Solmate's successful reduction of waste in textile production reminds us that every company makes a deliberate choice how (or if) they want to be part of the climate change problem or solution. They also prioritize employee wages and benefits. These choices are why we're featuring them in our Minding Our Business profile series.
Minding Our Business: Solmate Canada
We’ve been carrying Solmate brand since 2012 (when owner Avant-Garden shop owner Brenda bought a pair while travelling in the US). Brenda fell in love with Solmate socks AND their business practices.
Five reasons Solmate meets our MOB standards:
– minimizing waste: all of their products are knit from pre-consumer, recycled cotton yarn
– domestically sourced production (all products are manufactured at mill in North Carolina, US), part of the only 3% of apparel consumption that is sourced on this continent
– providing living wages to employees and generous medical benefits
– achieving zero waste rates by ensuring no scraps go unused (via Gem Text Recycling program through the Portland Garment Factory)
– being B Corporation™ Certified, thus being assessed and approved for various ethical standards of practice and for meeting minimum performance benchmarks.
Almost 13 years later, Brenda now has about a dozen pairs of Solmate socks in rotation!
We’re proud to carry Solmate products on our shelves and hope you check them out. They have a Canadian office in Toronto and are easy to work with. We’ve tripled our orders with them since we first started carrying their products.
Wearing and sharing these socks, scarves, beanies and fingerless mittens will warm you at least twice.
Solmate provides slow fashion at its best, which is also good for the soul.
Browse some of our selection online by searching socks in our online browser. They’re always coming up with new colours with names like periwinkle and larkspur. Come into the shop to enjoy the tactile browsing experience first-hand.
~ Learn more about all of the environment and social initiatives from the Solmate website (solematecanada.com) which also informs that every pair of socks you buy saves 2.24 lbs of CO2, 2.64 s.f. of landfills and 324 gallons of water. ~