Saskia van Gendt:
Thanks so much for having me, looking forward to talking with you.

Simon Mainwaring:
So I’ve got to ask, as someone who’s in the fashion world, I mean, Rothy’s is this wonderful purpose driven brand, and you provide products for folks like Mandy Moore and Katie Holmes and Meghan Markle, and others. What’s your favorite product? What’s that one product that you would take onto a desert island with you?

Saskia van Gendt:
Well, it is really fun working for a company that you love the products. And I first found out about Rothy’s as a customer, and I would say, it would be that original pair of shoes that I had from Rothy’s because it was very much a part of how I dressed at the time, and still dress, which is kind of colorful clothing, but I like a neutral shoe to pull it all together. And my old pattern, which was really unsustainable, was kind of buying these cheap shoes that would fall apart, but they matched my fashion aesthetic. When I first had a pair of Rothy’s, I was completely blown away because it matched my style, it was washable, it was extremely comfortable, there was no break-in period. And the shoes themselves lasted for such a long time, I’m still wearing them. So I think that timelessness and the durability and the versatility of that product, which is a black point, is one of the best shoes that we have.

Simon Mainwaring:
I have to say, I couldn’t agree more, because my wife, I, we have two daughters who are 22 and 19, and you hear there’s always this tension between fashion. They want to look a certain way, but they also want to be responsible. And Saskia, there’s probably no more competitive space than the shoe market, a company five years old like Rothy’s has taken off. How did you break in? How did you get noticed?

Saskia van Gendt:
Well, a couple of things, I think one is that it does make a difference when you have people like Megan Markle who are photographed wearing your shoes, that creates a buzz and increases the brand awareness for sure. But we also find that word-of-mouth is one of the biggest ways that new people find out about the brand. So you find that people become brand loyalist. My mom is one of them, she loves the shoes. She talks to her friends about the shoes and gets them to try them. But you see that all the time people having… I’ve witnessed in the airport, people having conversations and saying how comfortable the shoes are, how much they love them. So that’s a really powerful thing and goes back to the products being great products and worthy of that celebration.

Simon Mainwaring:
And I know you studied at Northwestern. Did you ever think you’d end up at a fashion brand starting sustainability, how did that unfold?

Saskia van Gendt:
Well, unfortunately, the role of head of sustainability did not exist at that time, I came into sustainability very much through nature. As a kid, I loved climbing trees and playing around in rivers, and probably came home muddy almost every afternoon. So I really had this passion for being in nature. But it was really when I started studying at Northwestern and learning more about the policy and the environmental innovation that was coming about at the time that I started to feel this bridge between that passion that I felt and environmental action.

Saskia van Gendt:
We weren’t really calling it sustainability at the time. I think it was environmental responsibility, we didn’t even call it climate change, it was called global warming. So at that time, in the early 2000s, there wasn’t this idea of head of sustainability, but since then, so many different things happened. Now, we see this groundswell of mission-driven brands that are trying to disrupt different industries. You see customers really asking for more sustainable products. So I feel lucky that, that passion that I had merged with this awakening that we really need companies to step up.

Simon Mainwaring:
And you mentioned a really good point there, how the language has changed over time. And it’s hard enough when you’re inside that industry to keep track of what’s going on, let alone, if you’re on the outside, at one stage, you were green, then you are sustainable, now it’s regenerative. Can you give us a sense of what sustainability means, and what are the some of the common ways that it shows up in terms of how a company behaves?

Saskia van Gendt:
This is one of my pet peeves about our industry is that it’s already a complicated action that we’re trying to take our customers along that journey, and then the vocabulary keeps on shifting under their feet. So how do we expect people to stay on board? And within sustainability, there’s so many different ways that you can approach it. And I think you see different brands and individuals interpreting it different ways. How Rothy’s approaches sustainability is a very holistic view. We look truly at every part of our operations and production as a business and how it can be more environmentally responsible. That begins with the materials that we’re using, how we’re designing each shoe, how we’re producing it in our wholly-owned factory, and eliminating waste through things like 3D knitting. Designing products, so they can be washable and truly last as long as possible. And then one of the key initiatives that we’re looking at right now through 2021 in the next couple of years is how do we close the loop by creating recycling programs for shoes in footwear.

Simon Mainwaring:
I mean, I think all of us, anecdotally, whether we’re parents, consumers, students, we hear about the need to show up differently in terms of how we consume. But I think you probably brought a whole other level of expertise to… I think you were at Method before you were at Rothy’s and so on. I think you started the EPA, correct?

Saskia van Gendt:
That’s right.

Simon Mainwaring:
Is that where you started to understand the importance of all these issues? And I’ve got to ask you, I’ve never met anyone who’s worked at the EPA before. What do you do, and how did that inform your role and your career moving forward?

Saskia van Gendt:
The part of the EPA that I was working in was very much the most innovative part of the agency that was looking at forward-thinking solutions. The EPA as a whole has a huge number of mandates, the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, and there’s a number of different enforcement and kind of cleanup organizations within the EPA that are really looking at that part of the mandate. My role was looking at how do we avoid waste and mitigate climate change through more innovative solutions.

Saskia van Gendt:
So I was looking at things like packaging redesign, more recyclable packaging, how we can prevent ocean plastic, but through different packaging innovations. I looked at partnerships with cities and how we can mitigate climate change by establishing recycling programs. So it was very much this more forward thinking part of the agency. And as you said, it was such a proving ground for the idea of sustainability that you learn in school, which is very much the science of it, the methodology behind how you can calculate a carbon footprint, but then how you implement it in practice is so different. And seeing the kind of partnerships that you would need to take on in order to make those different actions happen at different levels was very much a great learning place.

Simon Mainwaring:
And I think we’re all still learning because we need to do more and more quickly. But some of the folks listening to this podcast will just be really leaning into sustainably for the first time, or just hearing about some of the practices of their competitors or other industries. Based on your experience at the EPA, Method, and now at Rothy’s, where does someone begin? How does somebody say, okay, we want to look upstream at our suppliers and what we are making, and be more sustainable, what does that look like, a few basic steps?

Saskia van Gendt:
At the company level, I would really encourage companies to look at science and data-driven strategy to develop what they should be going after. And what I mean by that is take the time to do a materials assessment and understand where you may be producing waste throughout your supply chain. Take the time to do a carbon footprint and really go after the biggest pieces in your carbon footprint. Within this confusing world of sustainability, there are these trusted methodologies and the data can really inform the direction that companies can go, to go after the lowest hanging fruit, the biggest opportunities that they have. And then later on, of course, they can think about some of those maybe more far-reaching innovations that aren’t available to them yet.

Saskia van Gendt:
But one thing you mentioned that I think is really exciting is that the world of sustainability is becoming so much more intersectional. So people don’t have to be coming into a role like head of sustainability with the background that I have. You can come into sustainability from a product development role if you’re interested in logistics and supply chain. There’s so many different opportunities to actually bring the sustainability lens on top of specialties that are more well cultivated.

Simon Mainwaring:
And you mentioned a point, there are so many intersections, one of those intersections is really the company and consumers, a company like Rothy’s and the people who buy their products. One of the things I’ve always struggled with is the human dimension to all of this, which is, for decades now, we’ve all been groomed to want the cheapest, the most convenient, the fastest, all of those things, which are kind of principles which compete with the health and wellbeing of the environment. So how do you at Rothy’s start to address how people recognize and play a role in the sustainability ambitions that you have?

Saskia van Gendt:
Yeah. Customer engagement is everything, and a couple of things come to mind. First is that product companies, I think have this responsibility to start with making a really amazing product and sustainability should be woven into all of those elements of a great product. But foremost, the product, in the case of footwear, should be really comfortable. It should be really durable. It should have that performance built into it. That’s what really makes a product good, and that’s why customers will keep returning to a company.

Saskia van Gendt:
But then the elements around recycled materials and how you’re treating your workers and the back end that might be invisible to a lot of customers, but it almost becomes this kind of choice editing. They know they can come to Rothy’s for all of the design and performance aspects of the shoe, but then the sustainability components are this element of discovery where they were like, oh, now I know that this product is made from recycled water bottles, and that’s something they can maybe brag about to their friends. They can continue that deeper exploration around what we’re doing as a company. So that’s really exciting to think about this entry point as being a shoe that maybe matched an outfit, but then all of a sudden this discovery is affirming of their love for the brand.

Saskia van Gendt:
The second thing that comes to mind is, right now with our recycling program that I mentioned, what we’re trying to do is get customers to engage in a completely new behavior. It’s kind of foreign for customers to bring a pair of shoes back to a store that they bought maybe five years prior. So how do we create the kind of engagement, education, and incentives for customers to engage with that program? When we did a pilot around this recycling program last year in October, one of the things we found from our customers is they weren’t ready to give their shoes back. Some customers had shoes for three years, four years, they were washing them. They said, I’m not ready, the shoes are still like new. And for me, that’s a real win because it points to the quality and the durability of the product.

Simon Mainwaring:
Yeah, it is interesting. I mean, there’s sort of spiraled pause, you’ve got to shift the corporate mindset to really commit to being more sustainable. Then you’ve got to take all the various stakeholders with you, consumers, and customers, and so on. Where do you see this drive for being more sustainable coming from? Do you think it’s actually sort of amongst the leadership in companies like Rothy’s, who recognize that the clearest path to growth in the future is to deliver on those consumer expectations? Or are consumers demanding it from people, or is it coming from both angles?

Saskia van Gendt:
It’s definitely both. And I think part of what I hope to build for Rothy’s and continue building is a proof point that you can disrupt the industry. You can build shoes differently, and you can have this entire business model that proves sustainability throughout every step of our supply chain, and hopefully pull the rest of the industry along. But we also need customers to be engaged, and we see more and more, especially with younger customers, deeper awareness around the critical issues of climate change. They don’t want fast fashion anymore, they’re very interested in companies that are being more responsible in their practices and really doing the research to understand which companies really are walking the talk. So I think that both of those are in play. We’re also seeing within fashion, emerging regulation, both in the US and Europe. I think that’s really interesting just to level the playing field.

Simon Mainwaring:
Yeah, I think we’re almost on the cusp of sort of disclosure of environmental impact to be mandatory here in the US, which is a huge, huge step forward because it’ll become a competitive landscape where one company will want to outdo the other. You mentioned something really interesting, which is young people, how they really are looking towards sustainability because they look at their phones every day and they’re aware of ocean acidification and loss of biodiversity, and the climate emergency and so on. But one of the excuses I always hear from people who are committed to sustainability, but are still sort of sitting on their hands, as they say, well, it’s not yet the number one driver of consumer preference or choice, or it makes the product a little bit more expensive than it might be otherwise. Have you found we’ve reached that tipping point yet, where we can actually compete where a product is lock, stock, and barrel sustainable and can compete on price?

Saskia van Gendt:
I do think that we’re still at the point where customers are primarily shopping based on other attributes, whether it be the style, the durability of the product in thinking about something that they would want to wear multiple times in their wardrobe. However, we are seeing in other markets, Europe, for example, the UK, more customers that are primarily shopping with sustainability in mind. So I think that there’s kind of a toggling where at some point sustainability might become a primary purchase driver. But I think that goes back to, I think the objective, every product company should be making a great product and integrating all of those sustainability aspects into the product so that we can access more people through what we’re making. So people might be coming into the product because all the other attributes that we’re mentioning, but then the companies themselves have the responsibility to make responsible decisions all along the way.

Simon Mainwaring:
So Saskia there’s a lot of companies that are committed to being more sustainable, but they draw the line somewhat because they don’t feel that sustainability is that silver bullet for a purchasing decision. And they know that it might be a secondary consideration, but sometimes it might make a product more expensive. Do you feel we’ve reached that point where sustainability either is the driver of a purchasing decision or the economies of scale are there such that it can compete with other competitor’s products?

Saskia van Gendt:
We are still seeing that for most customers, sustainability is not a primary driver to purchase. And I think that’s the right thing because the customer is motivated by quality or looking for a different attribute in the product, which it goes back to what I was saying about the product itself has to be a really good product, and then sustainability should be integrated into that product. But I think it’s a little tired and not true anymore that there’s a cost difference for sustainability products. So sometimes there is a premium to buy recycled fibers over virgin fibers or to source and commercialize a new material that’s happening at a lab scale, and you’re really trying to help them go into an industrial scale. There’s this period where maybe there’s a premium on that material, but over time you are seeing more neutralization in the cost.

Saskia van Gendt:
And there’s an ideal moment… And I think about this when I think about our circularity work. Right now, we’re producing products, we’re using recycled materials, and then they’re going to the customer and we never see those materials again. In a future state, if we’re able to recycle and reuse those materials again, we’re essentially using the same materials that we bought two times. So we haven’t achieved it yet, but there is this ideal economy within circularity where we’re actually using the same materials multiple times.

Simon Mainwaring:
And circularity is the key concept behind the Rothy’s brand and the impact that you’re having. For those of us who haven’t sort of dove into that area, circularity is really about closing the loop on the product life cycle. Correct? Could you speak to that and how Rothy’s achieves that.

Saskia van Gendt:
That’s right. And it looks at every stage of producing a product. So it would start with materials and design production, the consumer use, and then, as you said, closing the loop by creating a recycling program. And right now, our material economies are essentially open-loop or linear, and a lot of products are being destined for landfill because they aren’t designed with circularity in mind. So if we’re throughout each step of making a product, thinking about what are those end-of-life solutions and the infrastructure that will allow us to recover those materials and use them again, that will decarbonize our supply chains, it will eliminate waste at every step. And I think one thing that is often missing from the conversation around circularity, it’s really not just about recycling. It’s also about how do we lower the carbon footprint of our entire manufacturing process alongside that.

Simon Mainwaring:
And so you bought your own factory to that end, correct? You want to control all the input that generate the output with your products. Tell us what that’s like and why it was such an important decision.

Saskia van Gendt:
Our co-founders Roth and Hawthy recognized from the very beginning that to do manufacturing in the way that they wanted to do it, we had to own our own factory. And it has enabled so many different aspects of our sustainable business model, everything from the machinery that we’re using. We are producing on demand, which means that we don’t produce for an entire season and let material go to waste. We are producing based on what the customer actually wants. So if we launch a new style in a couple of new colors, we’re really testing the consumer appetite for that style and that color design before we overproduce. So by owning our own factory, we really have control over that phase of production. It’s also the social side of sustainability, which sometimes is not talked about as much as the environmental footprint, but how we treat our workers and including them in the Rothy’s community is equally important to the environmental footprint.

Simon Mainwaring:
Yeah, I couldn’t agree more, with large, especially publicly traded companies, sustainability is talked about through their lens of ESG, environmental, social, and governance metrics. And that S that social aspect is so important. And in our work, we find that there are three table stakes for any company that wants to really have a strong social license to operate. There’s a fair and living wage, there is sustainability, and there’s diversity and inclusion. So you’re right, it’s absolutely critical. Have you noticed in your work that… You mentioned Europe earlier on, is Europe further down the track than the US in terms of their awareness as to how important sustainability is or their practice is?

Saskia van Gendt:
In my experience, absolutely. And I kind of zooming out thinking about the customer awareness. When I worked at Method, I worked on the European side of the business for a couple of years and saw firsthand the kinds of questions that we were getting from our customers and the deeper level of education they had around supply chains and how things were sourced and the environmental footprint of certain materials. So just as an example in that industry, there’s a fair number of materials that come from palm oil and it’s a natural material, you’re not using petroleum. But the downside of that is that the palm oil harvesting can eliminate rainforest and really be destructive when the habitats of those forests are harmed.

Saskia van Gendt:
And in the US, the customer would be like, oh, it’s a plant-based material. It’s a palm oil, that’s probably a good thing. In Europe, they want to know exactly where it’s sourced, how the rainforest are being managed around that agricultural vicinity, and just so much deeper questioning around that material sourcing. So that just points to me to this deeper education and overall customer pressure that is being put on brands to be responsible.

Simon Mainwaring:
And that’s coming literally from customers, they want to know.

Saskia van Gendt:
That’s right.

Simon Mainwaring:
So their awareness and understanding is sophisticated enough that they can actually look at that data because that’s really a sort of line of sight as to what we can expect here in the United States, correct?

Saskia van Gendt:
I hope so. And I think that we need both the kind of watchdogs, and we have NGO watchdogs that are also looking at corporations and trying to make sure that they’re being as responsible as they can. But we also need customers asking those questions because as a brand you do respond to what customers are asking you.

Simon Mainwaring:
Because it’s so defensible, it’s so obvious the need, and it’s so urgent. What’s in the way, what is it industry-wide or maybe on a company level, do you see gets in the way of the type of commitments that Rothy’s making? What is it? Is it just buy-off from the board? Is it investor pressure to put profits at a premium? What’s the obstacle?

Saskia van Gendt:
Well, one thing I’ve observed for larger companies that I have visibility to is really just inertia, and sometimes large organizations, it’s harder to turn the ship around. And that’s one thing that I love about working for smaller mission-driven by brands is that you are more agile, you have the flexibility to innovate in a smaller way and scale as you grow. And that’s the exciting opportunity that we have at Rothy’s. I think the thing that we are seeing within some of these larger conglomerates or more historically established brands is that they recognize that customers and potentially regulatory pressure is heading them in a more sustainable direction. So you see things like brands offering one product line that has recycled material or partnerships that are helping mitigate carbon footprints in some ways. So you see these efforts that I think are symbolic of the shift that we’re experiencing.

Simon Mainwaring:
So when a company at a leadership level makes that sort of commitment in terms of its products and how it’s showing up and so on, where do you see the feedback that, that investment, that shift was worthwhile? Do you hear it from the customers when they buy the product? Is it from word-of-mouth advertising? Is it sort of just awareness that you can use on your website and social media? Where’s the sort of the return on investment of that commitment?

Saskia van Gendt:
Sometimes you don’t see it immediately, and you’re kind of wondering how customers are responding to different initiatives that you’re taking on. But just anecdotally, when we started talking about our circularity goals and our recycling program, one thing that Rothy’s does really well is talking about our progress over time through our social media channels, bringing our customer along, and how we’re making progress, which I think is really important as brands are thinking about how they approach sustainability. It’s not enough just to put a goal out there and then come back in a few years and say, oh, we made it, or we didn’t make it. You really need to bring your customer along. One thing we’re trying to do is bring them along on progress that we’re making, but also walk them through some of the challenges that we’re experiencing as we embark in circularity. What are some of the challenges around recovering shoes and recycling those materials back into high-quality materials that we can use again?

Saskia van Gendt:
So this narrative of bringing the customer along, I think, is really essential. And we do see positive reception from our customer around that. But at the same time, there’s so much that we’re all being exposed to, and there’s so much content. Sometimes as an individual, you don’t see the macro picture until many years later, when maybe you hear feedback from a customer, they bought the shoes, they’re still wearing them, they’re washable, they’re loving it. So I think it has to be a little bit of both, that real time feedback and just the accumulation and respect, and hopefully, loyalty that we get from our customers.

Simon Mainwaring:
And the good news is there’s a lot of companies out there talking this way now. Everyone’s acutely aware of the new demand on us, the expectations, not only from consumers and employees, but also the investor class who are all looking at companies and saying, are you sustainable? With all of those stakeholders in mind, how do you tell that story in a differentiated way, because more and more companies now are speaking to their sustainability credentials? So how do you make sure you cut through?

Saskia van Gendt:
Well, there’s partly a consistency in the language that we’re using. So I mentioned earlier my pet peeve around all this vocabulary, but it also is building more fluency with a customer. If a lot of fashion brands are talking about circular commitments, I think that’s a good thing. So yes, there’s a desire to break through and to lead, and we are doing that for our footwear industry by creating a recycling program that doesn’t exist before. But at the same time, this consistency of vocabulary and actually collaboration among different footwear brands and the apparel sector to achieve these sustainability initiatives, I think that’s essential for how we’re going to actually shift and create the systemic change that we need.

Simon Mainwaring:
Absolutely. Give us an insight into sort of one or a couple of the innovations that have made this possible on your end. I mean, obviously, at every step of the supply chain, there are improvements that can be made, but is there anything that jumps out to in terms of, that was an unlock for the brand and its circularity commitments?

Saskia van Gendt:
Well, I feel like I had a gift coming into the brand that the foundation of circularity… Even though we weren’t at Rothy’s using the language of circularity, that foundation was already there. So every single Rothy’s product is made with recycled materials, we use 3D knitting to avoid waste in our production processes. Every product is washable, which extends the life. So these three out of four parts of the life cycle of creating a product we’re already well established within the brand. And then it’s really about how do you close the loop by creating something that doesn’t exist today.

Saskia van Gendt:
And the recycling program, which we did a pilot last year was finding these trusted partners that can help us disassemble the shoe. So one thing that is different from a shoe versus a bottle or can is that there isn’t a curbside program where you can put shoes into a bin, and then they go to a facility where they’re recycled. We’ve really had to create that from the ground up and research the different partners that can help us disassemble the shoe into high-quality different materials, and then work with other recyclers to process those materials back into materials that we hope to use again. So we’re starting with the uppers, which are recycled PET and a thread that’s 3D knit in our factory, melting those down and doing prototypes of what we’re calling twice-recycled thread that we hope to use in products.

Simon Mainwaring:
Isn’t it the base of the shoe that’s always been the problem, how to undo the stitching when you get a product returned? Is that where it’s been?

Saskia van Gendt:
So that’s a major challenge that we’re looking at now. So the shoe construction, because you’re designing it to be washable and durable and you’re walking millions of miles, potentially in a pair of shoes, that structure has to be in place, both the connectivity between the upper and the outsole. And when you’re thinking about end-of-life solutions, you also want to disassemble and have materials recovered at a high quality. So you’re thinking about how you can actually take those shoes apart and reuse the materials. So one thing we’re looking at is how do we use different design for disassembly practices at the front end so that when you get to the point that you want to recover each of the materials, there’s some kind of reverse process of recovering the materials.

Simon Mainwaring:
I love that. I mean, it’s such a powerful idea where you design a product in a way that it can be then disassembled at the end of its life and used again. I mean, it’s such a simple design concept, but so powerful. Nature by itself is regenerative, things are created and things die, and it’s regenerative and there’s a life cycle to that. And sometimes I feel like the answers are all around us. The examples we need are all around us. We’re sort of looking in dark corners to find something that’s right in front of us.

Saskia van Gendt:
That’s right.

Simon Mainwaring:
So what sort of lessons would you share that other companies could learn from Rothy’s, in terms of how you’re elevating your circularity? For example, owning your own factor, so you can control the inputs to the products you actually output and so on. What would you share?

Saskia van Gendt:
Owning our own factory is a key enabler for all of our innovation. And we are lucky that we can test new materials in the factory. We can prototype things at a really small level. One thing that we did early days of COVID was we were responding to, at that time, a lack of protective equipment and the recognition that there weren’t masks and shields and things like that. And we talked to the factory, what can we make in our factory and respond to this crisis? And within 24 hours, they had made a mock-up of a couple of different directions that we could go and products that we could make. We ultimately made a mask out of their designs, but it was amazing to me how quickly we could respond and innovate in real time. So owning our own factory has been a huge gift for our innovation process.

Saskia van Gendt:
The other thing that I love to do is test and learn. So how do you create a constrained environment where you can try something completely new? The pilot recycling program is a great example of that. We hope to launch at full scale this year, the recycling program, but in order to do that, we really had to understand all the different components of this new infrastructure and the new customer behavior, and the engagement around that. So I think it’s really effective to put a goal out there, but then also create these constrained environments where you can understand and allow yourself to fail in a controlled way.

Simon Mainwaring:
And you mentioned something really important there, which is the need for Rothy’s, but all of us to evolve with new consumer behavior, under the influence of COVID or anything else. How do you track that? How do you monitor that? Is it a quarterly thing where you do literal research to that end? Or is it anecdotal, where you talk to your stores? How does it work?

Saskia van Gendt:
A little bit of both. We have a great customer research team that has done research into our customers, both our existing customers and the customers that we want to have. We’re very much a growing company. We’re only five years old, if you can believe it. So we have a huge amount of customer growth and awareness ahead of us. So I think when we look at what we’re doing today, we’re also looking at one of the customers that might be interested in Rothy’s tomorrow. So there’s this kind of sounding board there.

Saskia van Gendt:
But the other thing I would return to from a sustainability point of view is that your sustainability strategy is evergreen because I’m always relying on the science of sustainability, the data that has driven our strategy for sustainability, and that’s not as subjective to customer trends let’s say. It’s very much, what are the right things that we should be doing, because the data and the science is telling us as a company or as an industry, those are the things that we should be doing.

Simon Mainwaring:
Yeah. That data could not be more important today. You’ve not only got the expectations of employees and consumers and investors, as I said, but there’s almost like a gotcha journalism out there where someone’s not walking their own talk or an employer or a consumer can really call out a brand and say, we’re saying one thing and doing another. So what standard do you hold yourself to in terms of transparency, and what type of things do you share? Is it a sort of phase-by-phase report card? Is it a progress report? What should people be doing?

Saskia van Gendt:
Well, hopefully, we’ll see within some of these regulations, more consistency in what’s expected of different brands. And goes back to what we were talking about, the definition of sustainability it’s so fickle, and it can be interpreted brand by brand so differently. So I would love to see more uniformity and how different brands are talking about sustainability. There are standards around carbon footprinting, but there are any number of standards that different brands can follow. So there’s really no apples-to-apples comparison today. But from a Rothy’s perspective, when last year we announced our circularity goals, we’re really been true to how do we bring the customer along on the progress towards those goals, doing both storytelling and metrics to support our progress.

Simon Mainwaring:
Yeah. I think, what keeps me up at night, Saskia, it’s just the timelines we’re working against. I mean, the amount of waste that’s still being generated and the impact of that on all the different habitats and the environment more broadly. When you look at the industry, when you look at circularity specifically, what is your greatest concern? What is the big unlock you think we need to achieve?

Saskia van Gendt:
Well, one thing I’m excited about is this cross-brand collaboration to achieve the infrastructure that’s needed, especially for the footwear industry. And how can we think collaboratively around recycling solutions, take-back programs that will allow us to recover those materials from the footwear industry and apparel industry at scale. So I think that, that collaboration and the need for cooperation across brands is essential.

Saskia van Gendt:
But then I also think the circularity and its intersection with climate change needs to be a bit more forefront. So people are recognizing that the circular economy is a huge enabler for how we can achieve some of the necessary climate targets that are in place. You’re seeing a little bit more data around if we’re able to recycle and use materials more efficiently, if we’re able to produce in our manufacturing sector more efficiently, then that will greatly decarbonize the material and product sector. But I want to see a little bit more data and lots of other brands talking about this intersection. It’s not just recycling. It’s also decarbonization.

Simon Mainwaring:
Yeah, I think, what we’re starting to realize more and more in business is that when you make a quality product or service and it’s sustainable, one that is informed by the values of your company, it delivers value to the company that is just unbeatable in terms of the marketplace. You need to fully integrate the business, the product, the services, and its sustainability to deliver bottom line value. Has that been your experience at Rothy’s? I mean, the bottom-line business case for leaning so heavily into circularity?

Saskia van Gendt:
Well, I think the unique thing about Rothy’s is there’s no before and after, right? Our circular journey started from day one and the integration of recycled materials and how we’re producing our product in our factory, those are true for every single product. I think where you see those growing pains are when you think about companies that are trying to retrofit and go back and make changes. So that’s maybe an advantage that Rothy’s has on circularity.

Simon Mainwaring:
No matter what business you’re in, you have to make the value proposition for doing this sort of work. And as you mentioned, Rothy’s, it was born with circularity and sustainability in mind, but what is the value you’ve seen that has delivered to the business in terms of, I don’t know, reputation or culture or consumer loyalty, where does the return show up?

Saskia van Gendt:
Well, hopefully, it’s all of those things. We definitely find that people come to Rothy’s to work because of the mission of our organization. They want to be a part of disrupting our industry, and so I think that’s a big driver for how we build our team and really drive the culture. But another word for sustainability in my mind is resilience. And we have seen in COVID for example, that our model is resilient because we aren’t overproducing. And early in COVID, when we saw volatility in customer demand, we were able to that in real-time and produce less product because we own our own factory. And for our industry, that’s extremely rare because most brands are outsourcing production. They’re probably producing for multiple seasons in advance, and during COVID with that volatility, they were holding on or landfilling a lot of excess inventory. So this idea of sustainability driving all of these decisions in our business model also leads to more resilience in how we’re able to operate.

Simon Mainwaring:
Right. And we live in these very challenging times from climate to COVID, to the need to respond comprehensively to the Black Lives Matter movement, to geopolitical tensions around the world. What gives you optimism at this time? What sort of makes you feel positive about the future?

Saskia van Gendt:
I think there’s a real momentum around action for climate change, and you see that not just at the governmental level or at mission-driven brands, but a more holistic awareness that we need to act quickly. And some people are calling this the decisive decade. And for me, that collective understanding gives me hope that our human intelligence will come up with a way to find solutions. And in fact, the solutions are there, we just need to be adopting them at scale.

Simon Mainwaring:
I completely agree, when you look around all of these innovations that are being made possible is simply because we’re putting our attention and resources there for the first time. We were distracted before when there wasn’t the same sort of demands on us, but now we put our attention there and there’s all these sort of innovations and unlocks happening. And I also deeply, deeply believe in the power of nature to regenerate and kind of convince us more and more that the more we allow it to do what it does innately, the more we’ll be sort of just overwhelmed by its ability to restore the planet, to restore our lives and our future. And I come away very positive from that.

Simon Mainwaring:
Saskia, I want to say, thank you so much for sharing the insights on Rothy’s today, and for the leadership that the brand is providing. And I have no doubt that success will continue because you’re getting so many things right because you put the right pieces in place. So thanks very much.

Saskia van Gendt:
Thanks so much, Simon. It’s been great to talk with you.

Simon Mainwaring:
Thanks for joining us for another episode of Lead With We, you can always find out more information about today’s guest Saskia van Gendt in the show notes of this episode. Follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Google Podcasts, so you never miss an episode. Plus, you can now find us on all United Airlines in-flight entertainment consoles as well. And if you like this video, hit the like button and be sure to subscribe. Finally, if you want to dive even deeper into the world of purposeful business, check out my new book Lead with We that’s now available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Google Books. Lead With We is produced by Goal 17 Media, and I’ll see you again soon. Until then, let’s all lead with we.