Picture Organic
Back in 2008, Julien, Jérémy, and Vincent, Picture Organic’s 3 co-founders and long-time friends, followed through with their crazy idea of launching a truly environmentally and socially responsible clothing brand. They didn’t completely know how to do it, but they had three clear values in mind: the best possible environmentally friendly product design, unique designs that stand out for their fresh colors and valued for their good quality and cost prices controlled to make sure that their products were a true alternative to conventional industrial production.
From the start they committed to a sustainable approach for every aspect of the brand, and always with a healthy dose of fun. This approach consists of limiting their impact and maintaining sustainable growth, stop using conventional manufacturing models and promoting and encouraging responsible consumption. This also means trying to align with the four actions the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) recommends to implement simultaneously to drastically reduce our emissions while also increasing our ability to absorb the CO2 already present in the atmosphere:
Severely reduce our dependence on fossil fuels (coal, oil, and natural gas) in favor of renewable or (very) low-carbon power sources: solar, wind, geothermal, hydro, biomass, and nuclear. Governments play a vital role in ensuring the massive reduction of fossil fuel use worldwide.
Change our behavior, the pace of daily life, the pace of business, and our consumption and travel habits. In others words, we need to reduce our energetic need. This requires discipline and restraint at all levels of society. Both individuals and companies have an extremely important role to play.
Increase our capacity to naturally capture and absorb the CO2 currently present in the atmosphere. We are talking about forests, soils, and wetlands.
Develop carbon sequestering technologies. This does not represent a miracle solution, and will not work without proper implementation of the first three points.
For Picture Organic these four actions mean:
Recycling plastic bottles to make thread, which PO has been doing since its start in 2008. However, bottles are still petroleum-based waste, and represent a less than satisfying option over the mid- to long-term.
Bio-sourcing. In the case of a snow jacket, this means making a plant-based fabric: for example, from sugar cane or castor beans. The short-term goal is to expand the use of bio-sourcing throughout the technical apparel collection.
Bio-recycling solutions are emerging and PO has started to conduct several initial tests. The objective is twofold: offer a real product end-of-life and new product solution. The ultimate goal through recycling is to create a new polyester thread from used products and then make a new product.
Every year, PO manufactures and then ships more than 500,000 products to either retailers or your homes. They work with approximately 20 factories to make the products, which are distributed in 40 countries and sold in more than 1400 shops.
One major way of being more sustainable is by designing products that will last as long as possible. When you have a damaged PO product, you can send it to them and they will do their best to repair the rips, tears and other damage. Even when the guarantee is over, PO puts you in touch with one of their repair centers so you can still repair your product. Another aspect of a longer product life is the way consumers take care of their purchases. That is why PO has an n-depth FAQ that allows you to take great care of your products.
Then if the product is really at the end of its life, there are several options. Upcycling is a good first option. It consists of cutting out different pieces of a jacket, for example, to make new items after sewing a seam or two. Pouches, tote bags, covers, you would be surprised at all the things you can make with your old jacket! However, this only puts a band-aid on the problem since, in the end, you can’t recycle the entire jacket. The final option is to recycle. Bio-recycling is another option and PO has started to conduct several initial tests. The objective is twofold: offer a real product end-of-life and new product solution. The ultimate goal through recycling is to create a new polyester thread and then make a new product.
One important issue to address is packaging, since many sales happen online now. Plastic bags (aka “polybags”) are the easy solution that the garment industry uses to protect products for shipping. Employed on a massive scale, polybags play a very functional role and offer several benefits: they are tough, supple, and see-through for customs to easily identify the contents. However, this petroleum-based packaging ends up in a landfill more often than not. PO realized that a lot of their products had too much extra, unnecessary packaging that did not provide any added value in terms of protection, the result of longstanding (and unquestioned) practices by our suppliers. Using common sense has allowed them to eliminate 20% of the polybags they would have used for winter 2020/2021. Of course, eliminating polybags all together for packaging a single product is the most radical and effective solution in the fight against plastic use. Roll packing consists of rolling a garment and then tying it up with a piece of string. The product maintains its shape for easy handling. It still requires using a master polybag to protect all products shipped in a single cardboard box. Currently, PO is looking into the possibility to use Repack as packaging method. Repack is a reusable and returnable packaging service that uses packaging made with recycled polypropylene, which is recyclable, tough as nails, and waterproof.
PO is proud to have the following certifications:
– GOTS & Organic Textile Standard: 95% of Picture products using cotton are made out of organic cotton. 5% left are made of cotton from recovered fabrics.
- OEKOTEX: 100% of main fabrics are fully certified Oekotex 100: the international reference label guaranteeing non-toxicity of products used.
- Taiwan Green Mark: 100% of technical products are made with minimum of 50% recycled polyester. This is a label from the Taiwanese government guaranteeing the traceability of recycled polyester and recycled polyamide.
- Bluesign approved fabric: The Bluesign® system is the solution for a sustainable textile production. It eliminates harmful substances right from the beginning of the manufacturing process and sets and controls standards for an environmentally friendly and safe production. 90% of Picture’s products are made of Bluesign approved fabric.
Pictures Organic´s mission to fight climate change can be seen and felt everywhere in the company. So, they created their very own plastic recycling machine. The inspiration came from Precious Plastic, a project run by Dave Hakkens. This Dutch environmental engineer designs and builds low-tech machines for recycling plastic. After shredding the plastic, it’s melted and injected into a mold. The plastic cools quickly in the mold and takes the desired shape. This is a great way to recycle plastic waste generated within the company, such as plastic wrapping used for pallets and polybags to protect products for shipping. Made with LDPE plastic, PO is able to recycle them into the banners for their trade show booths. Furthermore, the new world headquarters will be finished in 2021 which will be 100% powered by renewable energies. The offices will count with solar panels, facilities to collect rainwater, car/motorcycle recharge stations, a vegetable garden cultivated by employees, a music room, and even a skatepark!
Based: Gerzat, France.
Ships to: France. Check local distributors if you live outside of France.
Products: Outerwear, streetwear, surfwear, bags and accessories for outdoor activities.
Mission: To fight climate change.
Vision: 100% Committed responsibility and sustainability-driven eco-design.
