Annette Santos
Dominique Alvarado
Martina Alegria Gonzalez
Camila Carrillo
Universidad de Navarra
Isabel Rodriguez Tejedo
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Pure Swimwear provides assistance to save marine life and endorses a responsible consumption of clothing wear. Moreover, this brand helps to achieve three of the SDGs established by the United Nations, they are; life below water, responsible consumption and production and sustainable cities and communities. They produce and market swimsuits made from Econyl which is crafted from abandoned fishing nets, helping clean our oceans and protecting marine life, by doing this they also promote sustainability and offer a new alternative business in Panama.
The innovation of this business is about offering a sustainable alternative of swimwear that is trendy and at an affordable price. The idea started when Andrea, the founder of Pure Swimwear, couldn't find any swimsuits made from sustainable materials that she liked in Panama and decided to make her own. With the help of a seamstress and after buying a sustainable fabric she did. After making one for herself, her friends encouraged her to sell them and this is how Pure Swimwear was created.
Pure Swimwear is made from Econyl, a fabric made from Nylon waste. They transform this waste that is polluting the sea, harming marine life, and is detrimental to the environment into a fashionable product.
This way they clean the seas and at the same time promote a sustainable lifestyle. The company encourages responsible consumption and also creates profit for Andrea. It shows how a small idea can be turned into a business and at the same time be beneficial for the environment and society.
Andrea is also encouraging others to create sustainable businesses, that are not easy to find in Panama.
Andrea Dávila, the founder of Pure Swimwear was living in Scotland, but due to the pandemic, she returned to her hometown, Panama City. She was looking to buy sustainable swimwear in Panama but she could not find any sustainable brand with affordable prices that she liked. Therefore, she decided to design and make her own swimwear line made from a sustainable fabric she bought in the United Kingdom from the company ECONYL. ECONYL has a Regeneration System that starts rescuing waste, such as fishing nets, fabric scraps, carpet flooring, and industrial plastic all over the seas and they turn them into regenerated nylon that is used as the fabric for Pure Swimwear.
At first, Andrea did not plan to sell her swimwear, it was just for her own use. But later on, she was encouraged by her friends and family to start selling it and that is when she created Pure Swimwear, she started making the swimsuits with the help of her friend who was a seamstress. It was an opportunity for her since there were no companies like hers in Panama. As she mentioned in the interview “I always encourage people to buy sustainable but in Panama, there is not much choice”. For that reason, by creating the swimsuits, she was not only selling to her customers the swimsuit itself, instead, but she was also raising awareness that sustainable clothing is an option and can make the world a better place.
The primary impact of Pure Swimwear is to raise awareness by expanding the sustainable market options in Panama. By doing so, this innovation provides the customer with more sustainable purchasing options. Encouraging the purchase of products that are not part of the mass production of clothing while fighting against the harmful effects of the fast-fashion; which include the contamination of waters with chemical substances (fashion is responsible for 20% of the wastewater produced each year in the world), high water consumption (about 10,000 liters of water are needed to produce 1 kg of cotton), and unconscious consumption (40% of the clothes we keep in the closet are never worn).
The secondary impact can be seen from a network perspective. The cooperation between sustainable companies helps their individual growth as well as the number of consumers. In this case, Pure Swimwear donates 5% of its total profit to Healthy Seas, an organization that works with volunteer divers to clean up the ocean. The waste they collect in the ocean is regenerated by the company ECONYL, which provides the sustainable fabric for Pure Swimwear.
Pure Swimwear in the short run helps to reduce waste in oceans with their donations to Healthy Seas and by buying their fabrics from ECONYL. On the other hand, in the long run, this company helps to raise awareness and promotes cleanup aid to oceans, which are very important for our ecosystem, and currently cover-up about 6.4 million tons of waste. To quote Pure Swimwear “We want to challenge and rethink the way we use and reuse resources. The world’s resources are finite and so we must rethink our designs and materials to build a better future".
The creation of this newly innovative business in Panama City of a line of sustainable swimsuits made with a fabric of fishnets and marine wastes has brought multiple benefits to society and the environment.
This latest company was created at the beginning of the pandemic and has helped to generate awareness in Panamanian society to buy more recyclable and sustainable clothing for a better future of the environment in the world. And has also served as an example for other businesses to follow this new sustainable path
It also promotes the importance of caring for marine life since five percent of the profits generated by Pure Swimwear go to Healthy Seas, a non-profit organization that contributes to the divers who collect garbage from the seas to make the fabric that is used to elaborate the swimsuits.
This good cause is not only in Panama, but you can also buy any swimsuit that you like throughout their webpage from any part of the world, therefore you can contribute no matter where you are to make this new business grow and keep helping to have a less polluted environment.
Currently, the company has three employees who have adequate wages and are not being exploited by their work and who fight every day for a better planet and for a more sustainable future.
This innovation benefits society because they offer an eco-friendly alternative for trendy swimwear. They create awareness about what is happening on our planet and offer a substitute. It also promotes shopping at sustainable businesses and encourages others to create more eco-friendly stores.
This innovation also benefits the environment since the swimwear is made from ECONYL, a fabric made from waste products. By using this fabric the company helps to reduce the waste that exists in the sea. This waste damages our oceans and puts marine life at risk. They also donate 5% of their profits to companies that donate to
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Andrea Davila, Founder
Pure Swimwear is a sustainable swimwear company located in Panama City. They sell swimsuits made from fishing nets that are abandoned in the seas, harming, entangling, and killing marine life. Pure Swimwear also raises consciousness to take care of our planet for a better and sustainable world and donates part of their profits to Healthy Seas, a group of divers who collect the waste in the sea.