The Misterio Tremendum

So this startingbloc fellowship that concluded last week at Columbia University was pretty wild. In a ridiculously over-simplified single sentence, the group focuses mainly on social business, or business that exists not only to make money but also to bring about some kind of positive social change. You hear the term “triple bottom line” often, which refers to a company’s desire to address its financial bottom line (i.e. make money) along with an environmental bottom line and a human rights based bottom line.

American Apparel is a great example of a social business. They produce in LA and make a point to pay decent wages. (As an aside, producing in LA doesn’t ensure good wages as most of these sewers are illegal immigrants and have very little recourse when they are being paid peanuts. As a result, “Made in USA” can be a little deceptive.) They also have a very progressive environmental policy. Until very recently they have produced a small portion of their clothing with organic cotton. The clothes probably sold pretty poorly as they were that ugly off-white organic color and were usually (at least in the Philly stores) hidden somewhere in the back near the dressing rooms. OK, so the big news; within the last month, they have started selling organic clothes (and in particular their flagship 2001 t-shirt) in colors other than ugly off-white organic. This is great as no other retailer or wholesaler (AA is both) is offering such environmentally sustainable, while at the same time wearable, clothing.

But that’s not the whole story (and this is where the starting bloc tie-in comes). One of the big lessons that I learned from this Starting Bloc fellowship is that if you want to introduce a “socially better” product into the marketplace, it not only has to be the same or better than already existing similar products, but it must also be priced the same or less than those already existing products. Honestly, your “fair trade” t-shirt/diamond/chocolate/whatever that was made in a clean factory, where workers are given healthcare, get 2 weeks vacation, yadda, yadda, yadda, but is priced $0.20 more than an equivalent product will either forever exist in a extremely niche market and never make it to the big-time or tank so badly you won’t know what hit you. It’s crazy but true. And THAT’S what is cool about what AA is doing. The key is that the organic shirts are not only identical in feel and fit (the colors are different than pre-existing shirts, which could potentially be a big issue, but I imagine that they will start replacing the pre-existing colors with organic fabrics… aaaaanyway…) but they are also priced exactly the same as the other non-organic 2001 shirts.

This is huge (HUGE!) for the progressively minded manufacturing sector and for consumers who are looking to buy more responsibly.
My hat goes off to you Dov Charney. Bravo.