This post is in response to Logan Parker’s post on Ten Tree Apparel.
The success of Ten Tree Apparel is proof of the booming social entrepreneurship market. As Venture Communications CEO Arlene Dickinson would say, planet profit is not just a fad.
And although the clothing is neither relatively inexpensive nor expensive when you look at comparable products, such as those made by LRG, Ten Tree Apparel has the benefit of intrinsically rewarding its consumers, providing it with that ever so valuable point of difference as it ignites the global citizen within them.
But social entrepreneurship doesn’t come cheap. Along with the added cost of planting ten trees for every item sold, Ten Tree Apparel must factor in the costs of maintaining an environmentally and socially conscious business model. Companies claiming to be “planet profit” have to keep transportation at a minimum and pay all workers equitably in order to maintain their brand image. And while the latter may never be an issue, transportation costs may be if this company wants to expand to global markets. Furthermore, even if the company managed to keep production local to the markets that it sold in, it may also experience issues with product consistency as it “ethically” wouldn’t be able to transport production factors either.
All-in-all, Ten Tree Apparel has built a solid brand for itself as a company; however, it may experience issues, especially if it continues to grow at the pace that it is.
Image: Ten Tree Apparel – Image from newstalk650.com (http://www.newstalk650.com/sites/default/files/news-image/Ten%20Tree%20Apparel%20-%20logo%20on%20facebook%20page-%20local%20business%20Regina-%20on%20Dragon’s%20Den-%20Oct%202012.jpg)