The Underswell Backstory

Back in 2009, as I settled into my assigned role as Head of Sustainability for the well-known, publicly-traded company, Volcom I realized that I had a lot to learn on the subject. So, like any good student, I got to work.

But, when I started to dive into industry reports, scour through editorials, attend conferences, and meet with specialists in the space, I constantly found myself asking, “Wait, what is that word? Who is that organization? What is that acronym? Who is that person?” And, the more I dove in to teach myself, the more rabbit holes I discovered. I was unraveling a world of information that, while not new in and of itself, was completely new (if not foreign) to me.

With more than 10 years of industry experience at the time and a Master’s Degree in business from a top-ranked university, I was feeling knocked back on my heels. I was constantly asking myself: 

🎯 "Why do I not already know this?"

Especially, because what I was uncovering, and learning was deeply resonating with me, and made perfect, reasonable sense to me: Business can be, and should be done better. 

There were no reason (aside from status quo) that the lifestyle I love, and the products I valued should come at the expense of people I had never met, communities I may or may not ever visit, and/or ecosystems that were ultimately connected (I came to realize) to me. 

The concept of The Triple Bottom Line could not have been more of a no-brainer: Find a decent balance between the business you do (Economic), the Ecosystems we rely on (Environmental), and the Humans we should respect (Social), and we’ll all be better off for it today and well into the future.

As I slowly became an expert, I was made acutely aware of how much effort it took because for most of us the concepts of sustainability (everything you’d find outlined in the Sustainable Development Goals) have not historically been ingrained into our educational systems, our career paths, or even our cultural experiences and so, unfortunately, these topics are treated as an add-on or an afterthought.

How then can we expect business leaders, designers, developers, product developers, marketers, etc. to tackle sustainability issues if they don’t have the tools (i.e. the knowledge) to know WHAT they’re tackling, WHY they should be tackling them, and especially HOW to tackle them?

How was anyone else in the business with their already busy roles expected to know any of this?

Those are the questions that drove me to form The Underswell, an effort to create a generation of changemakers in the apparel industry who are confident and competent in the complex and nuanced sustainability matters that are driving forward this new economy. 

After years of trial, and after developing and teaching Sustainable Fashion courses for a California college, I decided that rather than “consult” and bring in expertise from the outside, I would offer to educate and drive change from the inside. An approach we call “empowerment” - Empowering brands to become more sustainable based on a 3-Tiered approach of Educate, Empower, then Activate, powered by a 10-point methodology we developed, and driven by a core of signature courses, and guided-by-expert approaches.

This is a movement, and there is nothing else like it.