With the aim to empower consumers to have greater awareness about their impact and make green choices, Utrecht-based Green Story has picked up €1.1 million in funding. 4impact is the lead investor, joining the mission to bring sustainability to fashion.
Founded in 2015, Green Story offers a pioneering platform that enables fashion brands to measure and communicate the impact of their products in a credible and relatable way, as well as make them carbon neutral by offsetting unavoidable emissions.
Akhil Sivanandan, Co-founder, Co-CEO and CCO of Green Story: “We hope to set new standards in the industry, providing accurate data and a bigger focus on transparency and credibility. For our customers, we aim to support them in turning sustainability into a growth driver rather than a compliance measure.”
By combining Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology with interactive data and impact visuals and a carbon offsetting platform, Green Story enriches the customer experience with a brand’s sustainability narrative throughout the customer lifecycle, enhancing transparency and educating consumers to understand the impact of the product they buy. Green Story believes that knowing about the positive impact we are making is crucial to empowering us to do the right thing and contribute to greener practices.
It’s estimated that the fashion industry emits approximately the same quantity of GHGs per year as the entire economies of France, Germany, and the UK combined.. It’s clear that this sector needs drastic change to become more sustainable and less harmful. From plastic used in production to waste in the fast fashion fallout, they are multiple issues to unpack in the fashion world.
Further, Traditional practices have proven to have a negative impact on our planet, and consumer sentiment has changed. Consumers are demanding sustainability and deeper transparency. At the same time, global anti-greenwashing legislation is emerging, requiring that brands provide proof of their sustainability claims. Most fashion brands don’t know where to start.
Green Story is providing a solution to these challenges.
The greentech startup is working to achieve an ambitious vision of empowering 1 billion consumers to know their impact and make choices that are better for the planet and for generations to come. Green Story does this by supporting fashion brands to measure and share with their customers their environmental and social impact. This enables the brands to become more sustainable in the way in which they do business.
Navodit Babel, Co-founder and CTO of Green Story explained: “We designed the Green Story solution to make it easy for our customers, the fashion brands, to calculate and share their sustainability credentials. By using relatable data points and measurements, we support our customers in communicating to end consumers, guiding their understanding of the positive impact of sustainable products.”
Already, the young company has had a demonstrable impact. By the end of 2021, the company had enabled 1.4m carbon neutral products and offset 100M+ kg of, equivalent to 12,000 homes powered. Green Story partners with hundreds of sustainable fashion brands including renowned material science company PANGAIA, leading second-hand platform thredUP, pioneering rental platform Rent the Runway and multinational clothing company Hanesbrands
Kate Mullord, partner at 4Impact Capital added: “Every fashion brand that has a sustainability story wants to tell its customers, but it’s not always easy to do this without risking being caught by greenwashing regulations. A credible third party that delivers a robust measurement and communication tool is a hugely valuable service for the fashion retailer. We are excited to support Green Story’s growth plans, as they build on their world-class expertise in Life Cycle Analysis, expand the communication toolkit for their customers and ultimately drive change in the fashion industry. Akhil and Nav bring enormous integrity and professionalism to their business and we are pleased to be able to contribute our resources and expertise to their mission.”
