We take a great deal of interest in sustainability particularly in the fashion industry. I’ve worked for many years with a client/friend Ali at Gabucci as he works to stock more environmentally friendly stock and select suppliers by how they treat the environment and also their staff.
I’ve also worked, a little time back now for one of the biggest sports clothing manufacturers and an iconic jeans manufacturer, both in advertising and understand sustainability is a huge issue and difficult to tackle especially for global manufacturers needing produce stock for huge markets. I’m very aware with Gabucci, we have much more flexibility selling at the high end of the market in tiny quantities. They stock John Smedley, a fabulous British label who are fully committed to the environment and also source Italian wools for Gabucci suits, and we are very aware of the benefits of keeping sheep in association with solar panels.
There seem huge political issues here in the UK, getting a greater share of the market over to green energy from solar to wind, even just getting farms connected to the grid seems so much harder than it should be …
So I thought I’d share a link to an article in the Wall Street Journal talking about the American approach on US ranches. You may need a subscription, though it is very good value, but in short …
It’s scaling up a simple idea that really works. Basically solar farms requires regular cutting back of grass and weeds for access and also so they don’t eventually block sunlight from the panels either.
Sheep are far more manoeuvrable than mowers in tight spaces and will eat the new shoots willingly. Cows are too big and goats chew the equipment.
Sheep are the perfect answer and they are used on tens of thousands of acres of solar farms in the US. This is itself has become a multi million dollar business from tidying up solar farms and of course sheep produce wool too. It has to be an environmental win win.