Out of Sight, Out of Mind: An Earth Week Reflection

“John Muir liked to limit his outdoor ‘supplies’ to a tin cup, a loaf of stale bread, and an overcoat. Now it’s an environmental consideration as well. Everything we personally own that’s made, sold, shipped, stored, cleaned, and ultimately thrown away does some environmental harm every step of the way, harm that we’re either directly responsible for or is done on our behalf. All the more reason, when we consider the purchase of anything, to ask ourselves, both as producers and consumers: Is this purchase necessary?”
- Yvon Chouinard, Let My People Go Surfing 

As I sit in the Denver airport in a time where public lands protections are under siege, clean water initiatives decades in process are being eliminated, and - most relevant to Oshki’s focus: Great Lakes protections are being transformed into mere guidelines. 

The irony of corporate Earth Day promotions this year has left me with a certain slimy feeling I don’t recall having in years past.

Sitting at the airport bar with Oshki’s head of design, Jimmy Cobb, we watched the previous days’ NBA highlights while a shiny green banner along the bottom of the screen read:

“This Earth Day, we encourage you to recycle. If you upload a picture to us of you recycling on this Earth Day, we will give you a discount code for 20% off your purchase of your favorite branded gear on our website.”

This approach - which has become increasingly common in this new age of stakeholder capitalism, feels incredibly ironic. Especially from organizations that weren’t built on any sort of environmental values to begin with.

Oshki's Beginnings: Circularity by Design

It is an interesting time to be in the apparel business, that is for certain.

As a refresher, the first 3–4 years of Oshki’s business, we produced everything in the United States - from resource extraction to fabric production to the final cut-and-sew of our clothing. I built this supply chain in this manner because of my newfound obsession with contributing toward a more circular economy (one where materials are reused, products are designed for longevity, and waste is minimized from start to finish). 

I found it to be very bothersome that companies had a newfound interest in sharing the “best highlights” of their sustainability initiatives while very rarely focusing on circularity and producing closer to where their customers and company were located. Especially in apparel, there seems to be a cemented theory of “out of sight, out of mind” where we just accept that over 95% of the market will produce in Southeast Asia and there is no way out of that.

While this certainly raised our costs, I wanted to think differently than most apparel producers - even if we were at a scale where it would be very disadvantageous to do so. This was not in built on the ideology of American exceptionalism when it comes to manufacturing, but rather strictly a focus on circularity.

COVID and Fragile Foundations

The COVID-19 epidemic was our first experience of disruption within our supply chain.

Manufacturers of ours were shut down for months. The entire supply chain was thrown off for over a year. Rising costs (especially at our product volume) made it unviable to produce 100% in the United States without raising our costs significantly.

Ultimately, I made the decision that we would still produce 100% of our fabrics in the United States with 100% recycled material from the U.S., but we would focus on outsourcing the final cut-and-sew to countries in Central America to maintain the accessibility of our product.

This move was also well supported through customer feedback - where I had several experiences of customer complaints that our costs were already too high during events where I was selling Oshki product.

I am trying not to generalize here, but ironically a lot of these complaints were from individuals wearing a patriotic t-shirt that undoubtedly was produced in Southeast Asia for 1/5th of the cost of our production. The “out of sight, out of mind” mentality is a direct reflection of this feedback.

This Moment: Tariffs, Instability, and Real Costs

We are now in a transitionary period where tariffs are being pushed onto foreign countries in an ultra-contentious and volatile manner.

These tariffs and global shipping volatility have cost me, personally, what equates to nearly four months of salary this year. These weren't conscious losses - they were the result of a system that punishes small-scale production and rewards the opposite. 

It’s hard to describe how brutal these swings are at our scale - especially when trying to build a business rooted in environmental integrity. But this is the reality we’re navigating.

And here I am, three years out of undergrad, trying to build up the environmental initiatives that Oshki and myself can be proud of while simultaneously working to eliminate both my personal and company-wide footprint.

I am still trying to sell newly made product while I’ve also made the personal choice to purchase only used clothing moving forward. This sort of all falls into Patagonia's famous marketing ideology around “Don’t Buy This Jacket.” - a campaign that urged customers to think twice before consuming - even if it meant buying less from them. 

The Bigger Picture: Systems Hide Their Impacts

We live in a world where Amazon shipments come within 24 hours of a click - and where very few of us stop to question what that convenience actually costs our society.

Our food comes in shiny, bright packaging - artificially treated to look more appealing to the customer. And food marketers work to lead customers the furthest away from the self-reflective questions we should be asking before we eat the food we put into our bodies:

Where did this food come from?
How many preservatives are put into this meal?
Was this meat that I am eating factory farmed, and were the conditions in which the animals were raised in any way humane?

This disconnection is everywhere - and it fuels a type of convenience culture that’s easy to slip into and hard to walk away from.

But more than anything, this Earth Week, I want to challenge myself and anyone reading this, to pull back from the noise.

Take a step back from the slogans. From the pastel banners and discount codes. From the curated content that’s easier to repost than reflect on. And instead, ask some different questions:

Am I consuming in a responsible manner?
What companies need the support and which ones truly care?
Do I really need this?

These are the questions I'm asking myself this Earth Week. And honestly - I don't always have the answers. 

Have a great weekend and thanks for reading.