Borobabi CEO (and former chemical engineer) Carolyn Butler had her lightbulb moment (that magical moment where all that’s foggy becomes crystal clear) when she gave birth to her daughter Avellina.
She’d been looking for the best way to begin a sustainable & purpose-driven business. She’d been looking to put her “know-how” and her “want-to” in the same place. What she didn’t expect was that career aspiration would take shape in the most personal of ways. One look at the mounds of clothing that were generated every time her first-born grew another inch, and bam!… as they say, inspiration struck like lightning. All the outgrown clothes, no room to store them, no time to sort them – and where would they all go?
A bit of research taught her these fascinating facts about clothing donation, and she began to lay the groundwork for Borobabi – America’s first fully circular retailer. Borobabi partners with sustainably-focused children’s designers who only use natural materials, and then the brand rewards shoppers to return the Borobabi clothes when they’re finished wearing them. “We use these gorgeous styles until they’ve “lived their best life,” and then we recycle or compost our retired products to keep clothing waste out of landfills,” says Carolyn..
Keeping clothing waste out of landfills
Borobabi gives conscious shoppers store credit to return their outgrown Borobabi products and reduce clothing waste in landfills. This way Borobabi saves money, reduces landfill and increases the efficiency of the entire children’s clothing supply chain.
Borobabi offers parents coveted brands that meet specific environmental and social standards. Offering a unique borrow or buy model, parents can acquire and keep items until children outgrow them, or they’re out of season. Borobabi’s circularity model optimises the inputs, usage and end-of-life of each garment it offers.
Children’s clothing, a US$ 16 billion market globally, suffers from massive underutilisation. On average, parents spend more than US$ 700 each year on kids’ clothes, only to see them grow out of them within months, resulting in 63 million pounds of clothing going into landfill daily.
“We recognise we have a unique opportunity to address multiple problems with a single solution,” said Borobabi co-founder and CEO Carolyn Butler. “The recent pandemic left Americans looking for new ways to conserve and be more conscious with their spending and lifestyle.”
The Circular Frontier
Recently, Borobabi undertook a summer road trip tour of the United States’ most successful circular economy enterprises. Butler added, “Our trip will bring more awareness about the viable intrepid efforts of so many dedicated American innovators on The Circular Frontier. ” At the finale of their 2021 tour, Borobabi will announce the location of their first brick-and-mortar retail location, a selection based on testing the American market for a citizenship that displays a considerable palette for conscious lifestyle choices.
Carolyn was recognised by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation as a “Circular Economy Pioneer,” in 2020, and Borobabi was featured as one of several purpose-driven businesses in the recent release of Circular Economy for Dummies (Wiley Publishing, 2021) in April of this year..
“At Borobabi, we believe every family should have access to ethically and sustainably crafted clothing. Sustainability should not be a luxury. Our natural and organic clothing gets used to its fullest potential by our network of families, and we work hard to take responsibility for the full lifecycle of our childrenswear. We recycle and compost to avoid the harms of landfilling, because it’s our mission to ensure the health of our planet for generations to come,” said Butler.
