Impact startup Pangea has launched a Kickstarter campaign for an Eco-jacket it promises to sell with a lifetime repair service so the jacket never ends up in a landfill.
Sales of the net-negative Eco-jacket will help fund Pangea’s river cleanup and reforestation projects around the world. (Net-negative, also known as climate positive, occurs when an entity removes more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than it emits.)
Pangea is an apparel company and ecological movement founded by Marcos, William, and Juan, who met while backpacking in Mexico in 2018.
After seeing the amount of pollution on the planet, the group began to launch Kickstarter campaigns to create innovative and ecological outdoor products and use the funds to clean the environment.
The Pangea Eco-jacket Kickstarter campaign
According to the Kickstarter campaign document, the Eco-jacket is made from eco-friendly dyes, 100-per-cent recycled fabric, with its zipper pulls made from recycled plastic collected from Pangea’s river barrier installation in Indonesia.
The jackets are shipped via a plant-based compostable mailer made from corn-based bioplastic that breaks down in two months. In addition, the tags used contain flower seeds that customers can grow into plants.
From production to distribution, all carbon emissions are measured and recorded, said the campaign information.
The factory where the products are made reduces carbon emissions by using solar panels and wind turbines. At the same time, all carbon produced in shipping and manufacturing will be offset through Mangrove restoration.
Customers who buy a jacket will receive free lifetime repairs to ensure the jackets never go to landfills. For every $10 raised, the organisation will offset an additional 1.8kg worth of CO2.
At the time of writing, the company was seeking US$10,000 and with 19 days to go had already recorded pledges of more than $40,000 – so the concept has clearly been embraced by consumers!
“In our current world, buying anything is problematic for the environment; it is not enough for companies to not harm,” the group stated on its website. “We want to make sure that every purchase of our products actively benefits the planet.”
Since 2019, the company has collected 17,700kg worth of trash and built 14 river barriers in Indonesia.
