This company uses solar charkhas to spin yarn, solar looms to weave fabric, and solar sewing machines to stitch clothing.
- ByStartupStory | January 27, 2022
Abhishek Pathak, a graduate of the National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT), looks at the sun and imagines a dream for every day: 5,000 women across India will be involved in spinning 5,000 metres of yarn on solar charkhas, which will be used to weave 50,000 metres of fabric into 25,000 pieces of clothing.
All of this happens daily. Looking at the sun isn’t an invocation to the gods, but it’s an important part of Abhishek Pathak’s dream-weave – he’s the founder and CEO of Greenwear, India’s first solar-vastra business (yarn is spun on solar charkhas, fabric is woven on solar looms and garments are stitched on solar sewing machines).
Greenwear, founded in 2019, provides a unique marketplace for eco-friendly, decentralized textile value chains while also providing livelihoods for rural women by simultaneously addressing three key issues: pollution by the fashion industry (the fashion industry is the world’s second-largest polluter), poverty in rural India, and empowerment of rural women, who account for 81.29 percent of India’s total female workforce.
That solar community and capacity-building dream did not appear out of nothing. Abhishek started out as the design and product development head of a US-based luxury home fashion brand, then moved up the ladder as the lead business development of textile and craft at Drishtee Foundation, and later as the CEO of Bhartiya Harit Khadi Gramodaya Sansthan, despite having no entrepreneurial strand in his DNA helix. Abhishek realised there is a direct link between rural socio-economic structure and traditional textiles and crafts over his last two stays.
Follow Startup Story
Related Posts
