The fashion industry’s business model is built on a cycle of buying, discarding and buying again, it generates vast amounts of waste while offering little long-term value to society or the planet. For Javier Goyeneche, founder of Spanish sustainable fashion brand ECOALF, this realisation was the catalyst for change. Watch below as the Financial Times commercial department highlights ECOALF and how private investors can help make a sustainable change. 

Disillusioned with the industry, Goyeneche spent more than two years working across sustainability focused organisations before asking a pivotal question: if he understood fashion, why not use that knowledge to build something better? The answer became ECOALF, a brand founded on the principle that fashion can exist without depleting natural resources. 

The scale of the challenge is stark. As Goyeneche puts it: “Sixteen million garments are arriving every week from Europe to landfill. If we continue like this, we’re going to be two billion more people by 2050. There won’t be enough forests, there won’t be enough water and there won’t be enough landfills to keep on throwing all this waste.” 

This wasteful system sits within a wider economic failure. As Fiona Kenyon, Head of Private Markets at Julius Baer, observes: “Climate change is an example of a market failure, and potentially the greatest market failure we’ve ever seen. It’s very difficult to get people to address it in lockstep and come up with a common solution. That creates a real opportunity for providers of private capital, and for private individuals who take this issue seriously, to align their capital with real solutions.”

For ECOALF, that alignment has driven innovation at sea. Working directly with fishermen, the company uncovered the scale of waste trapped beneath the ocean’s surface, far beyond what is visible on beaches or floating in the water. Fishermen now collect waste from the ocean floor and bring it back to port, where ECOALF sorts and recycles the plastic into what it calls “ocean yarn”.

The process is complex. Waste is shredded into flakes, transformed into pellets and then spun into yarn. Achieving high-quality material from discarded plastic took two years of research and development, highlighting the importance of patient capital and long-term thinking. Goyeneche believes investors who genuinely support transformation must also support the time it takes to achieve it.

Ultimately, the mission extends beyond clothing. ECOALF is about raising awareness of the need to protect the ocean and redefining what success looks like in business. Customers take pride in wearing garments that represent a broader commitment to change. For Goyeneche, success is not about becoming the biggest fashion company in the world, but about becoming a good one for the world.

This content was paid for by Julius Baer and produced in partnership with the Financial Times Commercial department.