Many see November as the start of the festive season. This is a time when inboxes fill up with Black Friday countdowns and flash sales.
When Elvis & Kresse was founded in 2005, we had no intention to do ‘business as usual’. From the very beginning, our mission has been very broad. Yes, we wanted to rescue the fire hose, but more than that, we wanted to create a company that made a positive impact in every possible sense. Kresse’s famous internal motto, “Do more, be better,” still guides every decision we make. In order to maximise donations, we don’t operate a discounting strategy. Rather than offering discounts, we donate 50% of our profits to charity. And if you want to read all about why we give, you can find a detailed rationale here.
Profits are what remain at the end of the year when all our costs have been accounted for: from certified Living Wages for our team, to running our regenerative HQ and farm, to rescuing and transforming all of the wonderful materials you will find in our pieces. At the end of each year, when the accounting is complete, we split the surplus: half is reinvested into the business and growing our impact, and the other half is donated, primarily to our two key charity partners.
In order to help our wonderful customers shop with confidence, our prices remain consistent all year round. We won’t reduce our prices one week only to raise them the next. We believe in transparency, fairness, and in doing what’s right for both people and planet. If you want to read more about why we don’t participate in Black Friday, and why you won’t receive an email like this from us you can find our blog from 2018 here.
The Fire Fighters CharityOur longest standing partnership is with The Fire Fighters Charity. At our very first meeting with the London Fire Brigade we promised to share 50% of any profits we made rescuing the hoses with the firefighting community. It just makes sense that after a long life fighting fires, the second life of these heroic fire hoses should have another opportunity to give.
This is why, from the very beginning, 50% of the profits from our Fire hose Collection have been donated to The Fire Fighters Charity. As of 2025, we have donated a total of £332,257.78 to The Fire Fighters Charity.
The Fire Fighters Charity provides physical rehabilitation, mental health support, a 24/7 crisis line, and much more to firefighters, their families, and the wider fire service community across the UK. Every piece you purchase helps give back to the heroes who have given so much.
When we started our leather project we knew it might be a little trickier to find an ideal charity partner because there is no straightforward link to a cause. We searched and searched, trying to find a charity that matched our own ethos of doing the most good with the least resource.
Barefoot College International is an incredible organisation. First founded in the 1970s in India, they focus on providing transformational education to women, largely mothers and grandmothers, who have had no previous access to education. Specifically, our donations fund scholarships for women to train as solar engineers. When the training is complete, the women return to their communities equipped to bring clean, renewable energy to places that may have never had electricity before, or have relied on burning wood or kerosene for cooking. There is a ripple effect of empowerment, sustainability, and hope, which we are incredibly proud to support.
Over the decades Barefoot has tracked the impact of their work, and it is truly amazing. On average, the work of each scholar has a positive and life changing impact on 250 people, and the charity addresses almost all of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
As of this year we have donated £102,000.00 to Barefoot College International.
Our total donations, across all the causes we have supported since 2005, amount to £449,508.93.
As you begin your festive shopping, we hope this serves as a gentle reminder that shopping can be both ethical, sustainable, and generous. Every Elvis & Kresse piece rescues materials from landfill, supports our team and our planet, and contributes directly to life changing causes.
Shop in confidence knowing we don’t do discounts, we make donations.
Making wine is not something you schedule in on a random Tuesday. You have to have to choose your grapes. Then wait a year for the vines. Then you plant. Then you nurture and maintain vines, in our case for 4 years. We did all of this in the humble service of nature while also being very much at her mercy. This first harvest is small and joyful. Our farm is so much healthier and happier as a result of all the work we have done to bring it back into a state of abundance. The wine-making started in mid-October, and when it is ready to drink in spring it really will be a celebration of our part in this recovering ecosystem.
Can wine really do all that? With a lot of love, total commitment to the soil, and the support of our incredible team and community? You bet.
Was it in my last year at university? During a job interview I was asked if I pictured myself working on Wall Street in forty years time... I replied, really to my own surprise, 'No. I think I will be growing grapes and making wine." My room-mates loved this story - Liz, Pauline and Cathy - and clearly we talked about the wine idea a lot from then on, as Cathy gave me this, as a Christmas present in 1998.
So this really is a dream that has been 27 years in the making.
The idea solidified in my early years of work, in Hong Kong. This was when I devoured all kinds of books about wine, from Nicolas Joly's biodynamic vine growing manual, Wine from Sky to Earth, to Hugh Johnson's Story of Wine (among several of Hugh's books) and also, I must admit Wine for Dummies... When again, a supportive friend Lei-shin, wrote this inscription in the Vintner's Art?
And then in 2015 Elvis & I decided to broaden our mission at Elvis & Kresse and see if we could operate entirely regeneratively. This led us to New Barns Farm in 2020 and to the south facing chalky slopes and soil studies that pointed in one very clear direction.
After years of laying dormant, it was time. In 2021 we ordered the vines, in 2022 we planted. This first year could have been the last - the drought was so terrible and the heat wave in August so pronounced - that we genuinely thought they would all die. Amazingly, of the nearly 12,000 vines and more than 3000 trees, more than 80% survived. They largely stayed dormant, but didn't really grow.
We have pursued an entirely regenerative approach here. We use no 'cides' - no herbicides, pesticides, fungicides... no death. We also don't use synthetic fertilisers. We make our own compost, entirely from locally available wastes like our neighbour's horse manure and farm shop food waste. We then cold brew this into compost tea, and that is how we are bringing life back to the very poor soil that was here when we came. We add life, and that means the soil gets deeper, more resilient, and holds more carbon.
If I started making a list of everyone who has supported this dream then this post would end up being way too long but we have had a lot of help with planning, planting, weeding, mulching, composting, pruning, watering through the drought (the summer of 22, the year we planted, really could have killed everything), mentoring, and so much moral support. Without David, our vineyard manager, the whole crew here, and the wider team of friends, neighbours and family (many of whom spent weekends and holidays staking, tubing, mulching, pruning or planting trees), I am not sure we would have ever made it to this week.
But we did.
And what happens in this very busy period?
Well, let me walk you through and show you the process.
First there were the major preparations, working with Nikki, who has amazingly come from Kelowna (where the grapes have not recovered from the deep freeze frost of 2024), to help us with this first vintage. Nikki advised on the equipment required to set up a rudimentary, but scalable winery. We bought tanks and presses, and converted part of the Brew Barn, where we make our compost tea, into an insulated and easy to clean fermenting space. We made covers for the open top fermenters, we studied how to clean enzymatically (rather than chemically), and we kept testing and testing for the sugar levels to be right.
Waiting for sugar is hard. The grapes look right, the acid levels are right, and they taste good too! This is the problem. They taste good to us, and they taste really good to the wasps and birds that also live at New Barns Farm... so in the last weeks of waiting we also lose a lot of volume. But hey, we love to give back, sharing is in our DNA. I think we will call this nature's share for now.
October 13th: Nikki arrives and inspects the winery. We are all systems go.
Nikki Callaway, our wonderful winemaking guru, in the vineyard
October 14th: The whole team is either out in the vines or managing the workshop and we manage to bring in all the white grapes. We picked 234kg in total, across 24 baskets. Of these baskets only one was Rinot, the rest are all Souvignier Gris. Rather than make just a handful of Rinot, we squish them all together and leave overnight to add depth and flavour from the skins. This first 'squish' was by foot, and as per Nikki's advice, we christened the grapes by drinking Champagne while stomping and pouring a good measure into the open top fermenter...
October 15th: We bring in some of the grape must to kick start fermentation in the warmer workshop. Then we press the lot and get it all into one of our variable capacity tanks. Everything gets a good clean down, in preparation for the red grape harvest.
October 16th: We start picking again - and this time it is all red. The weather is a little warmer, making it easier on the crew, but these grapes have had more pressure from birds and wasps and bees too. We wonder if these cheeky neighbours of ours find the thinner skins easier to penetrate, or if they are drawn in by their almost black colour. There would have been a lot more red than white, but with many of the berries picked off (birds) or drained of their juice (wasps and bees), the ratio of stem to grapes is too high... instead of stomping on whole bunches we de-stem first, by hand, and then give the grapes a good trodding before tucking in for the night. In total we had 191kg of Pinotin, sadly all of the Cabaret Noir was 'for the birds'.
October 17th: We do a full analysis of all the juice, and work out our next steps... we punch down the reds, and have a lovely satisfactory walk around the vineyard. It is a real relief to have everything picked.
Over the next few days we check temperature, specific gravity, sugar levels and we do a lot of sniffing and sipping. We don't want funky, off smells. We want CO2, we want yeast, we want vibrant juice. My take on the early smells, before the temperature went up and sugar went down, was of church (stale bread and wine) and banana bread. Apparently this is a great sign. The reason you get heat is that the yeast, naturally occurring in our lovely unsprayed grapes, is starting to eat the sugar and convert it into alcohol. At first the yeast population is small, but then it grows, and the temperature rises accordingly. You can hear the liquids popping and fizzing, you can taste the fizzy first hints of alcohol on your tongue. If you want to know your alcohol content you measure the specific gravity of the juice on day one, then subtract the gravity reading at the end of fermentation, then multiply by 131.25... that gives you your ABV, or alcohol by volume.
It is hard not to get obsessed with our little winery. It is warm, cozy, and literally full of the fruits of our labour... tanks of liquid potential.
This is not the end of the story, or even the end of the season. We now have to monitor the wine, keep an eye on fermentation, make sure the variable capacity lids stay pumped up and tight, and wait to rack, and re-rack the juice as it becomes wine. There is cold stabilisation and heat stabilisation and the risk of contamination and any number of things that can go wrong... and that is just this year, as we wait for the wine to be ready to bottle, in Spring, and then ready to drink a little later.
Next year more of the vines will be robust, and ready to produce grapes. Those that already produced this year could potentially carry more grapes. We will still be at the whim of nature, we know all too well that weather can make or break us. Or the voles may come again to munch the weaker vines... And then when everything is ripe we have to worry about birds, wasps and bees... We will gradually find our way, steadily adjusting to and meshing with the natural rhythm of the seasons, even as they are increasingly disrupted by climate change.
All I can tell you is that this is just the beginning of the second act, one that I hope will last for decades, and that will taste as incredible as we all feel in this first harvest week.
At Elvis & Kresse, we believe real change happens through collaboration. The Company We Keep celebrates the inspiring sustainable brands that share our mission to reduce waste and create positive impact. Discover the stories of Reskinned, Clipper Teas, Wasted Kitchen, Cook, and B Corp, organisations reimagining how business can be a genuine force for good.
When we decided to embark on our farming adventure we knew that it would take us in unexpected directions, but we have been consistently delighted by the generosity of neighbours, and the encouragement from the wider agricultural community.
Our vines weren't even planted when we had a visit from the former CEO of Chapel Down, England's largest wine-maker, who 'couldn't wait to see what we would do'. The vines were just little twigs in the ground, sad little things that had just scraped through the drought of 2022, when we had two guests from Berry Brothers & Rudd, Adam Holden and Lizzy Rudd. They were keen to talk about what it means to be a B Corp, but also, what kind of winemakers we hoped to be and how our ethics and soil first focus were shaping the farm.
Since that first meeting we have been very lucky to be invited to some of the Changemaker dinners hosted at 3 St. James Street, the Berry Bros. & Rudd HQ. Whether the conversations are about B Corps, sustainability in general, or in viticulture and viniculture in particular, they have always been transparent, generous, and fascinating.
Berry Bros. & Rudd regularly contribute to the Distillers One of One Auction in aid of the Youth Action Fund. This is the third edition of this auction, and it will take place on Friday 10th October 2025.
"This year, we’ve delved into the depths of our Family Reserve to present two rare and remarkable single malts—each with a distinct personality—from the revered Caol Ila and Balmenach distilleries. And this offering is more than just exceptional whisky. In a meeting of tradition and innovation, we’ve teamed up with sustainable luxury pioneers Elvis & Kresse to create bespoke packaging. Crafted from repurposed materials, each piece is as unique and enduring as the liquid it carries. Exceptional spirits, meaningful design—enjoy the whisky, and take the story with you."
—Lizzy Rudd, Berry Bros. & Rudd Chair
It was a real honour to create a bespoke Gladstone bag and set of presentation boxes to hold the whisky and a set of crystal tumblers. We also made a display plinth from a genuine Berry Bros. & Rudd whisky barrel stave.
If you would like to see more of our Gladstones, you can find them here! They are also available in full decommissioned fire-hose.
And if you are keen on the boxes, we have them in three sizes:
Small:
Medium:
Large:
I spent last week in Osaka with the Cartier Women's Initiative Awards community - it was so wonderful and jam packed that there is very possibly too much to put into one post. I first applied for and won an award in 2011, so this journey has been 14+ years in the making. If you want to learn more, read about the Impact Award announcement here, and head back to the 2011 award here. If you want to head straight to a full video of the Awards, just scroll down!
The first two days we spent as a small group, just the nine impact awardees, learning how to practise integrated leadership. And just what does this mean? "The ability to stretch across your full range of capacities is what the founders call the Unlocking Eve Integrated Leadership Practice. Their research shows that integrating decisiveness with reflectiveness, agency with community, rational with intuitive, and power with empowerment, is intimately correlated with positive business outcomes. The most powerful elements of this time, for me, was understanding that you can and should tap into all your resources; a great leader doesn't choose a small basket of skills to operate with, or just show their more masculine or data driven self, emotion, intuition, reflection and contextual awareness are just as crucial. We have to train all our muscles - the hard ones and the soft ones! And this isn't about gender either - this is about us being whole humans. The program also offered us the chance to spend a lot of time with each other, as a small group or one-on-one, learning everything about each other and our businesses. Movement, eye contact, system mapping.... it was a strong start!
On the third day the full CWI community arrived and we had another packed schedule. There was a session on health and wellness which was curated and delivered by CWI fellows who work in women's health, health diagnostics, and traditional healing methods. We also had an incredible lecture from Sandi Toksvig - which was funny, exasperating and terrifying in equal measure. It was a global roller-coaster ride through the absence of women from history and how this is now entrenched by Wikipedia and the algorithms that are underpinning AI. She is working on a project with Cambridge University to balance the scales, you can find more information here! We finished the evening off with a community cocktail party overlooking Osaka - so the celebrations were really starting to ramp up.
We kicked this day off with a breakfast meeting with Amal Clooney - all of us discussing our goals, challenges, and considering how we could best support each other. Then we headed straight to the Expo, to tour the Women's Pavilion - which I loved because the architect, Yuko Nagayama, had recycled the building from Expo Dubai - and then attend its launch. We heard from JJ Bola, Anna Sawai, Jacinda Ardern, Her Imperial Highness Princess Takamado, Her Excellency Reem Al Hashimy, Tetsuko Kuroyanagi, and the finale was an incredible performance by Anna Sato, who performed an original composition "The Flower of the Human Heart", accompanied by the Wadaiko Drummers, youth soloists and international and Japanese choirs. Imagine trying to absorb this experience while on the way for a full dress rehearsal for the awards! Following a nervous run through we went for a casual dinner and found a basement marketplace of bars, three stories underground....
We spent the entire morning with press from all over the world, running through our business models and impact. We had such insightful questions about the fallout of US tariffs, how partnership and collaboration can unlock scale and greater impact, our cultural influences and goals for the decade ahead. It was great to catch up with Karla Martinez De Salas, from Vogue Mexico, that I met years ago in Canada at the Women's Forum.
We headed straight from the press morning to the awards venue, Fenice Sacay, where a team of hair and make-up professionals settled our nerves.
After the months of preparation we all had with Anna Ong and the Cartier team and in Sandi Toksvig's safe hands the ceremony went off without a hitch - you can see the whole thing too!
Don't worry - we made no recording of our own little after party... Karaoke until very late (or very early)... with the unifying song for our diverse group being the classic "Hello" by Lionel Richie.
This day was a real treat - we had an incredible discussion about identity with Karlie Kloss, Candice Pascoal, Kodo Nishimura, followed by a leadership session with Cyrille Vigneron (former global CEO of Cartier and now head of Culture and Philanthropy and the CEO of Cartier Japan, June Miyachi) and then a one-on-one session with our Jury, the lovely group who chose us to receive the Impact Awards.
And as if this was not enough, this was just the morning and early afternoon! We then went to the Osaka Symphony Hall for a special performance, titled Mother Earth. I have to say, I was completely unprepared for how much I would love this! I was in the second row, on the right hand side, and it was clear to see how the conductor, Simone Menezes, was influencing the mood, tone and rhythm. The world premiere of Mother Earth, performed and composed by pianist Fazil Say was so full of impossible sounds, I had no idea that a piano could sound like a skipping rock, or an orchestra could transform into tropical birds, rivers, and rain.
Our final cocktail dinner was at an indoor/outdoor garden - the best place to say our goodbyes AND launch a fundraising collaboration between us and fellow awardee Mariam Torosyan, of Safe You.
I spent every non-scheduled minute exploring, running, swimming, sharing a meal or catching up with a community member, plotting collaborations and ways to achieve more impact, much faster. It was thrilling and tiring and just the best way to usher in a hard summer of work back at the farm.
In 2010 I applied for the Cartier Women's Initiative Awards.
Launched in 2006, their mission is to shine a light on women impact entrepreneurs and provide them with the necessary financial, social and human capital support to grow their business and build their leadership skills.
I submitted an application form, including our financial history, our highs, our lows, our business plan, and made the shortlist of three to represent Europe at the 2011 edition of the awards. In the judging and awards week I met impact entrepreneurs from all over the world, first in Paris, then in Deauville, where the awards took place. It was a frenetic week of learning, presenting, networking, calling back to the UK to work with Elvis on fine tuning my presentation for the Jury and staying on top of Elvis & Kresse's day-to-day needs.
I won - I cried - and then started to realise just what it all meant. Cartier was not in this for the event, but for the impact, for the women. All the women. Win or lose everyone becomes a fellow. The support that continued to flow was truly incredible. The network continued to grow. We hosted events at our former HQ - the Mill - and I became a Juror for Europe and then a Head Juror, serving for 5 years. I couldn't say no to the chance to meet, year after year, some of the most outstanding and inspirational women in entrepreneurship.
And now here we are in 2025, 15 years after my application. This year, instead of running the awards, Cartier has gone back through all of the entrepreneurs it has supported since 2006 and chosen nine to honour with Impact Awards. They narrowed the search to three specific categories, which you can find below. And I would love for you to learn more about each of the Awardees. In May we will all travel to Osaka, to have the chance to learn and celebrate together with the wider Cartier Women's Initiative community. In the meantime - please meet these eight incredible women!
Kristin Kagetsu, Tracy O'Rourke, and me!
Namita Banka, Caitlin Dolkart, and Yvette Ishimwe
Rama Kayyali, Jackie Stenson, and Mariam Torosyan
These nine Impact Awardees will be celebrated during the Cartier Women’s Initiative
Impact Awards Ceremony to be held on May 22nd, 2025, in Osaka, as part of the
Inauguration of the Women’s Pavilion at World Expo 2025 Osaka, Kansai.
Each of the nine awardees will receive a $100,000 grant along with increased media visibility and participation in a dedicated 1-year Impact Fellowship. This program offers Impact Awardees the opportunity to enhance their impact measurement skills, refine their impact metrics and practices, deepen their leadership capabilities, and improve time management through a specialised productivity and task prioritisation course. This year, the CWI is partnering with several new program partners, making this edition a truly unique and enriching experience for its former fellows.
This is a truly magical time on the farm - although the daffodils are now fading everything else is waking up.
The buds have largely burst on the vines, tiny popcorn like nodules that dot the length of each vine essentially 'pop' and pinky tipped green leaves start to peak through and gradually unfurl. One particular variety of white bursts early and the green leaves are all out already. This is wonderful, but it means we will sleep uneasily when late frosts are lurking in the valley.
What does it sound like? Birds (our favourite is the Barn Owl), and bees (this one in the marjoram). I suppose that most people come here to appreciate the absence of sound; our urbanite friends love to sleep here, and I am always so keen to get back to where I can think peacefully, in the glorious darkness.
The trees are almost all in bud, leaf, or flower. We planted around 3000 of them in early 2022 and so many of them were twigs. Lets be honest, some of them were glorified living toothpicks. Then we had the drought... so their first year was less about growth and more about survival. Have a look at this Scots Pine... it is now taller than me!
We are also starting to see the incredibly colourful impact of our commitment to biodiversity. The pond edges are bright yellow with marsh marigold and the pasture that blankets our vineyard is full of tiny little flowers. One of my favourites is the hairy violet - up close it looks like a tiny little orchid.
What else can I tell you? It just smells 'awake'. Healthy soil has a comforting hug like smell and the pollen has its own perfume too - it would be great to be a dog and really have a good nose around.
The terminology around any kind of green claim is often unspecific and opaque. It might sound good, it might tick a box, but what does it really mean? When a brand claims that they are eco-friendly or sustainable, what do they mean? Do they mean that they are slightly better than the worst in their industry? Or do they mean they are absolutely the gold standard? Very interestingly, the European Green Claims Directive is setting out to change all this, and it should make everything a lot simpler. It is legislation designed to ensure that green claims are clear, consistent, and substantiated. It is this last word that I like the most. Hopefully what 'substantiated' means is that any brand saying they are sustainable will have to follow up (within 1-2 clicks) with precisely what they mean. They will have to show proof.
I think the Directive will work as the consequences are high - fines of up to 4% of company turnover! As most fashion brands sell in the EU, this impacts everyone. We have a couple of years to get our collective acts together.
In the meantime, let me give you some definitions of common terms - precisely the kinds of words that so many companies are using (some correctly, and some with very little genuine understanding of what they mean).
By the way - lots of brands, including us, use these terms regularly. Why? Because you are searching for them. Lots of people want to buy products that are better for the planet, and if we don't use these terms you won't be able to find us on any of the browsers (like Google, Ecosia, Bing etc.). They are literally search engine signposts. Hopefully, when the legislation beds in, these sign-posts will more accurately lead you to companies that are genuinely doing the work, rather than those that say they do, or think they do.
Now this is perhaps the most overused. But it is really important. I think the best way to understand it is by understanding its opposite (see below). To be sustainable means that it has to be able to keep going, for the long term, and it must be defensible. The sun is sustainable (it is set to burn out in 5 billion years but that is pretty long term). Our use of fossil fuels, to the detriment of future generations, is not.
Perhaps one of my favourite definitions, and the best way to understand sustainability is often through its inverse. Unable to be maintained in the long term or indefensible*. I love that last word, indefensible. Most people know when something is wrong and yet the bulk of economic activity is based on extraction and exploitation, which is unsustainable. This is the challenge of our time, revolutionising the economy. The economy makes money and creates jobs, but largely by putting future generations at risk. Elvis & Kresse is in many ways a living experiment; it is how we are trying to circle this square, or solve this problem.
The art of transforming a low value waste into a new item of higher value. Upcycling traditionally does not involve a chemical or mechanically destructive process, rather it relies on the creative reuse and reinvention of materials, celebrating what they are and fulfilling their highest potential. This is what we do.
If something is recycled, it means it has been made again from materials that were previously in use. Glass is a great example of a material that can be recycled, it can be smashed, melted down and made again and this can happen forever. Plastic can be recycled too, but we know that it really isn't being recycled at anywhere near its production and consumption rates and its quality does degrade through time. Recycling is great but Reducing and Reusing are better, they are higher up in the hierarchy of 'eco-friendliness'. Ideally we shouldn't produce any materials that can't be reused, recycled, or returned to nature through biodegradation or composting. But! In order to have a 'sustainable' system like this we have to reduce the materials flowing through it and we absolutely have to stop producing materials that can't be recycled. You will often see labels that say, 'made with recyclable materials', this just means that it CAN be recycled, not that it has been... so not quite as good. Other labels will say 'contains recycled content', which is also confusing unless followed up by specifics like which materials and what percentage. When I see a label like 'made from recycled cotton', I get very nervous, as often this means it also contains recycled polymers; this is then a Frankenfabric which we currently have no scaled way to deal with and it makes recycling and/or composting impossible.
This is a very loose term and I don't like it. It doesn't have a specific enough meaning. However, it should be an objective. We should all be thinking about how every aspect of our lives can be better for the environment, or more eco-friendly. Eating a local, seasonal diet that is plant heavy is more eco-friendly than living in the UK and living on a diet of California strawberries, Florida Orange Juice and Argentinian Steaks. Reusing and refilling your own water bottle with tap water is more eco-friendly than buying single use plastic bottled water. You can get into the weeds on this one, especially when you start looking at life cycle analysis and full carbon accounting and this is why loose terms like this are tricky, it means you have to do your own research.
Understanding every aspect and ingredient associated with making a product, using a product, and even the death of that product! The LCA of your coffee mug would involve studying the environmental impact of digging up the clay, forming, painting and firing the mug, transporting it to you, how many times you use and wash it, how you wash it and when it has smashed beyond repair, what you do with it.
This is adding up all the CO2 associated with a product or process. If you go back to your mug, it involves all of the carbon embedded in every step or process of the LCA. Some products will have a carbon label, saying how much CO2 it took to get it to you. Others will say that they are carbon neutral, which means that the carbon associated with that good has been accounted for and 'paid for'. How do you pay for carbon? Well, you can offset it, this could be by planting an amount of trees to make up for the carbon you have spent. You can inset it, by making sure that planting those trees or some other form of carbon sequestration took place during the making of the mug. You can also do everything to eliminate carbon, and actually rethink how you make, so that more carbon is removed from the atmosphere because of choosing and using your mug (this is what Elvis & Kresse is trying to do with the farm).
This is something I never believe without double checking. Some companies argue that anything that exists on earth - whether synthesized by human activity, or toxic, or endangered - can be called 'natural'. As a start, in my books if it has been man-made, it isn't natural. This is a term that always requires further research.
Natural materials are ones that are grown, and without intervention, can be returned to a natural state (biodegradable). Wood is natural, cotton is natural, wool is natural. I am personally a huge proponent of these, but not if they are 'unsustainably' grown. There is a big difference between regenerative organic cotton and chemically intensively grown cotton that is heavily irrigated.
This word can have a couple of meanings, based on context. All natural materials, things that grow, are organic. Trees are organic, people are organic. However, in the context of fashion, to me, organic should only be used if something is certified which means that it has been grown in the absence of synthetic chemicals (pesticides and fertilizers). In the UK we have the Soil Association; products that carry this label are certified as organic and the farms that they are derived from are certified. Now, this can also get tricky. What if you start with organic cotton, but then you use inorganic screen printing? Read labels, ask questions - curiosity is something to nurture!
Containing no animal or animal derived materials. Eggs are not vegan, honey is not vegan, dairy products are not vegan, leather is not vegan. In the fashion world we have a lot of debate about natural materials vs plastic materials (nylon, polyester etc.) Overwhelmingly fashion is polymer based and this is a problem. These clothes are generally not recycled, they are overwhelmingly dumped, and we have no solution to the pollution they cause during their life (the shedding of microplastics) and when they die. So although polyester is vegan, this doesn't in any way make it 'sustainable'. No fossil fuel derived fashion meets even the basic premise of sustainability, as they are based on non-renewable resources and 'can't be maintained in the long term'.
This means that a material can be recycled. Virgin materials (new materials) like glass, aluminium and cardboard are all 'recyclable' but it is up to YOU to make that happen. The hard work comes next.
I am going to tackle these together as they are related, but slightly different. Both terms require that micro-organisms can break something down, over time, into water, CO2, and biomass. Biodegradable just means this will happen over an unspecified time frame in unspecified conditions whereas compostable generally means under specific conditions and in a specific time frame. I urge all of you to study and start composting. We have huge compost piles at the farm and the speed depends on how well the piles are designed (layering of different types of material is key), moisture levels and temperature. It is generally easier to compost when it is warmer and wetter. There are certifications for 'compostable' which might specify no residue after 90 days, or might require certain temperatures or conditions. There is also an OK Compost certification which means that the material in question should be easy to compost at home, without any fancy equipment. Here is one of our compost piles at the farm:
This means that something can be fixed. There is a really amazing movement around The Right to Repair. Ideally all complex goods like refrigerators and laptops should be repairable, and repairable at a good price. We repair at cost for life - this is important because it is always better to keep something in service rather than replace it.
This is a design practice that focuses on minimizing waste. It is something that we do here! How? Our fire-hose pieces are made up of panels, the panels are the width of hoses... this means we have significantly reduced offcuts. We also use both the inside and outside surface of the hose, the outside has the ridges, the inside has the dimples, you can see this in action on our tote.
We are a certified living wage employer. This means we pay, as a minimum, wages that have been evaluated by a third party to ensure that those earning these wages can have a good quality of life. We pay these not just at our HQ but also in our manufacturing, and that is unique. There are many living wage companies that have long, complicated supply chains and the further you go from the HQ the less likely a living wage will be.
This is a term that refers to the goal of a circular economy, where all things are recycled or composted, and there is no material that is linear (taken, made, wasted). Crucially, a circular economy has to be powered by renewable energy. We can't fuel a circular system with a linear fuel! In the circular utopia that Elvis & Kresse is after capital is also circular - this is why we donate 50% of our profits to charity. Money should also flow and not be concentrated.
There is no single definition, but for us it means doing more. In practical terms it means that you give more than you take, you sequester more carbon than you emit, you generate more (renewable) energy than you consume, you treat more water than you use, you foster more biodiversity than you corrupt and you create more than you destroy.
This is everywhere!!!!! A lot of companies do one little green thing and it is all they talk about, it is their way of rinsing off all of the unsustainable things that they do by getting their customers and wider public to focus on that one little green or good thing. It is an attempt to absolve, to confuse. Always keep in the back of your mind this quote (which we love so much we turned it into a poster and it is up on the wall of our workshop).
This is a relatively new and nuanced term. A lot of companies that wanted to become more eco-friendly tried a few things and then announced them and then got so much negative scrutiny for everything they were still doing imperfectly that they have now gone dark. Green hushing has happened because there was so much greenwashing and press scrutiny that many businesses are now either not willing to try, or not willing to talk about what they are trying, for fear of negative feedback.
* Oxford English Dictionary
It is quite hard to really pin down sustainable fashion. It shouldn't be, but the term is so overused, largely by companies with one or two great initiatives that are otherwise operating unsustainably. Here is how we would break it down, and there is a hierarchy, starting with #1, which is the best. We will cover a host of sustainable practices that you can find across the fashion industry, everything from waste reduction to upcycling, to eco-friendly production.
The most environmentally friendly item of clothing that exists, is something you already own and wear and will continue to wear and repair for years and years. I have a pair of boots that I have been wearing since I was 15. They are 30 years old. I have no idea how many times I have worn them but it has to be in the thousands. They have been resoled once, and repaired twice. They work hard for me, and I am loyal to them!
Second best is second hand - if you want to refresh then swap, share, or buy second hand from sites like eBay or Vinted. This means you get some variety, without buying new. My rule is to always operate on a one out, one in model. I only buy 'new' second hand jeans when I have worn/farmed my way through a pair. I love jeans made before elastane was in everything... so sometimes I have to really hunt to find a pair that is that old, but still in great condition. This is Elvis in some very vintage Levi's...
Now, I think upcycling is very close to pre-loved, perhaps even a tie. I am only placing it in the third spot as upcycling involved the remanufacture of materials that already exist, which generally requires some cutting, trimming and sewing. So it is just this use of energy (which may not be renewable) that makes me put upcycling 3rd. Elvis & Kresse is an upcycling brand, we take materials that were on their way to landfill and give them a long and happy 2nd life - like our recycled fire hose products.
Key to upcycling is increasing the value of the materials you work with. If you turn used clothing into rags, for cleaning or car door insulation, then you are still reusing materials, but you are downcycling them. One of the chief environmental benefits of upcycling in fashion is the displaced carbon. When you aren't relying on new materials you avoid all of the embodied carbon that would have been used producing those materials. We have calculated that Elvis & Kresse, in our 20 years of production (to 2025) have diverted 461,889 tonnes of carbon which is equal to 3,301,565,403km of driving (according to https://www.openco2.net/).
These companies really have their act together. Their goods may be made from recycled or new fibres BUT every aspect of their sourcing, manufacture and distribution has prioritised making a positive environmental and social contribution. This means using certified raw materials like organic cotton or mulesing* free + high welfare wool. It means no toxic dyes and really, no polymers (they are derived from fossil fuels and shed as microplastics through the life of a garment and what happens when they die? More microplastics). It means paying living wages from the farm to the factory to retail. It means renewable heat and electricity are being used for production, distribution and beyond. It means reducing your water use and never putting polluted water back into the environment. It means thinking about the next life of the garment, and what impact it has during its life. It should be 100% recyclable or biodegradable (easy for the natural world to reabsorb it into new plant or animal life). Right now we have no real way of separating natural materials from polymers at scale (so I avoid Frankenfiber** blends like polycottons) It doesn't mean selling through Amazon warehouses. It should be easy to repair. It should be built to last. It should stand for something. Brands that are on this 360 pathway will have certifications. Here are some to look out for:
My dream is fashion that is fossil fuel free. Hopefully the biosynthetic replacements that are getting a lot of press will eventually take over. Think of this category as including everything from #4 but allow for polymers. I am genuinely very down on any kind of plastic, our use of it is totally out of control. There has been a lot of prominent press around peer reviewed scientific studies which have found microplastics in our brains, blood, kidneys etc. The evidence is in - we have totally lost control of plastics.
This category of brands are not doing much, but they have made a start. Perhaps they are increasing their recycled cotton content, or they have adopted one of the certifications above, or they have a small eco/ethical collection that they are hoping will help them transition in the future. The vast majority of brands are in this category.
Very few brands are doing nothing. However, some are manufacturing - at such a pace and volume - and with such disregard to people and planet, that we would be better off without them. The fast fashion behemoths are ALL in this category. It doesn't matter if you use recycled nylon if your supply chain is rife with modern slavery. Although the vast majority of brands are in category 6, unfortunately it is probably true that the majority of the volume is actually in category 7.
Thank you to Saturday Night Live for this Shein/Temu Parody that captures the problem
Hopefully this will help you to make better choices and buy less. Also, I really want to inspire you to relentlessly ask questions. We love questions; we love it when people drop into the workshop to see everything that we are doing. Brands that don't like questions, that won't let you visit, and rely on opaque or vague claims? They don't deserve your support. I would put Shein in this category - both Shein and Temu were called before a UK parliamentary committee and failed to answer quite simple questions. From 1:28 if you are keen on some highlights!
*Mulesing is a really awful practise, it consists of cutting strips of skin from the rear end of sheep, typically lambs, so that they don't grow wool there. It is done to prevent fly strike.
**Frankenfiber - I think I may have coined this term? It is when we create a textile that has no potential for recycling or composting. It might in the future, but it doesn't right now.
Written by Kresse!
It is wild enough to write a year in review... but what about 20?
We collected our first fire-hose in 2005, and the adventure began slowly, but stubbornly. The hoses posed so many impractical problems and challenges that even belt making left us with claw like hands and definitely no idea that we would still be here, more than 315 tonnes later.
Have their been lows? Absolutely. But nothing like the highs. Donating over £428,000.00, building the team, hosting hundreds of young people for work experience or apprenticeships, partnering with the Burberry Foundation, speaking all over the world, winning all kinds of awards, Meeting the Queen, restoring Tonge Mill, finding the farm, planting our vines... we have celebrated every kilo rescued and every pound that we donated.
One thing I know is that you can't sustain anything for 20 years without love. Love isn't limited to each other, or fire-hose, or our team and stakeholders, the farm, every organism from the micro to the macro that makes it tick, or even the potential of a completely circular, regenerative and kind economy. Love has no limit. Love, optimism and sense of purpose have sustained Elvis & Kresse. You know that phrase, 'if something is worth doing, it is worth doing well'? I think for us the bigger question is to really make sure what you mean by 'worth doing'. Without the rescue, without the transformation, without the donation? There would be no business. There is no worth or value in a business if it isn't on a regenerative pathway.
I think about key decisions that we made, very early on, which have made us who we are.
Over the years we have unequivocally proven that:
And for the next 20? First things first, we are going to ask for help for the first time, but not in a traditional way. We are incredibly focussed on what we need to do and no matter how we look at it, we can't do it alone.
Plans?
We could raise money more conventionally, but we need actual hands on help, supporters and collaborators... effectively the Farm needs Friends. We think we have a good model for this, so if you are keen to learn more, stay tuned or drop Kresse an email, kresse@elvisandkresse.com
There will be lots of 20 year updates, news and events too.
Happy 2025 everyone!
Life at the farm is full - if we aren't in the workshop we are in the vineyard and if you can't find us on site then invariably we are out working with collaborators or giving lectures or learning from other regenerative farmers. Running a small business has always been a full-time pursuit, farming is full-time + overtime, all the time.
There is little time to reflect, until just now, when we close up shop for Christmas and the whole team is off until after New Year.
Of course we have been rescuing materials and building up our donations but as you know, we do so much more! Here are a few of the highlights!
And then a few hints for next year.
