Ace & Tate is 'working on it' too.

What is it?

So let’s go back to a couple of weeks ago, when a certain - very interesting - subject-line appeared in our inboxes. "We're not a sustainable company", an email and additional blog-post on Medium written by Mark de Lange, founder of Ace and Tate.

Not surprisingly, this subject line caught our attention. In a world where more and more companies show off their “green” achievements, it seems kind of unnatural to state that you’re not sustainable. So - of course - we read on.

“We’re not a sustainable company, yet” is what this post was about, an open letter about changing perspectives, harsh reality and wanting to change but not always being able to. At least, not at the wanted and expected speed.

In his post, Mark admits that up until 5 years ago, he thought sustainability was “tree huggers bullshit” but his perspective slowly changed. Reading the book of Yvon Chouinard, about starting and growing the outdoor-clothing brand Patagonia was when reality kicked in. Here, he started to think about the (negative) environmental impacts of the production cycle in general, and about that of his own brand, Ace & Tate.

Why is it cool?

A true but also very disappointing conclusion when it comes to being a company - that sells products - is that in order to be 100% sustainable, you would simply have to stop selling things. Why? Well… In order to produce, you will always have to rely on natural resources. And in order to sell, you will always have to move your product from the one place to the other.

But Ace & Tate makes great glasses, and Mark wanted to keep on making customers happy. So he decided that stopping to sell was not an option, but (slowly) changing the way of doing business was the way to go instead.

So that’s cool, but the coolest part is still to come. Mark really educated himself on the topic of sustainability, and learned that there’s no magic cure for becoming “sustainable”. So he decided to take it as a progress and most important, to be open about it.

Ace & Tate may not be a sustainable company yet, but they’re on their way. And with sharing their story - the successes but also the failures - they hope for others in the industry to prioritise action over intent too.

“We're working on it” will be Ace & Tate’s new platform, their path to becoming as sustainable as possible. This platform is “committed to openness and self-reflection” and that’s what being a responsible company is about, if you’d ask us!

Does it have future growth potential?

Yes, yes, yes! At least, let’s hope so! After reading Mark’s article, we were really inspired by the term “action over intent”. The world doesn't need any more nice stories about the sustainability of company X, it needs real-time action. It needs us to keep on searching for the most efficient way of doing good.

Being sustainable should not be something to brag about. Striving to be as ethical, animal- and environmentally friendly should be a matter of course. But let’s stay real too, as most changes do not happen overnight. Let’s learn, collaborate and share our paths.

On October 22nd of this year, we first shared our own “Improvements Timeline”. We’ve created this page to give an overview of our past improvements, to explain about the things we cannot (currently) improve and to mention the subjects we’re currently working on. Please follow us on this journey, and always feel welcome to send us a message if you have a question or suggestion.

Mark’s email/announcement pleasantly surprised and inspired us. And as we too believe that sustainability should be a collective responsibility, we felt like writing this month’s “inspirations” post about it.