Words by Gavin Fernie-Jones
One Tree at a Time, is where the idea for Re-Action sprang from. One Tree is a community hub I founded in the village of Bozel in the French Alps. This is where we do all the patching, repairing and reselling as a community.
This is a self funded space, gaining value from the waste that exists in our community. It works, and after speaking on the ‘Circular Economy’ podcast with the host Catherine Weetman, the conversation turned to scale. I didn’t want to scale the space we have created as it is very much built with the involvement of the local community and in service of their needs. Catherine suggested a network, which sparked the idea which led to creating the Re-Action Collective.
Re-Action is a collective of organisations challenging the status quo with community-based circular solutions for the outdoor industry.
Working together we share ways to drive the future of conscious outdoor gear. Our members rescue products, revive them through repair and rebranding and repurpose them. They then redistribute items through resale, rental and donation and reallocate profits to regenerate the outdoors.
How did the idea for intercepting waste clothing and creating new garments from it come about?
In 2019 we held a repair day outside the two ski shops I owned in the ski resorts of Courchevel and Meribel. We set up a couple of tables with sewing machines and invited friends that were seamstresses to offer free clothing repairs. A few weeks before the event we asked friends to donate clothing to a secondhand rail. With the message that we’d sell the kit and use the funds to plant trees. Over the events we raised nearly 9k.
The events taught me that my community cared about their impact, that they wanted to get involved, and that we all had a lot of spare outdoor clothing laying around.
Why is it important to you that the project focuses on local artists and the community?
Everything we do at One Tree is built by the community. We opened the community space as a bit of a blank canvas. The main only feature was a large desk at the front where we run workshops and get creative. Everything else we offer has been built collaboratively, such as the children’s clothing swap rails, community workshops and film screenings.
It’s important to involve the community in every step of the work we do. Building a project around the work of local artists celebrates our creativity. It connects the community and gives people a sense of involvement.
This in turn creates pieces of clothing that are from our community, which builds a story into the clothing, making it easier to keep it local.
What challenges have you encountered when turning waste clothing into resaleable items?
An easy question to answer. Quality. We’re really good at keeping outdoor gear in use, between 80-90% of what comes through the door remains in our community. For the general clothing if it’s vintage again we can keep it local, the modern products are much harder to reuse. Sometimes the fabrics and quality are so poor that they are almost single use.
Items that are used for promo such as the things they chuck out to the crowd as the Tour de France comes to town are also a huge problem.
How do you select which garments are suitable for repair and resale?
Quality is the real differentiator. Ski gear is designed to be used outdoors so it is generally well made. That means it is easy to recoup value. That said there is a bit of a trend towards lighter ski equipment which is making products more fragile. And fashion has firmly become a part of the industry. The brands bring out new colours each season, using professional skiers to sell the products.
Are there specific types of clothing that present more challenges when repurposing?
Back to the cheap polyester, the fabric is so difficult to work with.
What role does creativity play in this circular process?
It’s really key to our process. I would add local creativity as an important part of the process. Involving the community is key, there are so many valuable local skills that need celebrating and spaces to showcase them. Involving the community embeds the project locally, it empowers us all. We really kind of start with the questions ‘what shall we create?’, “what do we need locally?”
Can you describe the community’s involvement in the screen-printing and patch creation stages? This is a great initiative to get the community and artists involved.
Firstly, local artists will design the graphics. Then, the community gets involved by sorting waste fabrics and clothing, cutting them to size, screen printing, turning the fabric into patches and then sewing them onto second hand clothes. It’s a community project from start to finish. Many hands are involved with each patch.
How did you get the community involved?
Good question. A question I get asked regularly is “how did you start?” Start small, and begin with an in-person event. The Re-Action Collective story can be traced all the way back to a single event, a ‘Fix it’ day. That event meant that I connected with others in my community, it meant that we began to find each other, and we began to work on things collectively.
This event was a demonstration that others wanted change and that they wanted something to be involved with. From there we created the community space.
We treated the community space like a blank canvas, a space for the community to shape. A container for where the community could grow. Once the space began to evolve the community was naturally drawn to the project. In my experience that started with the committed and then that was followed by the curious.
We still run events and sometimes they’re not always well attended. At every event though I have a conversation that leads to something else happening. Maybe I meet someone that wants to be more involved, or someone that agrees with our message and wants to share it. I now think a measure of success is more to do with building a space for people to take part, and about those that take physical action, and less about a numbers game.
What feedback have you received from the local community about the garments and the initiative?
We’ve had great responses. I think mainly due to the fact that people are looking for community and a way to be involved. We’re launching a film called “ACTionism – (Ak-shun-iz-um) The art of finding your people and acting collectively
This is what it means to me. “We act in defiance but, WE act towards something. We act like we collectively have somewhere else to go.”
That’s what we’re doing at One Tree. Yes, we think our current systems are failing us and that we need to protest and raise our collective voice. But, we also need to put energy into local communities to show there is something beyond where we are. I see activism and actionism as two important parts of creating a pathway forward. The responses we get are based around the joy of seeing action. Of feeling it and being able to partake in it.
Have you noticed any changes in the community’s mindset towards consumption and waste? Are there more conversations happening around consumer habits and sustainability?
Amongst parts of the community yes. And the parts really differ, across age groups, nationalities, backgrounds and beliefs. Citizens have all sorts of reasons to act, financial pressures, concerns about climate change, plastic pollution, waste exportation, the want to feel part of a community. The great thing about the community space is that it allows you to turn up in the way you feel like turning up. Maybe you want to donate, some clothing, maybe you want to be involved in a project, maybe you want to watch a film at a film night and join a conversation. Potentially, you just want accessible clothing repair in your community. The hub services all these needs, and many more.
How does “One Tree at a Time” balance its goal of reducing waste with generating revenue/paying for all the initiatives it is undertaking + creating a living wage for the full-timers, if any?
We’re fortunate that the garments we work with are expensive when bought new. This means it’s possible to regain revenue from waste, this is how we ran the space for 3 years. At that point a local hotel run by the Six Senses group started to support the space with funding. They give a percentage of total revenue to local projects in the vicinity of their hotels. I think this is a really powerful approach as ultimately the hotel is investing in its local community.
This funding has helped us to get creative with new projects. One of which is taking waste ski clothing and converting it into sleeping bags to aid people living on the streets.
Affordable sustainably sourced clothing is often on the higher pricing scale. Can you talk a bit about the pricing of your clothing?
Very affordable. Our ski jackets go from 10 euros to a maximum of 150. The 150 jackets will be new ones with tags on that we’ve patched over the old logos. They would normally retail at around 450 euros.
What are your thoughts on the potential for this model to be replicated in other communities?
Huge. The model doesn’t need to follow the physical manifestation of our actions. What it needs to do is secure spaces for communities and then ask those communities ‘what is it we want to do?’ Trusting citizens and empowering them is key.
We’re launching a handbook alongside the film ACTionism. In it are stories from across the Re-Action Collective of how people started out doing what they’re doing. There are often barriers to community action, such as the sense of a need for permission, funding, and support. What we’re hoping to do with the film is inspire communities through stories, then provide guides about how to host conversations and how to create ripples.
Our approach is to inspire, connect, and to create collective action. What that action is, well we don’t really care. Our lives are embedded in the outdoor communities, in the places we live so we’re naturally drawn to working with outdoor communities. Others might be interested in local food production, community energy, or education.
What advice would you give to other organizations looking to implement similar circular economy practices?
Give people a way to participate. Whether that’s a workshop, volunteering, or a paid job. One of the best things we’ve done at Re-Action is the campaign Øutdoors 2.0. An ambitious project to demonstrate how the outdoor industry could do better for people and the planet. We’re essentially crowdsourcing knowledge about how our relationship with the outdoors could change. We’re finding out what communities need and we’re giving people a space to share their thoughts and feelings.
Would you be interested in helping other communities set up something like this?
That’s the goal of the Re-Action Collective. A global collective of organisations introducing the citizen centric circular economy.
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