Earth Fashionist

Founder

registered company

2020

Earth Fashionist

The Fashion Industry is the 2nd largest polluter in the world. Annually, 150million trees are cut down to create new fabric. It takes 2,700 litres of water to make just one t-shirt, which is enough water for one person to drink for 2.4 years. 85% of all textiles thrown away in the US, roughly 13million tonnes in 2017 are dumped into landfill. An average American has been estimated to throw away around 37kg clothes annually. If we are to save the Earth, it is a must that we move into a circular economy, because it reduces the brand new production and saves a lot of resources including trees and water. Also, it is a huge waste to throw away good clothes after wearing 2-3 times. So, through our platform we request people to sell/ donate their pre-loved clothes while buying the pre-loved clothes of others. We use 5% of every sale to plant trees in Sri Lanka with Thuru.lk, "Life on Land" SDG 15 and Partnerships for the Goals and Industry; SDG 17. We directly support "Responsible Consumption and Production" SDG 12. Our future plan is to find carbon emission reduction and bring out a resource saving calculator. Then every buyer knows how much of the resources she could save by purchasing from us. We educate the youth to become Conscious Fashionistas with Sustainable Fashion Ambassadors; "Climate Action'' SDG 13. When people donate clothes, 60% of the proceeds from those sales are used to help school children with their education. For this, we have partnered up with the Rotaract Club of NIBM, Sri Lanka. Quality Education; SDG 4 and SDG 17. Our long term goal to achieve Innovation and Infrastructure, SDG 9 is to create a chain for every fashion item which sells via Earth Fashionist using Blockchain concept.

We support 6 SDGs as explained above, mainly SDG 12 - Responsible Consumption and Production, SDG 13 - Climate Action as our entire project is focusing on bringing a circular fashion economy while converting one's waste into someone else's wealth/ happiness. The impact of our educational campaigns on Climate change and why we should become responsible, conscious fashionistas with our own volunteer ambassadors and influencers brought us real buyers and converted young fast fashionistas to Conscious fashionistas. We loved doing campaigns such as #BeTheChange, influencing people to change their lifestyle/ fashion choices to become a person who saves our Mother Earth. We also launched #ILoveMotherEarth campaign requesting people to post their Sustainable fashion photos with us and we are planning on some other campaigns too. As results of our sales, we also support SDG 4 - Quality Education and SDG 15 - Life on Land. We launched pre-loved fashion collections with Ornella Gunasekera, Miss Sri Lanka 2018, Veteran Fashion Designer Dimuthu Sahabandu. 60% of the sales income from these collections were used to donate stationery to the students of Wimaladharmasooriya Kanishta Vidyalaya. We joined the Rotaract Club NIBM, Sri Lanka. Meanwhile, our Tree planting reserve (5% of each sale) collected cash for 7 trees. This could be a small amount, but we achieved all these within 1 year and we are now moving forward. No. of school children served - 60, Amount donated for children welfare - LKR 11,184/= , Tree planting reserve - 7 trees , The research is ongoing to find adequate data and methods to calculate the resource saving per item sold (ex: 2,700 liters of water to produce one cotton t-shirt) while creating a blockchain and show the carbon emission reduction through Earth Fashionist, SDG 9 - Industry Innovation and Infrastructure.

Our business model is an e-commerce marketplace. People who like to sell or donate items can simply register with us and submit item information with images. Then those images will be published in the e-commerce site for buyers to buy. At the end of each month, we pay or donate 60% of our sales to the respective sellers or donate for school children welfare. Another 5% will be used to plant trees. In Financial perspective, we have avoided the cost of storing items. Also, since this is an online marketplace which does not require any warehousing, we can expand this globally. The scalability of Earth Fashionist is very high together with all the SDGs. We started as a simple instagram page in September 2020 and now we have developed our Minimum Viable Product (MVP), the seller/ donor registration portal. Currently, we are using a 3rd party e-commerce system to publish the items while we are developing our in-house e-commerce system. Thereafter, we are planning on launching a number of marketing campaigns to educate people to become Conscious/ Responsible Consumers and convert them as buyers of Earth Fashionist. Earth Fashionist is currently funded by its founder and our target is to expand our online platforms to other countries once we reach the stable growth stage. We believe and consider the growth of Earth Fashionist is not just our personal achievement, but also an achievement in saving our Mother Earth with the huge impact we create with all SDGs we support.

I am Harshi (33 yrs) from the Pearl of Indian Ocean; Sri Lanka surrounded by its breathtaking natural beauty. I had a dream to become a successful Entrepreneur when I was 17 years old. Also, I had the passion to protect the environment even as a little child and to serve the community. I grew up in the tech industry in my career life always thinking of ways to save the planet. Then I thought of starting my own business to save the Earth to follow both my dream and passion. That's why I came up with Earth Fashionist. Achievements 2018 Global Finalist among the Top 10 in the world for GBG Stories Search by Google 2018 Winner AngelHack Sri Lanka 2018 Global Finalist Hackcelerator by AngelHack, USA 2018 Guest Speaker DREAM VENTURE Startups for Women Hackathon, Sri Lanka, by IEEE WIE Sri Lanka Section 2018 Mentor in STARTUP WEEKEND HIKKA Hackathon, Sri Lanka, For Techstars Startup Weekend 2016/17 1st Place Project A BOOK TO BRING A SMILE Community Service, Best Leo Project For Spotlight On Children & Infrastructure Development District 306 A1, Sri Lanka & 1st Runner Up in Sri Lanka (Islandwide) 2015/16 1st Place BEST LEO CLUB SECRETARY OF THE YEAR Community Service District 306 A1, Sri Lanka &1st Runner Up in Sri Lanka (Islandwide) 2014 Finalist in MIT GSL (MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY (USA), Global Startup Labs, Sri Lanka Summer) For the Project Topnotch. My areas of expertise include Entrepreneurship in Tech & Non Tech Startups, Project Management, Business Analysis, Finance, Sales & Marketing, Customer Success Management, Event Organizing, Mentoring startups, Public Speaking on Lean Canvas Model for startups, Entrepreneurship for Women.