Our Top Five Priorities
On top of what was mentioned in our 'Room for Improvement' section, these are our top five priorities at Untraced:
1.
Measuring our impact and working on our energy sobriety
We are currently calculating our carbon footprint that can be linked to everything from sourcing our raw materials to the lights we use on our desks.
We are doing this for two reasons;
- So we can be well aware of where our emissions are coming from.
- So we can be sure of where to put our efforts in order to be as efficient as possible in reducing our emissions.
So far, we already know that a large chunk of our footprint comes from the factory that assembled our products. This factory is in Brisbane, Australia, and the energy source in this region is non-renewable. A problem soon to be solved, we are searching for a new factory in a country fuelled by renewable energy.
Sourcing is another issue to be solved; shipping materials long distances is harmful to the environment. We will be sourcing materials from mills close to our next factory so we can reduce our carbon footprint.
We will, of course, keep you updated on our progress.
2.
Bringing more transparency to our customers
Transparency is a big subject. We want to be as transparent as possible about everything with you. We strongly believe a lack of transparency is a bad sign of dangerous greenwashing and we absolutely don’t want to go there.
Today, we give you a lot of information but we can do better and are working on a better system for the V2 of our polos and jackets.
In version two of our products, the labels will include a QR code with a lot of information about the materials and the production. This way, you can find out the origin story of the clothing you’re wearing. We will include information about where the fabric came from, where the clothing was assembled, how many kilometers the products travelled, and so much more.
The facts about the environmental impact of our products will be at your fingertips.
3.
Building a strong pre-ordering program to avoid overproduction
Pre-ordering is the most reliable model we have seen so far. We don’t do collections. We do presales and limited editions.
Pre-ordering is a waste-reduction technique that we tried out when producing our V1 golf jackets and V1 golf polos. It worked out pretty well! How did it work? We took orders, doubled this order quantity to sell products on our website, purchased enough materials, and then produced what was needed. If there’s any fabric leftover (in version 1, there was very little), we will incorporate these materials into the designs of the following capsule collection.
What is the down side of this method? It is a lengthy process, and people usually don’t want to wait very long. Our community is absolutely amazing because they have been very patient (and we want to thank them again for having waited a few months to have their products) but we know that we will have to be faster in the future.
We are testing a new pre-ordering program as we speak. For the next product drop, we’re aiming to have our production done one month after orders have been taken. It is a real challenge but we are confident.
Overall, we’ve seen how this method can reduce waste, and we want to continue innovating in this space until we are really satisfied with it.
4.
Implementing a subscription plan
We are thinking hard about this idea. A subscription plan could allow us to have closer contact with you, to build a strong community and get your Untraced gear back from you more easily when you’re done wearing it.
Our worst nightmare is to have our clothing end up in a landfill, so we are working out countless ways to avoid this tragedy. We are testing this idea and will keep you updated on our progress.
5.
Working on customer support and workshops
Our website is already stacked full of juicy information on how we’re existing sustainably. But we want to do more. We won’t stop giving you information about our fight, progress, and how we see things. Up to you to read it, then!
Check out our blog for the latest news on our journey. In our products section, there are also tips on how to extend the life of your products. Go take a look and you’ll find plenty of good advice.
We are also working on setting up some workshops because we would love to meet you in person and discuss climate change, fashion, and golf. We will let you know soon when and where we could do that.