Javier Goyeneche, founder of the fashion brand Ecoalf, dedicated to manufacturing garments and accessories from recycled material, has used his participation as an inspirational speaker at the Barcelona New Economy Week (BNEW) to challenge attendees and society in general, and particularly the business sector of fashion: "The important thing is that the big players take it seriously."
With this warning, Goyeneche has made it clear that all initiatives ---like his own--- to make the world of fashion and thereby the planet more sustainable end up adding up, but that it must be a job for everyone, not just a few. Fortunately, "a new generation of companies is emerging that wants to do things much better, and those who continue with traditional strategies will realize that society, at least a part of it, will turn its back on them because consumers want transparency," he explained.
In his conference From trash to fashion: if you are not part of the solution, you are the problem, this businessman has assured that he is aware that eco fashion is difficult, "very complex." Hence, he asks for the collaboration of the market's big players, who are the ones with the power to bring about true change. "You have to buy less and better; the feeling of buying for the sake of buying is unsustainable if we want and think about the future, about our future," he adds. He is uncompromising with certain fashion policies, such as that "a t-shirt can cost five euros, even in stores of big brands, is unacceptable", because "what it cost to produce it at origin is not sustainable either for those who manufacture it or for those who consume it," he insists while also mentioning "a consumerist society."
The founder and creator of the sustainable fashion brand Ecoalf asks to "buy less and better"Goyeneche has given as an example campaigns such as the Black Fridayin which it is demonstrated that six out of ten products purchased are returned."People buy compulsively and promotions encourage senseless purchases", hence Ecoalf is an activist anti-Black Friday, who refuses to do promotions, only offers sales. Goyeneche is also reluctant to "excessive" online shopping, because it has been shown that returns reach 37% of what is purchased online. "At Ecoalf, this percentage is 17% and we already find it unacceptable," he points out.
Ecoalf's contribution to society is not limited to "generating noise and raising awareness among people that there is no Planet B", but is summarized in the development of more than 450 recycled fabrics and more than 250 fabrics from the recycling of plastic bottles, with more than 250 million plastic bottles recycled since the brand's inception in 2013, when the project materialized. Goyeneche's idea was conceived two years after the economic crisis forced him to close his first business in 2007, Fun&Basics, the brand he created when he was only 24 years old. With its materials, Ecoalf manufactures clothing and footwear for men, women and children, as well as a multitude of accessories.
Ecoalf brand products can be found in more than 1,500 multi-brand points throughout Europe and in its own stores in Barcelona, Madrid, Berlin, Tokyo and "in fifteen days we will open in Paris", Goyeneche announced.
Among all its actions, projects developed by the Ecoalf Foundation stand out, such as Upcycling the Oceans which, with the collaboration of more than 3,200 fishermen from the Mediterranean, cleans the oceans of marine litter to give plastic waste a new life thanks to recycling and the circular economy. Currently, the Ecoalf Foundation collaborates with local partners for the development of Upcycling the Oceans in Spain, Greece, Italy and Thailand and is working to implement it in other parts of the world.
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