Amanda Sim
University of Otago
Joe Cooper
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The global fashion industry produces 92 million tons of textile waste yearly (Fashion Revolution, 2019) and is responsible for ~10% of global greenhouse gas emissions. New Zealand alone dumps 100,000 tonnes of clothing into landfill each year. These textiles make up ~6% of landfill and emit three times their weight in CO2 in landfill (Bernadette Casey, 2021). This crisis led Samantha (Sam) Jones to create Little Yellow Bird (LYB), an ethical, B Corporation certified manufacturer and supplier of 100% natural fiber apparel for businesses and individuals from infants to adults. LYB’s innovation is a circular and sustainable business model, making every aspect of the production from farm to factory entirely traceable.
Over the last seven years, it has established ethical practices, fair pay, transparent supply chains, developed conscious packaging, adopted sustainable shipping methods, and created a textile recycling program called The Circular Cotton Collective. The company strives to analyze every stage of the value chain and to do better for people and the planet. LYB state that “the SDGs provide the framework for every decision we make, and enable us to operate in a way that creates the type of world we want to live in.” The two Sustainable Development Goals that LYB primarily focuses on are decent work and economic growth (SDG 8) through fair pay and responsible consumption and production (SDG 12) through their sustainable, circular business model. Its use of organic, rain-fed cotton and a clean water loop in its dyeing process supports clean water and sanitation (SDG 6).
Sam is on a mission “to normalize circular processes for design, production, and consumption through LYB.” LYB’s goal to generate positive change in the fashion industry starts with ethically and sustainably sourced materials. 95% of their cotton is sourced directly from two cooperatives based in East India called Pratima Organic Grower Group and Chetna Organic. These organizations empower developing farming communities with education and training to maintain economic stability through organic farming. The cotton is rain-fed and grown organically during the rainy season to minimize environmental impact.
LYB uses state-of-the-art technology to reduce the environmental impact of the spinning, knitting, and dying process. The factories they work with in India use zero-waste initiatives, including solar panels and rooftop gardens, with their primary spinning mill using 60% renewable energy. Fabrics are dyed in a zero-discharge water recovery plant using reverse osmosis technology. It prevents dyes and chemicals from polluting waterways. 95% of the water is returned to drinking quality and reused, with the remaining 5% used for roads and paving.
To ensure that LYB products are fair trade and meet high ethical standards, they verify certifications, regularly review factory audits and visit each factory. They even hired a team member to oversee product quality and social compliance when travel restrictions arose during the COVID-19 pandemic. Once completed, the garments are shipped from India to their warehouse in Wellington. LYB ships all orders in paper courier bags or cardboard boxes with paper tape and compostable shipping labels. Although they are not yet able to eliminate pallet wrap and still receive shipments of stock in large plastic bags, it is responsibly recycled through second-life plastics.
LYB added a new merino wool product line in 2020. LYB uses ZQ Natural Fibers as they are “world leaders in ethical, harm-free wool production, making them ideal for us to partner with.” ZQ’s farmers are independently audited to ensure that ethical and sustainable practices are at the center of their production of high-quality wool. These sheep live free-range, are treated humanely, and shearers work to minimize distress when handling them. Since there are no mills in New Zealand, the wool is shipped to Vietnam. The mill is a Bluesign System partner and provides a MAPP guarantee, so it operates ethically and responsibly concerning people, the environment, and resources. The milled wool returns to Wellington and is transformed into garments at Levana Fabrics.
To achieve circularity, LYB has started an industry collective reducing textile waste in Aotearoa. The Circular Cotton Collective is a group of businesses that pool resources and share the costs to aggregate, sort, and re-distribute or recycle end-of-life cotton. The Collective founding members include Alsco, Maggie Marilyn, ReCreate Clothing, The Paper Rain Project, Commonsense Organics, and Sustainability Trust. The Ministry for the Environment’s Waste Minimisation Fund supports the initiative through funding. As part of this collective, LYB runs a textile take-back program where they accept 100% cotton products and socks at the end of their useful life. The goods are sorted and evaluated for quality, and as of December 2021, 95% are sent for recycling.
The products in good condition are exchanged with a local op-shop for donated goods in unsellable condition and added to the recycling program. This program is gaining momentum, with over 300 bags and 80 boxes received. The textiles are shipped to Europe, where they use a cutting-edge chemical recycling process in a fiber-to-fiber recycling method. The old cotton is shredded, turned into a slurry, made into a pulp, and then back into the textile production chain. LYB also work with designers who upcycle textiles within their projects. They worked with companies to create undergarments from unused stock, one-off designs, and pet toys. So far, they have diverted over 8,000 kgs of textile waste from landfill.
Sam started Little Yellow Bird 7 years ago with a desire to trace the origin of the clothes we wear. As we delved deeper, we found the deep-rooted cracks in the industry. It originated as an idea for a business challenge at the University of Canterbury. Sam said, "I wanted to know where and how the products I buy are made. This desire has led me on a journey of trying to change how the entire industry operates – shifting the focus from products to the people who create them." Sam launched LYB along with business partner Hannah Duder.
Lightning Lab chose LYB to participate in its first female-focused program, Lightning Lab XX 2016, where it received seed funding. LYB noticed, “High fashion had sustainable options for consumers, but they could not find a place to buy sustainable and ethically made uniforms, corporate wear or workwear.”
So, they developed a new sustainable model where every aspect of production from farm to factory is ethical and traceable. Sam spent months finding the correct suppliers, traveling through India for research, and developing relationships with farmers. As a response to supply chain disruptions from COVID-19 and to diversify their suppliers and product range, LYB started manufacturing clothing from 100% ZQ traceable Merino. The reason is that ZQ Merino’s extensive ethical and regenerative wool production program perfectly fits our company values of transparency and innovation. With an estimated 92 million tonnes of textile waste sent to landfills each year, Sam wanted LYB products to have circularity and be recyclable at the end of their life, which took years of development, design, and partnerships to figure it out.
Sam says, "She desires to do better for the industry and to show the change a simple product can achieve if you do it well. A t-shirt is one example of producing sustainable products.” Sam aims for LYB to lead massive industry change and circularity and transparency to become the norm. For this change to happen, we need to talk about it, and consumers need to demand it. LYB recognizes that “As a responsible business, it is a responsibility to provide solutions to end this crisis. Also, wasting cotton does not make sense as it is a valuable resource. Due to this, we work with other leading brands to join forces to reduce waste.”
Little Yellow Bird has won many awards, improved its B-Corp rating to 115.5, and grown considerably in the seven years they have been operating. By choosing to source only rain-fed, organic cotton, they have significantly reduced the amount of water used and eliminated pesticide use. LYB only uses non-toxic, AZO-free, GOTS-certified dyes. It filters the water used so that 95% returns to drinking quality, and the remaining 5% in bricks and road materials, so it is a closed loop process. They support natural farming practices such as crop rotation and using natural fertilizers to replenish the soil and cow urine to deter pests. This process keeps pesticides and other toxic chemicals out of ecosystems and waterways. This process supports communities' short- and long-term environmental and economic health.
After years of working on a solution for textile waste, a highlight for LYB was shipping off the first container of textile waste for recycling in December 2021. LYB supports its employees, suppliers, communities, and environment by utilizing ethical and sustainable business practices. It also provides businesses and customers products that are circular and sustainable, supporting our world, not damaging it. These sustainable practices support growth in the business with the hope of adapting across the industry.
Sam attributes the successful growth of Little Yellow Bird to customers supporting the firm values. In 2016, when LYB was a start-up, it received a spot in the Lightning Lab XX program, gaining $20,000 in seed funding. It also won the BNZ Start-Up Alley competition that year, earning them additional funding to support growth. It built its initial business around supplying uniforms and apparel to organizations. As a result of LYB’s ethical, circular, and sustainable business model, they received the Supreme Award for Transforming New Zealand at the Sustainable Business Network Awards in 2019. LYB also received B-Corp Best for the world: Community in 2021 and 2022.
The exposure from these awards has contributed to significant growth in the company over a short period. It has completed two equity crowdfunding campaigns through PledgeMe, raising $470k in 2019 and $117k in 2021. Pre-Covid revenue doubled each year and reached $680k in FY21. It has also adapted and responded to the challenges of Covid-19 due to the support of its loyal customers. As online retailing has become increasingly popular, they have built up their sales to the public through their website, tripling their online revenue year-on-year for the past three years. It maintains strong sales in wholesale uniforms and apparel to its business customers and works with over 400 companies across New Zealand, Australia, Canada, and the USA. LYB established an Apparel Partnerships Programme managing apparel campaigns for creators and community groups. This growth has allowed them to expand their product offering significantly and sell around 50,000 items annually. The company extended and improved the resilience of the business by creating a merino line made in NZ, which diversifies its supply chain and product offering. LYB increased its domestic impact by supporting ZQ-certified Kiwi farmers and local manufacturers. The popularity of their locally made merino garments has allowed them to expand this product line from a limited run of two products to ten products in two years through Covid-19. LYB also acquired Kauri and Sons, a baby clothing retailer where LYB supplied apparel, preventing the wastage of products. Building a more diverse product offering and supply chain will support their long-term sustainability as a business.
Social Benefit
Little Yellow Bird prides itself as an ethical business and strives for continual improvement.
LYB is living wage certified and has created 26,000+ hours of fair-trade labor in the last year. The company has a strict supplier code of conduct to maintain ethical work environments across its supply chain. LYB pays above the minimum wage and ensures that men and women are paid equally for the same work. This effort supports SDGs 5 and 11 of gender equality and reduced inequality. Through their advocacy and engagement, it has educated over 10,000 people about sustainable business practices. It supports communities in East India as 95% of its cotton is sourced directly from Pratima Organic Grower Group and Chetna Organic. These cooperatives include over 4000 small-scale farmers and support them through improving efficiency, raising incomes, and enhancing environmental and social sustainability in the long run. By maintaining close and regular contact with the cooperatives, LYB supports transparency around how the garments are produced and can respond to their circumstances.
These organizations also empower historically underdeveloped farming communities with education and training to help them achieve economic stability through organic farming. This effort supports SDG 8 to provide decent work and support economic growth. LYB supported the Meals for Migrants program with over 20,000 nutritious meals donated in India during the COVID-19 pandemic. They credit this to their strong relationship with their local impact partner and moving towards their “vision of shared responsibility and care for those involved in every stage of the garment production cycle.” LYB has also worked with Sai Dham as a local impact partner, which operates near the garment manufacturing location. Sai Dham, a non-profit NGO, aims to empower and lift people out of poverty. The NGO directly supports 5,000 children through their school and 300,000 families through initiatives supporting their immediate needs by offering free clothing, sanitary products, education, and dental and health care. The embedded ethical approach to all areas of their business has helped LYB positively impact many communities.
Environmental Benefit:
Little Yellow Bird supports sustainable, organic, small-scale farming, which reduces harm to biodiversity, and provides immediate and long-term environmental benefits, supporting SDG 15: Life on land. It has a clean water loop in its non-toxic, GOTS-certified dyeing process, with 95% of the water used in factories returned for drinking or reused. It also ships orders to customers plastic-free and with compostable shipping labels. These initiatives reduce the resources used and the pollution created. In FY20 alone, LYB saved over 24 million liters of water, 243.8 tonnes of pesticides, and 153 kg of plastics. Their new merino line centers around the same principles of being traceable and achieving the highest available certification. They are exploring other fiber options, maintaining that all products must be 100% natural fibers, to prevent more plastic production, waste, and microplastic pollution. By producing 100% recyclable garments and starting a textile recycling collective, they have saved over 8 tonnes of textile waste from entering landfill. This process has also prevented the GHG emissions from this waste. LYB also offset 120% of the emissions from shipping the textiles to Europe through Ekos. LYB's actions at every step of their supply chain, to be as sustainable and ethical as possible, supports climate action (SDG 13) by transitioning to a circular, low-carbon economy.
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Samantha Jones, CEO and Founder
Little Yellow Bird (LYB) is an NZ-based ethical fashion brand that creates 100% organic cotton and natural fiber clothing and works wear with a goal to transform the fashion industry. LYB has grown significantly since starting in 2015, selling around 50,000 items annually. It produces blanks and branded items and works with over 400 organizations in NZ, Australia, Canada, and the USA to create products that are fit for purpose and tread lightly on people and the planet. It has complete traceability and transparency of its products, from growing the cotton to the garment’s end of life. LYB clothing is fully recyclable in its Textile Take Back program for all 100% cotton textiles and socks. LYB is New Zealand’s first fully circular uniform and apparel company. Its goal is to create ethical, sustainable, and attractive goods for the public and business customers.