By harnessing the power of the sun, this textile designer has produced a renewable clothing line

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Abhishek Pathak, a textile designer from Lucknow, was inspired by a chance encounter during the Indian International Trade Fair at Pragati Maidan in 2016. Abhishek was instantly interested in leveraging this breakthrough to launch a company after seeing a solar charkha, or domestic spinning wheel, designed by IIT-Delhi and the Mahatma Gandhi Institute for Rural Industrialization (MGIRI)-Wardha. The entrepreneur discovered that a solar chakra or loom is not only more efficient than hand-spun charkhas but also decreases drudgery, after delving deeper into the notion and chatting with experts.

Abhishek quickly devised a business plan to build a sustainable fashion brand using solar chakras, looms, and sewing machines, and incorporated his company, Greenware Fashion, in 2016. Greenware is a B2B and B2C apparel brand established in Lucknow that produces yarns, textiles, and outfits using solar-powered equipment. The startup's distinguishing feature is the development of a decentralized domestic value chain in collaboration with local partners and NGOs in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, involving about 5,000 rural women, 480 weavers, and 180 artisans.

 

While the company was founded in 2016, it only started operating in 2019. 

Abhishek began his professional career as a product development designer with a US-based home furnishing firm after graduating from NIFT-Delhi. With his first apparel enterprise, Prakriti, he quickly donned the entrepreneur hat, but it failed to make a profit after only six months due to the owners' "lack of business knowledge."

Abhishek had gained an interest in Indian traditional designs and handcrafted crafts made from scraps by this point, and he ended up at the Noida-based non-profit Dhristee Foundation, which was also embarking on a similar project. The creator was exposed to khadi and the difficulties limiting its growth prospects while serving as a senior craft designer for three years.

 

He was perplexed as to why no Khadi artists or spinners were present in the area. The drudgery required in the process of production was the biggest disadvantage. A woman cannot work on manual spinning for more than eight hours at a time, and she only earns Rs 50 for the khadi fabric. That's where his understanding of solar chakras came in handy. He was completely focused on the subject, and he didn't glance back. the president of Bhartiya Harit Khadi Gramodaya Sansthan, a government-sponsored non-profit that executed the pilot project for Mission Solar Charkha, which debuted in 2018, and the Khadi and Village Industries Commission approached Abhishek (KVIC).His goal of creating a market for items created through a solar panel charkha value chain was in line with the organization's vision of providing jobs to over a million women, weavers, and craftsmen in rural India via solar charkha-based spinning and related things. n 2016, I founded Greenware and joined Harit Khadi as CEO at the same time. They completed the Mission Solar Charkha pilot project and taught over 3,500 rural women in solar charkha spinning. 

 

The company has centralized yarn and fabric manufacturing and established an in-house unit for final garment stitching. It obtains yarns from Harit Khadi, which has installed solar chakras in the homes of nearly 5,000 rural women in four states. The company provides training and financial aid to women who want to purchase their own chakras. The yarns are then delivered to Greenwear's sampling section in Lucknow, which is handled entirely by women, for quality control and the creation of sample designs for weavers. Greenwear's partner weaving groups and traditional textile clusters in UP and Bihar, notably Nalanda, Gaya, Bhagalpur, Barabanki, Varanasi, and Bijnor, receive the yarns along with sample patterns. Solar looms are used to weave the fabrics, which employ over 480 weavers.

It has also established its own manufacturing facility in Lucknow, where the textiles are converted into clothing using solar-powered sewing machines by over 180 in-house craftspeople, 110 of whom are women. Greenwear sells both textiles and clothing to prominent fashion labels including W for Women and Aurelia, as well as its two main retail locations in Lucknow. The finished product's pricing ranges from Rs 300 to Rs 5,000, depending on the item.Greenwear makes money through selling bulk fabric, selling fabric at retail, sewing jobs for brands, selling finished garments at a retail, and selling uniforms, bedsheets, covers, and other textile material to institutions and small businesses. Apart from providing jobs for women in rural regions, the firm made Rs 2.5 crore and Rs 2 crore in income in FY20 and FY21, respectively.

 

The company collaborated with small-scale brands such as Kolkata-based Zyenika, which also designs clothing for disabled people, as well as institutional buyers such as Saraswati Dental College and Hospital in Lucknow and government schools across the country, in which it supplies uniforms and other textile needs. It had previously rolled out its items on eCommerce platforms such as Amazon and Flipkart through their respective projects — Amazon Karigar and Flipkart Samarth, respectively — but had not fully exploited the possibility. It now intends to launch its D2C platform, as well as the aforementioned marketplaces, online in 2022. Greenware has raised Rs 75 lakh in two rounds thus far. It acquired Rs 50 lakh in early finance from its incubator, the Indian Institute of Management—Calcutta Innovation Park (IIMCIP), in 2019, followed by a Rs 35 lakh investment from Seattle-based impact investors Upaya Social Ventures. 

 

Even though the pandemic hindered overall business, the firm was able to maintain growth levels supported by numerous industry initiatives. It recently received funding from the Council on Energy, Environment, and Water (CEEW) in Delhi, as well as the Villgro Innovations Foundation's initiative, Powering Livelihoods. Greenware was among the six clean energy innovations selected under the program and managed to receive its latest funding through the same. About the competition, the startup claimed to be the only one adopting this business model and value chain in the market. The entrepreneur sees prospects for collaboration with big companies but contends with competition from Khadi-owned outlets. Instead of focusing on a specialized niche like other firms, Greenware is aiming for a broad audience and focusing on volume. 

 

They're concentrating on skill, scalability, and speed, as well as our social structure, which includes women in the value chain. Their goal is to incorporate as many rural women and artisans as possible in the process, as well as to revive old traditional art forms. Apart from launching their eCommerce store in 2022, the entrepreneurs want to quadruple the startup's capacity with 3-5x sales growth. They plan to open roughly 10 new franchise-based outlets across India, with a revenue target of Rs 5 crore.

 

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