Global retail chain Timberland has partnered with Thread, a company that hires workers in developing countries to create environmentally sustainable textiles, to release a line of shoes and bags crafted from plastic bottles.
Thread uses materials collected in Honduras and Haiti to craft its fabrics, creating jobs for thousands of people in the developing world in the process, according to the company.
Because Thread fabric is tracked throughout its creation, the partnership will allow Timberland customers to learn about the workers who’ve helped create the products they buy, as well as understand the impact each boot or bag has had on developing communities.
“Working together transparently, we’re able to look beyond recycled materials toward the rich social impact consumers care about and the stories that bring consumers to life,” Thread CEO Ian Rosenberger said in a statement.
ERIE, PA (PRWEB) JUNE 16, 2016
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STRATHAM, N.H., June 2, 2016 /3BL Media/ – Global outdoor lifestyle brand Timberland today announced a partnership with responsible fabric manufacturer Thread, furthering both brands’ longstanding commitment to environmental and social responsibility. Crafted from plastic bottles collected in Haiti and Honduras, Thread™ Ground to Good™ fabric challenges how the world thinks about recycled PET. Going beyond environmental sustainability, Thread also creates social value in the form of cleaner neighborhoods and job creation for thousands of people. The partnership – the largest to date for Thread – will bear its first fruit in spring 2017, with a collection of Timberland® footwear and bags made from Thread™ fabric.
“We are beyond excited about partnering with Thread,” said Colleen Vien, director of sustainability for Timberland. “From the moment we met them, we knew this had the potential to be far more than a supplier relationship. Building community has always been at the heart of Timberland, and we were also inspired by the Haiti connection, given our work there over the past five years. Any time we find an opportunity to create both environmental and social value, that’s a big win. And Thread does just that.”
Made in the U.S. with up to 50-percent recycled PET from plastic bottles collected from the streets, canals and neighborhoods of Haiti and Honduras, each yard of Thread™ fabric is traced and tracked at every step of its journey, from bottle collection to fabric creation to the delivery of the fabric bolt to the manufacturer. This unprecedented transparency will allow Timberland consumers to learn about the people, the vibrant stories and the impact metrics behind each boot, shoe or bag they purchase, so they can know they are making a difference while also receiving the premium quality they expect from Timberland.
“This partnership is truly special. We’re proud to work with a brand with such a longstanding commitment to the environment and social responsibility,” said Ian Rosenberger, CEO of Thread. “Working together transparently, we’re able to look beyond recycled materials toward the rich social impact consumers care about and the stories that bring beautiful products to life.”
The Thread network provides jobs and income opportunities for nearly 3,600 people in the developing world, including roughly 1,800 bottle collectors, entrepreneurs and manufacturing employees in Haiti where the supply chain is based, and another 1,800 in Honduras. Beyond income, employees benefit from valuable services such as job training, process improvements and micro-loan programs.
Timberland also has strong connections to Haiti, making the partnership with Thread a natural fit. The brand recently culminated a five year commitment to plant five million trees in Haiti, which resulted in the creation of a self-sustaining agroforestry cooperative helping 3,200 smallholder farmers increase productivity on their farmlands, increase their incomes and create new opportunities for the future. To learn more about Timberland’s work in Haiti, visit kombitfilm.com.
Timberland and Thread will discuss their partnership, including the opportunities it presents to transform the way consumers and brands think about sustainability, at the Sustainable Brands conference in San Diego next week.
About Timberland
Timberland is a global leader in the design, manufacturing and marketing of premium footwear, apparel and accessories for the outdoor lifestyle. Best known for its original yellow boot introduced in 1973, Timberland today outfits consumers from toe-to-head, with versatile collections that reflect the brand’s rich heritage of craftsmanship, function and style. Timberland markets lifestyle products under the Timberland® and Timberland Boot Company® brands, and industrial footwear and workwear under the Timberland PRO® brand. Its products are sold throughout the world in leading department and specialty stores as well as company-owned retail locations and online. Timberland’s dedication to making quality products is matched by an unwavering commitment to environmental and social responsibility – in terms of its products, the outdoors, and communities around the globe. To learn more about Timberland, a brand of VF Corporation (NYSE: VFC), please visit timberland.com or follow us along the modern trail @timberland.
About Thread
Thread, a Certified B Corporation based in Pittsburgh, PA, transforms plastic bottles from the streets and canals of Haiti and Honduras into the most responsible fabric on the planet. Each product made with Thread™ fabric supports a vibrant network of dignified jobs in the developing world and the United States. See how atwww.threadinternational.com or follow the Ground to Good™ story @threadintl.
The Hemolung Respiratory Assist System will be exclusively utilized in the 1120-patient study.
PITTSBURGH (December 2, 2015) – ALung Technologies, Inc., the leading provider of low-flow extracorporeal carbon dioxide removal (ECCO2R) technologies for treating patients with acute respiratory failure, announced today its participation in the world’s first and largest pivotal trial of ECCO2R technology. The Hemolung RAS, a minimally invasive artificial lung device which removes CO2 independently of the lungs through a process called Respiratory Dialysis®, has been selected as the exclusive technology for the upcoming UK-based study.
The global incidence of acute respiratory failure exceeds 1 million cases per year. Many patients with respiratory failure require the assistance of a ventilator to provide life sustaining oxygenation and carbon dioxide removal. Unfortunately, the injured lung is susceptible to additional damage by the positive pressure exerted by the ventilator, leading to additional injury, complications, and increased mortality.
“Reducing ventilator pressures has been one of the most important interventions shown to improve outcomes in these critically ill patients,” said Laura Lund, Ph.D., VP of Clinical and Scientific Affairs at ALung. “Use of these lung-protective ventilation strategies, however, leads to a critical accumulation of carbon dioxide in the blood. Carbon dioxide can be removed from the blood independently of the failing lungs with an extracorporeal device in a manner similar to kidney dialysis, thus enabling implementation of safer mechanical ventilation settings. We have shown through several pilot studies that the Hemolung RAS can safely and effectively meet this clinical need, and are very excited to embark on this pivotal study to determine the impact of this strategy on patient outcomes.”
The UK National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) has funded the 1120-patient study entitled “pRotective vEntilation with veno-venouS lung assisT in respiratory failure – The REST Trial” with £2.1 million. The research will be jointly led by Queen’s University and Belfast Health and Social Services Trust under the direction of principal investigator Professor Danny McAuley, Professor of Intensive Care Medicine at the Centre for Infection and Immunity at Queen’s University Belfast.
ALung will provide Hemolung systems and treatment kits to 40 hospitals participating in the study. “This broad implementation of extracorporeal CO2 removal in support of the study is possible because, unlike other technologies, the Hemolung RAS has been specifically designed to provide highly effective support, in a minimally invasive manner, with a degree of safety and simplicity that allows it to be used in a general medical ICU,” said Peter DeComo, Chairman and CEO of ALung. “We are honored to have been chosen by the study team as the exclusive technology partner for this very important project and look forward to its commencement next year.”
The Hemolung RAS received European marketing clearance (CE Mark) in 2013 as the world’s first fully integrated Respiratory Dialysis® system. The simplicity, safety and effectiveness of the system have been demonstrated in use at more than 100 hospitals worldwide. The device is approved in 34 countries outside of the US, including Europe, Canada, and Australia.
Source: http://www.alung.com/news/2015/12/alungs-artificial-lung-technology-selected-for-use-in-landmark-respiratory-failure-trial/
Recycling bins are on every corner in many major cities in the United States. We take for granted that we have access to recycling – plastic recycling, metal recycling, glass recycling, you name it you can check here. However, it’s not so easy to recycle in developing countries.
Take Haiti, for example. In Port-au-Prince alone, every month around 9 million pounds of plastic waste is created. Not surprisingly, the majority of that plastic waste comes from plastic bottles. Since recycling including plastic recycling isn’t common there, the bottles are tossed into canals or on the streets. This habit is not good news for Mother Nature.
One man – Ian Rosenberger – had a vision to change the plastic pollution landscape in Haiti after helping with disaster relief efforts in the country. He also wanted to help with the poverty so many Haitians struggle with in a country that has a 40% unemployment rate.
From this vision, Thread was born as a solution to both the plastic waste and the poverty struggles in Haiti. Thread turns the mountains of plastics into fabric (i.e. plastic recycling) – and jobs for impoverished Haitians.
So how does the plastic recycling solution work?
People throughout Haiti can collect plastic bottles and turn them into the Ramase Lajan, a network of 26 plastic-collection centers sponsored by Executives without Borders (a non-profit) and owned and operated by Haitians. These people are given an immediate sum of cash, which allows them to provide for their family and keep the plastic waste out of their country.
After the plastic bottles are collected through the Ramase Lajan collection centers, they’re then moved to Haiti Recycling in Port-au-Prince to be cleaned and shredded down into a raw material called “flake.” The flake is packaged and exported to the United States.
After arrival in the U.S., the flake is melted and extruded into fiber and spin yarn that’s made into a variety of different fabrics like 100% recycled PET polyester. Some of the plastic thread is also blended with cotton or canvas. Once the fabric is made, it’s sold to manufacturers that turn it into boots and shoes, bags and totes, sports apparel as well as a variety of other consumer products.
All of the polyester fabrics Thread manufactures are 100% post-consumer material. These fabrics need approximately 90% less water and 80% less energy to manufacture compared to virgin polyesters that are made straight from oil.
Through their 100% transparent supply line, Thread has been able to support the creation of nearly 4,000 income opportunities in Haiti and Honduras (Thread also operates in Honduras). In addition, they are able to collect and re-purpose around 300,000 pounds of plastic waste from these impoverished countries each month.
If you like to support responsibly made products, look for apparel and accessories made with Thread Ground to Good fabrics.
All imagery courtesy of Thread International and Jesse Colaizzi Productions
Source: http://www.earth911.com/business-policy/thread-fabric-plastic-recycling/
A potentially revolutionary new technology – that could saves thousands of lives in Intensive Care Units around the world – is being trialled in a UK study co-led by Queen’s University.
Covering 1,120 critically ill patients in 40 different sites in Britain and Northern Ireland over five years, the research project will test a new strategy designed to minimise damage to the lungs caused by mechanical ventilation – commonly referred to as ‘ventilators’. The study will be one of the largest clinical trials in the world, to date, involving patients with respiratory failure.
The National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) has funded the £2.1 million research which will be jointly led by Queen’s and Belfast Health and Social Services Trust.
Respiratory failure is common in the UK; about 100,000 people each year require the assistance of ventilators in ICUs and up to 40 per cent of these patients die. The number of deaths exceeds that from road traffic accidents or from prostate cancer and leukaemia combined.
Although there is evidence that ventilators save lives, they can also be associated with damage to the lungs, because of the mechanical pressure exerted on the organs.
Now, a new type of technology called ‘extracorporeal carbon dioxide removal’, which aims to facilitate a gentler type of ventilation, offers the hope that more lives could be saved, but only a clinical trial, such as the one being co-led by Queen’s, will provide definitive results.
Professor Danny McAuley, Professor of Intensive Care Medicine at the Centre for Infection and Immunity at Queen’s University Belfast, explained: “A mechanical ventilator acts like bellows as air is forced into the lungs under pressure. If the pressure is too high, this can cause lasting damage. But we are hoping that this new technology will help us ventilate the lungs more gently. That is because these new devices have been designed to help remove carbon dioxide from the patient’s blood – in a process quite similar to kidney dialysis – which is one of the main functions of the lungs.
“The new technology involves a catheter being inserted into the patient’s vein. Blood from the patient then passes through a device where it is ‘washed’ to remove carbon dioxide before being returned to the patient. By temporarily removing some of this function from the lungs, it means they do not have to do as much work as usual, and so a gentler ventilation may be sufficient, easing the pressure on them.”
Dr James McNamee, from Belfast Health and Social Care Trust said: “In our study, there will be two groups of people admitted to ICUs with respiratory failure. One will receive the best level of care within current NHS guidelines while the other group will have the additional, new treatment to artificially remove the carbon dioxide from their blood. At the end, we should know whether the new technology can impact on mortality rates.
“We can also begin to look at the long-term survival and quality of life for patients treated with this technology, as well as the cost implications click reference. The fact is, even patients who survive respiratory failure often suffer long-term health problems. As well as impacting on quality of life, these knock-on problems are a significant drain on resources in the NHS so anything we can do to improve outcomes would be a win-win situation.”
The extracorporeal CO2 removal device to be used in the study, called the Hemolung Respiratory Assist System, is manufactured by US-based ALung Technologies. Peter DeComo, Chief Executive Officer of ALung said: “We are honoured to have been chosen by the study team as the technology partner for this very important project. This study promises to provide the most robust evidence yet regarding the impact of minimally invasive extracorporeal CO2 removal technology to reduce mortality through facilitation of an ‘ultraprotective’ ventilation strategy. We thank Professor McAuley and his team for their efforts to organise this landmark study and look forward to its commencement.”
Dr Janice Bailie, Assistant Director of the Public Health Agency’s Health and Social Care R&D Division in Northern Ireland, which has provided long-term support to help this team secure the award said: “I am delighted that Northern Ireland will lead this UK-wide research study that has the potential to improve the management of patients in critical care worldwide. The prestigious National Institute for Health Research offers the opportunity for local researchers like Professor McAuley and his team to bring major research income to Northern Ireland, to support this type of study. The results of this study will be of interest at an international level and will highlight the capability of Northern Ireland researchers to lead globally significant healthcare research”.
Source: http://www.qub.ac.uk/home/ceao/News/#d.en.541200
THREAD IS CONVINCING APPAREL GIANTS, FABRIC MANUFACTURERS, VCS, AND OTHERS TO TAKE A CHANCE ON A PROMISING UNKNOWN.
For any small business, one of the most critical ingredients for growth is partners. The right suppliers, distributors, retailers, and specialists can broaden your reach and capabilities. But winning over established companies is a major challenge for small companies, especially newer ones. “You have to prove you’re for real,” says Ian Rosenberger, the CEO of five-year-old Thread International.
A former MTV host and founder of a video production company, he traveled to Haiti following the devastating 2010 earthquake and started Thread, a fabric company with an ambitious social mission. The business turns that country’s abundant plastic trash into what Rosenberger calls “the most responsible fabric on the planet,” boosting the local economy with new jobs and revenue.
Thread is convincing apparel giants, fabric manufacturers, VCs, and others to take a chance on a promising unknown. Here, Rosenberger shares with Spark Business IQ his keys to landing strategic partners.
1. Know when to stop developing and start selling
The turning point is when you know someone wants your product. Until then, you keep developing and developing, and all the talk about your selling message and PR is just talk.
One of the best pieces of advice I got on this was from someone at a big denim company who said, “I can make the most environmentally responsible denim on the planet. But if their ass doesn’t look good in the jeans, people aren’t going to buy it.” That’s it: If you have a great product, you’ll attract customers.
And that’s where we are. We know we have a product worth selling. So 80 percent of our time now is spent getting in front of customers, and 20 percent is spent developing new things that will make us attractive to the customers we’ll have three years from now.
2. Earn credibility one test at a time
In the beginning, everybody wants to know, “Can you deliver what you say you can deliver?” For us, it’s making a fabric that’s as good as we say it is. The last question we get is always, “How many employees do you have?” When we tell them, their response is, “No way. We’re a $500 million company. How can a company with five people do this?”
There’s a great deal of having to jump through hoops and over bars and go above and beyond what you’d normally do. Companies are holding you to a higher standard. When there’s a deadline, we hit it or deliver early. If there’s a quality issue, we respond in a way that makes the experience better than if there had been no issue at all. They realize we’re in it to win.
3. Understand what matters to your partners
You know that saying: There’s speed, quality, and price, and if you win on two of those, you get the business every time sertraline hcl 50 mg. We’ll buy what a company is currently using, take it apart, and do a life-cycle analysis on the social and environmental impact. We make comparison cards to show that if you replace your fabric with ours, here’s how it’s better in CO2, water, pesticides, and the economic impact on a community. At times, we’ve also unearthed how we’re cheaper than the organic cotton they’re using. That changes the conversation. They see the substance we bring. It’s not about hugs and rainbows.
4. Give companies something they can’t get elsewhere
The fabric is what sells our client, but the data and the content we supply is what makes us sticky. I can go to a company that’s not used to looking at textiles this way. They’re used to this or that spec. I’ll say in addition to that, we’ll introduce you and your customers to the people whose lives are changed in our supply chain. That makes the social and economic impact real. One of the biggest problems for big brands is helping them find ways to be authentic even though they’re enormous.
5. Set your sales priorities
I can spend all my time selling to big fish. Those are much quicker deals. But if I’m only doing that, I’m not selling to whales. I’m not building the value of the company. Because if we’re not doing a million yards of fabric, what impact are we having? So we have a two-whale strategy. That’s what makes me optimistic. We only need a couple.
It takes time. One company that we’re working with started in May 2014. They gave us a couple of hard turnaround times to see if we could handle it. We did. Then it was focus groups with their customers to see if our product resonated well. And it did. Then you move into actual production for next season and hope to really hit the gas in 2017. That’s a whale.
Source: http://www.fastcompany.com/3052657/ignite-positive-change/thread-ceo-ian-rosenbergers-5-keys-to-strategic-partnerships