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...

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…