Every shirt is made in a factory powered entirely by wind and sun. Five separate auditors verify the supply chain — none of them paid by us.
The fashion industry now produces roughly 2 to 3 billion tonnes of CO₂ every year — more than international flights and maritime shipping combined. Most of that comes from energy used in manufacturing. Our supplier's response wasn't to offset it. It was to build the energy.
The hidden carbon in your t-shirt
When the UN talks about fashion’s carbon footprint, the numbers vary slightly depending on whose accounting you accept — but they all point the same direction. The UN Environment Programme estimates the industry produces 2 to 3 billion tonnes of CO₂ equivalent per year, somewhere between 3% and 10% of global emissions, and rising.
Most of that footprint isn’t in the cotton field. It’s in the factory: spinning, knitting, dyeing, finishing, printing. All energy-intensive, all typically powered by whatever the local grid happens to run on. In India — where most of the world’s cotton is processed — that grid still leans heavily on coal.
The conventional response is carbon offsets: keep using coal, pay someone in another country to plant trees that compensate for the emissions on paper. The integrity of that market is a long debate we won’t litigate here, except to note: planting a tree is not the same as not burning coal.
The alternative is to change the energy source itself.
What “wind-powered factory” actually means
Our supplier’s factory in northern India runs on energy they built themselves:
- Two wind farms feeding the grid the factory draws from
- A 150 kilowatt rooftop solar PV array on the factory itself
- Battery storage to bridge night-time and low-wind periods
The label inside every shirt says it plainly: “Made in India in an ethically accredited, wind-powered factory.” It’s not a marketing claim — it’s audited. The Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency keeps records; the wind farms are on the public registry; the solar array’s grid connection is documented.
The Isle of Wight headquarters, where the orders flow and the technology lives, runs on renewables too. Different grid (the UK), same logic: source the energy first, don’t pay later.
The five independent certifications
A sustainability claim that nobody else verifies isn’t a claim — it’s a feeling. The supply chain that makes the shirts we sell is audited against five separate standards, by five separate organisations, none of which we pay:
GOTS (Global Organic Textile Standard) — Audits the entire chain from cotton farm to finished garment for organic content (95%+ certified organic fibre) and forbidden chemicals.
OEKO-TEX Standard 100 — Every component of every shirt (thread, button, label, dye) tested for more than 300 harmful substances. If a single thread fails, the whole article loses certification.
SA8000 (Social Accountability International) — Independent labour audit covering child labour, forced labour, health and safety, working hours, discrimination, freedom of association, and disciplinary practices. Aligned with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and ILO conventions.
Fairtrade FLOCERT — Independent verification that producers meet Fairtrade economic, social, and environmental requirements, including Minimum Price guarantees for cotton growers and zero tolerance for forced or child labour.
GRS (Global Recycled Standard) — Tracks the exact proportion of recycled material through the chain and audits the environmental and labour conditions at every recycling and processing step. Essential for the Remill loop.
Each of these has its own auditor. Each can revoke certification independently. A shirt that loses any one of these labels can’t carry the others either.
independent certifications audit this supply chain — none of them paid by us
The supply chain is published
Most sustainable apparel brands treat their supply chain as a moat — a competitive advantage to be kept private. The supplier we use does the opposite. The technology that runs the factory is open source. The supply chain has been documented as a case study by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, which features it as an example of circular design that works.
The argument is: if the model only works for one brand, it’s not a model — it’s a niche. By publishing the playbook, Teemill has set up over 10,000 brands, charities, and individual creators on the same supply chain. We’re one of them. Anyone reading this could be the next.
