Rob Drake-Knight | Co-founder | Teemill

Teemill was created in 2018 from Rapanui fashion brand. Teemill took Rapanui’s tech and supply chain strategies and made them freely available to anyone, anywhere.

When we learned that 10 percent of world’s CO2 comes out of clothing and that 60% of clothes are made with or with plastic, we realized that we want to be part the solution, not the problem. That’s why our products are made from organic materials, using renewable energy, and designed to come back to be remanufactured when they’re worn out.

Clothing is mass-produced speculatively in business-as usual, resulting in huge amounts of waste. 40% of clothing is not worn. Because we only print what people actually need, we can make sure that the clothes are made in real time. This allows us to save money on organics and other renewables. The robotics do the exact same thing, which makes the packaging process 30% faster. We can now afford 10X the cost of packaging made from plants and not plastic. This technology is shared openly online with other brands through our platform at Teemill.com

Teemill is an open source circular and sustainable supply chain platform and e-commerce platform. It can be used by anyone to create an online store or plug into our circular supply chain. This will allow them to design and sell circular and sustainable clothing. All products are made of 100% organic cotton or our recycled Remill wool. All of our factories run on renewable energy and all products are designed from the beginning to return to us for new products.

Each item is printed immediately after the order has been placed. This ensures that there is no excess production, no waste and no stock in warehouses waiting to be sold. Our printers mix inks instantly, only using what is necessary for each print. Brother GTX DTG Printers are what we use, but it is the software that is most important. We write it to work with any digital printer and we also build our own machinery and 3D print parts that we can imagine, but that don’t exist on the market yet.

We have around 10,000 stores using the platform – from global organisations like Greenpeace, WWF, BBC Earth, to online content creators such as Yoga with Adriene, as well as many individual designers and creatives. The product range is vast. Our most successful stores only stock a few well-designed products. Others are constantly adding new designs. Because everything is print on demand, we only print what is needed when it’s needed—meaning stores can have hundreds of different designs that exist on the cloud, without having to worry about over-stocking.

Our biggest markets outside of the UK are the US, Europe and the US. However, we are keen to expand our work in Asia with our Indian partners.

Most orders are printed on the same day. Shipping time will vary depending on the destination of your order and the shipping option chosen. Domestic orders should arrive in 5 days.

Yes, there are two factories in the UK, one in Tamil Nadu and one in the Czech Republic.

We are an organic certified company and use low-waste printing technology and inks that meet the GOTS/Soil Association organic criteria. Our printing technology is flexible and allows for a wide range of colours. It also gives off a high quality feel. Our inks are free from animal-derived products and have not been tested on animals.

For #TakebackFriday we’re reversing Black Friday. So, instead of asking customers to buy lots of new things, we’re paying them to send back their old Teemill products. Teemill products are made with 100% organic cotton or recycled Remill fiber. We can make new products from old products, and then reward customers with financial rewards. We’re trying to involve as many of the 10,000 stores that use our platform as possible, and we have the backing of some big names like WWF, Rapanui, and BBC Earth.

Since the beginning of time, T-shirts have been used to support causes, campaigns and activism. We are now seeing this trend accelerate because it is easier to start your own brand and create products. Teemill, a platform that allows people to create their own clothing and make it personal, has revolutionized the fashion industry.

There is a growing awareness of issues surrounding synthetic fibres and their poor recycling. This is causing more people to be interested in natural materials like wool and cotton and a greater focus on the production process. Since the beginning, we have focused exclusively on 100 percent organic cotton from India.

Next year we will expand our impact and partner manufacture from the UK and EU, to US and EMEA. Through a partnership in India, we will be able to serve customers throughout India, Singapore, and the rest of Asia.

We’re also working on being able to take back clothes from other brands. It’s harder to figure out because most clothes just aren’t designed to be circular, but it would be a huge step forward for the industry and we are definitely on the way to doing it. We do already use post-consumer materials from other brands, but we can’t yet accept them directly from the customer.

We’re also working hard to raise awareness of the solutions we’ve developed, because a lot of people don’t even know these solutions exist. The greater our impact, the more people who get involved in Teemill. That’s why we’re also working on new ways for people to participate. A Shopify plugin was recently released. This allows anyone who has a Shopify shop to connect to our circular supply chains and create and sell products. An API has been created that allows anyone to connect to our supply chain from any platform, website or app.

Along with the focus on helping more people participate in creating a circular economy for fashion, we’re constantly evolving the products we offer, so that we can tackle different challenges in the industry.

(Interviewer: Shilpi Panjabi)