Eileen Fisher

Eileen Fisher is a clothing company whose main target audience is women and girl consumers. Its product line is committed to consumers who want beautiful apparel for every day real life. The style is minimalist and its core concept is sustainability. The vision of the company is rooted in the idea that clothing should have a “distinctive aesthetic” while a clothing company should maintain “an ongoing commitment to supporting women and making a positive impact in the world” (Eileen Fisher, Inc., 2018).

The Eileen Fisher company had $3 million in sales and generated a profit of a quarter of a million dollars. The company’s annual revenue is around $500 million (Fernandez, 2017). Its position on sustainability is that the fashion industry has to do more to address the needs of the environment and of the global culture. The company seeks to solve environmental issues while also supporting the role of women in society. With respect to productions, the company’s sustainability leader Shona Quinn states, “Our environmental vision is holistic.

We believe in paying attention to what happens in the field, the dyehouse and our customers' washing machines. Our goal is to design out negative impacts—and design in positive change” (What We Do, 2018). By using sustainable fibers, less waste, less energy, and less fuel in production, and by recycling old clothing into new garments, Eileen Fisher reduces landfill and greenhouse gas emissions and promotes forest conservation.

What Eileen Fisher is Doing with Regards to Sustainability This company is addressing the problem that the fashion industry poses with respect to the environment.

As Fernandez (2017) points out, “The global textile industry relies on 98 million tons of non-renewable resources each year and 87 percent of total fiber input used for clothing is incinerated or sent to landfills, representing a loss of more than $100 billion annually.” The fashion industry is, in other words, a tremendous drain on the world’s resources and contributes to a substantial loss of economic power for the global economy.

With the industry’s focus on linear production, which contributes to the greenhouse gases that harm the atmosphere, a change is needed. Eileen Fisher was established to solve this problem and uses its Tiny Factory to achieve circularity in production. The Tiny Factory takes recycled clothing and “sorting, storing, selling and remaking reused Eileen Fisher garments” (Fernandez, 2017). Eileen Fisher has developed a Vision 2020 program to achieve 100% sustainability by 2020.

The goal of this program is to implement an “end-to-end merchandising and sourcing plan” that will allow it to be complete integrated in its production of clothing that have no harmful chemicals in them, all organic linens and cotton, wool from sheep that are treated humanely on sustainably managed land, and apparel that is woven by people who are supported in their work for human rights (Greenstein, 2018). To achieve this goal, the company has partnered with Columbus Consulting International.

The company is also reducing its waste in every way imaginable so as to promote sustainability: as Farris (2016) points out, “the fashion industry is one of the worst polluters in the world. For example, it takes 700 gallons of water to make a T-shirt. There are ways to use less water by cleaning the water throughout the process, but the technology is not prevalent.” Eileen Fisher is committed to making this technology more prevalent.

SWOT Analysis Strengths Strengths include an amazing brand appeal to consumers who want to wear products that promote sustainability. Its iconic minimalist apparel designs and back-to-nature ideology create a positive image among consumers who want to look great and take care of the planet. Weaknesses The company is working within a complex industry where sustainability practices and human rights issues are not front and center.

For instance, workers in China have very little rights but the company is committed to supporting their voice, though this does not necessarily translate into positive results. Likewise, the technology to be sustainable can be expensive since it is not common and this could restrict the company’s funds. Opportunities There is an opportunity to be the forerunner in the industry when it comes to sustainability as few other companies are 100% dedicated to making it happen.

Eileen Fisher can increase its brand awareness by showcasing itself as committed to sustainability and drawing upon the rising green movement that other companies, like Tesla, have tapped into to develop a strong consumer base. Threats The main threat comes in the form of competition—namely from Patagonia, which is the other big company in fashion striving to be sustainable and organic. Patagonia also has a strong brand and its executives are driven by the ideological aim to do good for the planet.

The company puts the planet before profits, which gives them a greater “in it for the cause” image among consumers. Competitive Advantage Eileen Fisher’s competitive advantage comes in its Vision 2020 plan, which is unique among all other fashion designers. By developing a program to be 100% sustainable, Eileen Fisher sets itself apart from its competitors.

While Patagonia is committed to transparency, using down that is 100% traceable through its supply chain (Elks, 2013), Eileen Fisher is focusing primarily on sustainability to make itself the brightest star in fashion when it comes to conservation.

Apart from its plan to use chlorine free products, organic linen and cotton, and water-efficient machines in its productions, Eileen Fisher is also using its Tiny Factory to recycle old clothing and reduce the footprint of the industry on landfills—on top of also helping to cut down harmful emissions that result from production and waste.

At the Tiny Factory workers make unique clothing out of old apparel in two ways: The first method is what the company calls engineered patterns—with this method the workers “adapt existing Eileen Fisher patterns to the materials available. One tunic, for example, might be made from the usable fabrics of three pants, with varying placements of seams” (Fernandez, 2017).

The second method of using old clothing for new products is called yardage, or patchwork—this method is applied when “damaged pieces are cut into squares and sewn together before being treated as normal fabric in the cutting and sewing process” (Fernandez, 2017). The Tiny Factory is truly what gives Eileen Fisher its biggest competitive advantage.

Sustainability Supply Chain In China, Eileen Fisher has trained its worker to voice their rights, and the company has also developed an alternative supply chain with workers in Peru where fair trade wages can be paid. Factories are audited “for compliance with SA8000's strict labor standards” and India, the company has launched “The Handloom Project, a six-year investment program designed to empower weavers in rural communities” (Vision 2020, 2018).

Energy Efficiency The company has been tracking its miles and models of transportation since 2007 and is “committed to offsetting an increasing amount of our shipping and store emissions by partnering with NativeEnergy” (What We Do,.