ESOOKO is an app for fashion lovers who want to take action for the planet and it was co-founded by my youngest son, Jacob. It is a marketplace for buyers and sellers of pre-loved, vintage clothing. Each sale donates 3% to plant trees, restore coral or empower young people to create more sustainable fashion habits.

So if you have just waved your child (Generation Z ) off to university and are looking at their bedroom wardrobe still stuffed with clothes you might suggest to them that they sell their unwanted clothes on Esooko thus generating some income for themselves whilst becoming a sustainable fashion supporter, plus they will be helping to save the planet that we all love and are concerned about its longterm future. So be the coolest parent or grandparent and suggest the Esooko app to your children/grandchildren. Send this link to them now ~ LINK or simply share this article with them.

Recently Jacob was asked by renowned fashion trade magazine, Drapers, to write an article about fashion sustainability and I have reproduced it below.

Circular fashion: ‘Tokenistic acts will not suffice’

BY JACOB SIMONS, ESOOKO

Jacob Simons, co-founder at Esooko, a peer-to-peer fashion marketplace where users buy and sell clothes while funding environmental initiatives, believes investment is key in addressing fashion’s sustainability concerns.

The rise of circular fashion signals a positive shift. Fashion should take further responsibility for its environmental legacy and start reinvesting a portion of its profits into green projects.

The growth in second-hand fashion is a welcome trend. This sub-sector has been growing 25 times faster than the broader industry, according to fashion resale platform Thredup, and is forecast to be double the size of fast fashion by 2030. This is evident in notable recent successes, including Etsy’s acquisition of Depop and Vinted’s £3bn-plus valuation.

There are significant environmental benefits gained from the demand for second-hand clothes. Not only does it lead to fewer items going to landfill, but it also results in huge energy resource savings. In fact, fashion resale platform Thredup’s 2021 Resale Report estimates that buying a piece of second-hand clothing instead of a new one reduces that item’s carbon footprint by 82% and its water footprint by nearly 100%. That is significant, particularly when you consider it takes, on average, 2,700 litres of water to produce one T-shirt.

The small “wins” we gain individually from purchasing second-hand clothing have material environmental advantages when aggregated. In the US alone, the resale of clothes is estimated to have prevented more than 50 billion kg of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere in the last decade. However, the fact remains: mass production in the fashion industry and its environmentally harmful practices have gone unchecked for decades. Good on You, a rater of sustainable and ethical fashion brands says that each year, fashion is responsible for more carbon dioxide being emitted than the aviation and shipping industries combined. It says this leads to more than 150 million trees being cut down for fibre production; and accounts for 20%-30% of microplastic in the oceans.

Even if the number of garments that go to landfill each year drastically decreases through circular fashion, the industry still needs to be accountable for the part it has played in the destruction of rainforests, pollution of oceans and warming of the planet.

Tokenistic acts will not suffice. If a fast-fashion company pledges a few hundred thousand pounds to a green initiative but continues operating a business model that relies on cheap, mass production, the environmental damage will continue to far outweigh its positive impact. There needs to be a multi-pronged approach. Technological research and advancement into sustainable materials need to continue, and so does the rise of circular fashion. These will both help to reduce the environmental impact that fashion has. But fashion needs to go further to repair the damage already done.

Businesses should be investing a portion of profits into green initiatives that play a role in fighting climate change. Whether planting trees to sequester carbon, or funding research into removing microplastics from the ocean, there are myriad environmental issues the industry has had a significant part in creating that it can now help tackle.

Seeing as 94% of Generation Z believes brands have a responsibility to address environmental and social issues, according to PR firm Porter Novelli, reinvesting a portion of profits into green projects is not a policy that leads to financial loss with no upside.  Rather, it is a policy that can foster brand loyalty and align a business with shifting consumer trends.

This is why I co-founded Esooko – a fashion marketplace where users buy and sell clothes while simultaneously funding environmental initiatives. The site has more than 5,000 users and its investors include Mitchel Galvin-Farnol, the founder of streetwear brand Nicce. We are hoping to turn fashion into a force for good and are focused on having a positive impact on the planet. But at the same time, we are still a business that aims to be profitable for investors.

The two goals are not mutually exclusive, because consumers increasingly want to transact with brands that are helping our planet. Our environmental features – for example, 3% of every transaction goes into one of three environmental initiatives: tree planting, coral reef restoration or sustainable fashion education –  have led to us onboarding 5,000 users in the first two months alone since launch, and the platform has been officially named as one of Apple’s favourite new apps.

As you will read from Jacob’s last paragraph, Esooko “has been officially named as one of Apple’s favourite new apps.” On the back of that highly-prized recommendation, Esooko has now embarked on a crowd-funding exercise to raise some further capital for marketing.

Like me I am sure this new world of crowdfunding is difficult to understand however, once I logged in, it was made easy to invest a few £s in this forward-thinking new app which is becoming increasingly popular (They take investments from £20 upwards so not stretching one’s pocket.)

Click HERE for more info on investing in this new, sustainable fashion marketplace.

A proud Mum’s article but always take financial advice before making an investment.