The story begins in 2015, when the Brenninkmeijer family invited designer William McDonough to speak to its annual seminar, which brings together family members from across the generations who are part of C&A, from those in their early 20s to those, now retired, in their 80s and 90s. But over the past few weeks, the company opened up about its Cradle to Cradle mission, how it went about creating the T-shirt, why it did so and where it intends to go from here. The company has a reputation for being notoriously private and highly secretive. It competes with other so-called "fast fashion" retailers, such as H&M, Topshop and Zara. It is still privately owned by the Brenninkmeijer family, now in its sixth generation in the business, and has around 2,000 stores in 23 countries, primarily in Europe but also in Brazil, China and Mexico. It required a board-level commitment, close partnerships with contract manufacturers, an arduous search for replacements for problematic materials and some new messaging to customers.Īnd so began a first step in transitioning one of the world’s largest apparel retailers to become an exemplar of the circular economy.Ĭ&A is a 176-year-old company founded by two brothers, Clemens and August Brenninkmeijer. It represents, in no small measure, the future of product design and manufacturing.Ĭreating a Cradle to Cradle (or C2C) T-shirt - at scale and at an affordable price to the consumer - was no small feat for C&A. In June, C&A, the international Dutch chain of retail clothing stores, launched a line of T-shirts certified to the Cradle to Cradle standard, meaning that they were designed and manufactured in a way that is benign to the environment and human health, and whose materials can be recirculated safely back into industrial materials or composted into the soil. This is a story about an extraordinary effort to transform an ordinary piece of clothing.
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