Why Apostle is not a B-Corp

We looked into it. The idea appeals - “business as a force for good” with a focus on sustainability.

It signals to customers that we care about the environment.  It’s virtue signalling, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

What really stopped us is when I bought a bottle of French mineral water and noticed they are a certified B-corp.

At a fundamental level I question the logic.

If you’re going to buy water from thousands of miles away it’s probably better to buy from a B-corp, in the same way that smoking low tar cigarettes is better for you.  

It’s great that they use recycled plastic and plant trees.

But shipping water from France to London in a single use plastic bottle isn’t really ever going to be better for the planet.

The structural problem no big companies want to acknowledge 

The deeper problem isn't certification. It's the volume led business model and the same applies to the apparel industry.

Major fashion brands have sustainability programmes. High street retailers run recycling schemes where you can drop off old clothes. Many have pledged to shift to more sustainable materials, pointing to garments made from recycled fibres - old fishing nets for example. 

If that strikes you as implausible, trust your instincts.

The recycling schemes at large high street retailers have been documented, repeatedly, as processing only a fraction of what's actually collected. The rest goes to landfill or incineration. 

The schemes exist because they give consumers psychological permission to keep buying, the feeling of responsible disposal.  Not because they meaningfully reduce waste at scale.

Here's the thing none of them will say directly: their business model requires you to buy more things, constantly. A company whose revenue depends on selling millions of garments a year cannot sincerely advocate for buying less. The economics don't allow it. So instead they invest in the language of sustainability, the certifications, the pledges - while the volume keeps growing.

Greenwashing isn't always a lie. Sometimes it's something more subtle: a true statement that creates a false impression. The recycling scheme exists. The trees are planted.  The certificates and logos displayed.  The overproduction continues.

What Apostle does instead

The only really sustainable thing we can do is to buy less.  We make higher quality available to all, so we can buy fewer, better items which last.

We only make the bestsellers - the really wasteful stuff is the stuff that doesn’t get worn.

And we don’t goad you into buying more than you need with faux urgency, multi-buys and “discounts”.

We make the highest quality so that products last.  It’s hard to put numbers to, but we’re confident the shirts will last many times longer than the standard highstreet alternatives because the material is better.  If you polish the shoes and use shoe trees, there’s a very good chance your children will inherit them.

 

Buy less. Buy better.

The most sustainable thing a clothing brand can do is make fewer, better products which last.

The difficultly has always been that better quality tends to be disproportionately expensive, because it’s been wrapped in the branding of luxury.  It doesn’t have to be.

Is B-Corp worth pursuing at all?

Where external accountability genuinely changes internal behaviour, where the assessment process forces a management team to examine things they'd rather not examine, it has value.

The problem is when it becomes a marketing asset rather than an operating discipline.

For a business with five products and a publicly explained model, a third-party certification adds cost without adding transparency.