Posted by Jamie in Green Products & Services | 0 Comments
Nau Natural Clothing
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This business model is unheard of heretofore. As it is, Nau is yet another outdoor clothing company but its goals are quite ambitious as they are altruistic.
While it has nothing on the longevity of Nike and its ilk, Nau is looking to create a spectacular paradigm shift right across capitalism itself. Like any well-meaning company today, it is falling back on low overhead, quality product, and fair labor practices and conformity to environment standards. But Nau wants the middle ground between profitability and philanthropy.
In doing so, Nau pledges to give away money and bring about positive social and environmental change—yet still have a profit motive.
Nau was created to force this fit. The son of actor Dick Van Dyke, Chris Van Dyke, founded the company to reinvent the way people buy and sell. When Nau was starting out, Van Dyke spent months making his pitch to various venture capitalists, in vain.
Those lofty ambitions have panned out only gradually. Those who believed in rocking the boat included Seagate bigwig Steve Luczo, Black Diamond CEO Peter Metcalf, and Nike alumnus Stephen Gomez. Others just saw the business model ineffective, short of delusional.
In any event, half of Nau’s top tier had chucked high-paying jobs at Patagonia to bet on this startup. Still others had come from Nike, Adidas, and Starbucks. Van Dyke himself had been affiliated with Nike and Patagonia. Congregating at Portland, they took 70% pay cuts for the startup, with no guarantee of success.
Key People:
• Chris Van Dyke, President
• Ian Yolles, Vice-President of Marketing
• Jil Zilligen, Vice-President of Sustainability,
• Mark Galbraith, Vice-President of Product Design
Now Nau has branched out into four retail stores, in Chicago, IL; Portland, OR; Bellevue, WA; and Boulder, CO. From 45, staff is now approximating 100. By 2010, the company hopes to open 150 stores, consolidating presence in every major city across the US.
For every purchase of their products, Nau takes 5% of the revenue and distributes it among nonprofit environmental, social or humanitarian causes. The customer is allowed to pick which among the organizations receive it. Nau officials aim to give as much as $13 million once they’ve recouped their investments substantially.
In environment advocacies, Nau has narrowed down the choices to Conservation International, Heifer International, 1000 Friends of Oregon, Ecotrust and the Oregon Natural Desert Association. Or else, customers may pick from Mercy Corps, Kiva, Oregon Action fund, Oregon Food Bank, and the Western States Center.
True to form, Nau’s clothes are made with the environment in mind, seeing that they utilize renewable resources. In turn, no generic textile maker could supply Nau with what they’re looking for in fabric. Of the 30 fabrics used for Nau apparel, 27 are tailor-made for the company, collaborating with exotic fabric suppliers around the world. Some of Nau’s apparels are even made from soda pop bottles, to say nothing of post-consumer and post-industrial waste. The result is recycled polyester that is supple to the touch.
In one of their more unique clothing, corn is made to produce clothes. Corn is synthesized with polymer to produce PLA or polylactic acid, a more renewable alternative to fibers refined from petroleum.
Among natural fibers, Nau only uses organic cotton and wool gotten from a closed-loop chlorine process.
Nau stores in themselves are tour de force. Any of its retail shops are minimalist affairs illumined by energy efficient lighting and bounded by grid walls that evoke canyon walls, with shelves of nontoxic fiberboard.
Nau retail stores are not called Webfront stores without reason. Each store harbors four 19-inch touch-screen computers. Two of these form the product knowledge tree, offering complete details of the Nau catalog. Collectively known as the Giving Tree, the other two, situated at the shop’s rear, gives info on the twelve partner advocacies of the company.
Customers at Nau have a choice between obtaining the purchase on the spot and having them delivered at home, with a 10% off and zero shipping fees.
Online selling is Nau’s way of maintaining fewer inventories in the store, which can just sprawl for 2,000 square feet. All other items are stocked in the warehouse. With less space, and thereby few staffers, the store can consume only a tiny a fraction of energy.
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