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Treekind - The Leaf Leather
London, England, United Kingdom
Aim
We hope to raise £5000 to match fund our pilot, to make the first 500 m2 of our Treekind material, a sustainable leather alternative!
In a nutshell
Leather is the most environmentally destructive textile. We at Biophilica have invented a plant-based alternative called Treekind, which usually gets the reaction 'It's like leather!' With your help, we hope to raise £5000 to help fund our pilot machinery – to make the first 500 m2 of our Treekind leather alternative!
The problem
Leather is the most environmentally harmful textile with its carbon footprint, water usage and toxic wastewater. Leather is a 500 billion dollar market. The world needs a better leather!
Our solution
Treekind by Biophilica is a new, unique leather-like material made from green waste, like leaves and twigs from parks and gardens. Biophilica is female-founded and majority owned.
Treekind is:
- Infinitely recyclable as green waste
- Home compostable
- Uses less than 1% of the water from leather production
- Estimated by Imperial College to be carbon negative
- Contains ZERO plastic or chemicals
- Was twice as strong as synthetic leather in initial testing
The UK’s 6 million tons of green waste could become 2.9 million m2 of circular material, annually.
As part of our idea, we are committed to help fund the planting of more trees – it's one of our rewards to the right, called 'Strong Roots'.
Proof of impact
In 2019, our startup was selected by the Central Research Lab accelerator program in London.
We are featured in Trend Bible 2022 Home & Interiors and Biophilica has recently been awarded by Creative Conscience – Fashion & Textiles – for our Treekind material!
"It's just like leather" - Luuk Braam, Product Development Manager at Ouden Groep, our Dutch green waste partner
The LEGO Foundation (promoting play in developing countries), vegan bag brands, shoe designers, a sustainable Swiss watch startup, furniture companies, and interior designers have all expressed continued interest in our material.
The funding
The Dutch Government is supporting our pilot but we don't have all the funding we need. Now we are looking to build a mini-factory that demonstrates the manufacturing potential of this material.
With your help, we can scale up a solution that lowers carbon emissions, saves water, and starts changing the way fashion works.
The Biophilica team
Our team is unified in our passion to make sustainability mainstream. Our background is in design, strategy, grant funding, and project management. Three of us graduated from the Royal College of Art, and some of us have worked at Google. In the past, we have worked with companies like Unilever, Marc Jacobs, and Adidas. We now want to use our knowledge to help solve important problems.
Mira Nameth (with our Dutch partners), Drew Burrow, Jordan Berkowitz, Hannah Van Den Bergh, Kenny Arnold, and Tomi Laukkanen
Why support us?
With your help, we hope to raise £5000 to help fund our pilot machinery, to make the first 500 m2 of our truly sustainable Treekind material! We already have interest from brands and designers who want to try it.
Please back our project by selecting an amount or a reward at the top right of this page! Then, please help spread the word by sharing our campaign.
Thank you!
Leather artisan working with Treekind, making sample shoes
NatWest Back Her Business has provided £2,500 of match funding
This project successfully funded on 29th September 2020