Recently, I had the honor and pleasure of interviewing Marci Zaroff, founder of Under the Canopy, a leading lifestyle brand of organic and sustainable apparel and home products, for Green Cotton. As a co-author of the GOTS (Global Organic Textile Standards) and pioneer in the organic and wellness space for more than 2 decades, Marci has the knowledge, leadership and experience in the organic and sustainable textile field that Green Cotton admires deeply. Recently, Marci was also nominated as one of the top 15 eco-fashionistas in America.
Green Cotton’s interview with Marci focuses on aspects of organic textile and fair trade certifications in America as well as provides a broad look at her company and leadership in the field.
Marci began her career in the organic, natural food and beauty products field, where she owned a school in New York now called the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. She was also the co-founder of an innovative spa, organic café, and a magazine. At some point, Marci saw the interconnection between food and fiber as the missing link in this whole wellness equation. At that time she began to transition from food and beauty into fiber, because, as she states, “I wanted to use fiber as a vehicle to ultimately tell the same story as food and beauty products”. That is, she saw that the transformation and consciousness around making a difference was not just what you put in your body but also what you put on your body.
Why Organic Textiles?
Marci: “When you pull the curtain back on the textile industry, the amount of toxins far out way what you see in the food industry. It’s unreal”. As a result, Marci set out to help to transform the textile industry. “I wanted to start the process of people thinking about what they’re buying in terms of the two basic necessities in life: food and clothing. I wanted people to think about what they’re buying as not just what they’re eating, but also what they’re wearing,” she added.
Marci continues that some of the leading illnesses out there today are allergies and skin conditions, and yet, “people haven’t necessarily made that connection between what they’re putting on their body and what’s in the air to their health. However, it’s very clear that there’s a strong relationship there.” Cotton for example, is the most heavily sprayed industry in the world, and so logically cotton was the fiber she and others started with.
Shana (S): What has been your experience in the organic textile market?
Marci (M): “Under the Canopy and myself have been pioneers in building the [organic textile] market. In fact, I coined and trademarked the term “Eco-fashion” in 1997. I then also went on to develop the business plan for Whole Foods Market to move into this category, which we launched it in 2005. Since then, I have helped integrate organic textiles into companies from Speigel’s and Macy’s to Target, Bed, Bath and Beyond, Origins and Crate and Barrel as well as a big array of retailers.” Marci has been a pioneer in this field, at a time when there was a lot of resistance to moving into organics.
S: GOTS (Global Organic Textile Standards) is the gold standard for organic textile certifications. Do you see GOTS being mainstreamed in the US? Will there be a logo at some point (like we have for food and beverage products in the US)?
Marci: There is a logo, it came out in July. It hasn’t been used on any product yet, but I would say you’re going to start seeing it on product by the end of this year, maybe the beginning of 2010. It is a global standard and that’s the beauty of it. It was collaboration between four countries. [These countries] came to together because there was a lot of discrepancy in the industry. Also since textile manufacturing is such a global industry, it was hard to have one standard in the US, then another in Japan and so on. Now it’s a global standard, but it was spearheaded by a German organization (IBN) and a Japanese association (JOKA), the OTA, and then the SOIL Association in the UK.
For retailers right now that are looking to buy certified organic clothing, would you say that GOTS is the standard they should ask for, or are there other ones that in your mind are still acceptable at this time?
M: Yes, but the logo is not there yet. In the future, this will be the standard. Right now, there are a still a lot of options out there. In either case however, people should be asking for certificates from the manufacturers.
S: Could you tell us a bit more about Transfair? Currently, Fair Trade Federation (FTF) is the main body that a lot of US retailers apply to become members of for their fair trade products. How do you see Transfair fitting in with FTF or will it take the place of FTF?
M: Well right now there isn’t any actual certification on product. Transfair will have a label, a seal that will be used (on product) that is certified Fair Trade in the US. Right now however, FLO in Europe is the equivalent of what Transfair is trying to do but you can’t use a FLO seal here in the US. Transfair would be the US counterpart. Transfair for the first phase of this pilot is only looking at the cotton and at the cotton sew. It’s now incorporating every single piece of the puzzle, it’s starting with those two pieces. But if you get a Transfair seal on a product it means that the cotton has been certified fair trade and that the cotton sew process has been certified fair trade.
S: Ok, and that should be pretty easy, right? Isn’t it part of GOTS to be also a fair trade label?
M: Yes, but there are [fair labor] considerations beyond GOTS in this new certification. The main difference is that for something to be Fair Trade certified, there is an actual added premium that gets paid and that money specifically goes to the farmers or the factory workers as a premium. In addition to having some community [investment], 50% goes to the farmer and 50% goes to a cooperative group (that the farmers gets to apply toward community development). GOTS is a code of ethics, meaning there’s no child labor, etc; whereas, fair trade certified means the product costs more to buy it because there’s more money going into the community AND into the factory workers and farmers.
S: So will the requirements to become “certified” be different than Fair Trade Federation?
M: Yes, but this [label, Transfair] is a step beyond that. Fair Trade Federation is more like a code of ethics, similar to GOTS. In the case of FTF, there’s a certain bottom line: you’re not using child labor, you’re not exploiting the workers, there’s free will; there’s all kinds of things. But Fair Trade certification is going to mean an actual premium on the product. So the buyers who buy fair trade product both from a retail level as well as a consumer level are going to have to expect that they’re going to be paying a little bit more but that money is going directly toward worker empowerment and betterment of worker livelihoods. A lot of people around the world, although they might not be abused, [they] may not be able to make a living or pay for health care on a “fair wage” so this goes beyond that.
S: Do you see that Transfair premium certification moving into other fabrics as well as things like handbags and accessories?
M: Hopefully, we’re starting with cotton. That’s the starting point. This is step one.
S: Thank you! This has been so informative and helpful and an honor to interview you.
For more on fair trade certifications, see our earlier post on Fair Trade: What is it and how to certify.
Photosource: Under the Canopy
Written by Shana Yansen, Editor of Green Cotton
