Welcome to the Future
By: True Cost Label
Tags: Startup, Sustainability, Sustainable Fashion, Transparency

Vincenzo Fornoni — Founder True Cost Label

Greetings! Welcome to our very first blog post. I dedicate this blog to provide a general introduction to True Cost Label and more importantly to show youwhy we started this initiative. Let me start with explaining how our platform is different from your usual web shop.

True Cost Label is a fashion product comparison shop for consumers that want to make sustainable choices for how they dress and affect our planet. In essence we calculate the True Cost of different brands and products and allow consumers to use not only price, but also CO2 emissions and social fairness to shop for the items they want. Additionally, while you add green to your wardrobe we add green to the world, because with every click you make on our page we plant 1 tree in a recovering ecosystem somewhere in the world using the services of Just Diggit. .

We feel that greenwashing is a growing problem in this world with fake news all around us. Greenwashing creates an unfair playing field for brands who are actually improving the world with investments and initiatives, drowning them among brands that are just pretending. That is why we choose for Radical transparencyusing a numbers approach to indicate the true environmental and social costs of a brand and its products. The perfect solution for fighting greenwashing.

Now, some critics might argue that what True Cost Label is doing is still not sustainable After all, the best and most efficient way to reduce our fashion impact is simply by consuming less. It is an illusion that we can solve our climate crisis caused by overconsumption with more consumption. This is true to a certain extent. We agree that not consuming at all will (obviously) always have a smaller impact on our environment than consuming with brands that have gone through extended efforts in order to reduce their environmental impact. However, we also realize that society simply cannot drastically reduce consumption from one day to the other. Rather, we need to start consuming differently, smarter, and more sustainable. A great example of the smarter choice is wearing products that are made in a circular fashion, using bio based textiles, textiles containing recycled material, or even choosing second-life refurbished or repaired products. To show you the good stuff from the bad stuff is exactly why we started True Cost Label.

We believe that by increasing transparency and awareness about the environmental impact of products we enable all stakeholders to reward the companies that are going above and beyond to improve their environmental and social impact. We also believe that if we make consumers more aware of how much it actually takes to produce items they will not only buy with more consideration but also take care of their products in a better way. An overall lack of transparency and ownership have been some of the major reasons why the current fashion industry is among the world’s heaviest polluters. By opening up this black box we allow everyone to become part of the climate solution. It will be a change that is here to stay and become the new standard. Once everyone gets used to radical transparency as a story telling method, companies can simply not afford to not take part anymore.

I invite everyone who is reading this to reach out to us. Tell us what you think. Are you excited? Are you nervous? Are you concerned? We welcome constructive criticism, which will allows us to improve our platform and have an even bigger impact when it comes to empowering consumers and brands. Thank you for reading and we welcome you to our comparison shop in the near future.

Vincenzo Fornoni