harder to figure out because most clothes just aren’t designed to be circular, but it would be a huge step forward for the industry and we are definitely on the way to doing it. We do already use post-consumer materials from other brands, but we can’t yet accept them directly from the customer.
We’re also working hard to raise awareness of the solutions we’ve developed, because a lot of people don’t even know these solutions exist. The more people that get involved in the Teemill community, the greater the scale of impact we can have. That’s why we’re also working on new ways for people to participate. We recently launched a Shopify plugin so anyone with a Shopify store can connect to our circular supply chain and design and sell products. We have also created an API that allows anyone, anywhere to connect their website, platform or app, to our supply chain.
What are your sustainability goals for the next two years?
Along with the focus on helping more people participate in creating a circular economy for fashion, we’re constantly evolving the products we offer, so that we can tackle different challenges in the industry.
Published on: 28/11/2022
DISCLAIMER: All views and opinions expressed in this column are solely of the interviewee, and they do not reflect in any way the opinion of Fibre2Fashion.com.
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