It’s important to note: this back-handed aphorism isn’t one we use cavalierly. In fact, it’s actually an indelible part of our history. Way back before nau was nau, when we were merely a zygote, a Michael Franti t-shirt caught the eye of our founder. In three words, its bold, unapologetic message perfectly captured the idea behind his radically new business model—or more appropriately deemed—his UNbusiness model. His idea: to create a venture that would undo and unravel the damage that traditional businesses have caused the environment and be the first major apparel company built on sustainability.

He borrowed the axiom and distilled it into a single acronym—UTW—which later became the initial name of our fledging company and has since become (and will always be) our modus operandi. So with that said….

It’s no surprise: our resolution is the same resolution we’ve had since we started—to unfuck the world. Some people might think it’s too lofty, a bit audacious, maybe even haughty. But if we stick to miniscule goals and understated intentions then that’s all we’ll ever accomplish. And we’re fairly certain great ideas weren’t built on losing five pounds in a year or drinking one less cup of coffee a day.

Not to demean personal goals, but we tend to believe that people underestimate their own ability to surprise themselves. So they aim low and take it slow hoping that if they make it to the gym three times a week, they’ve reached their yearly potential. But we can do more, so much more.

Just look at some of the Provocateurs we featured last year. Sean Carasso invented a business model to end a war. His nonprofit, Falling Whistles, helps educate the masses and mobilize Peace forces in the Congo—all by selling whistles. Allison Arieff, former editor of Dwell magazine and current blogger for the NY Times is changing the way we think about sustainable design. And Drummond Lawson—part chemist, part wizard—gleans inspiration from natural ecosystems and blends it with science to create cleaning solutions that even mother nature would use.

Of course, they all have one thing in common—they dream big. They don’t just THINK it’s possible to unfuck the world, they KNOW it’s possible. And we do too. We don’t just want to design clothes that work well and feel good and tread lighter on the earth, we want to change the way an industry does business. Yeah, it’s lofty. It’s far-reaching. But we believe it’s possible. And that’s all that matters.

Despite mother nature’s slow start to the snow season, you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone in the office this week. Mark, our GM, is enjoying some off-piste skiing in Utah. Tyson and Peter are taking turns at Ski Bowl. Josie’s over in Bend probably causing some mischief on the mountain. And Leigh, well, she’s staring down the steep terrain of the Tetons. She took a break from the mountain to give us the low down on life in Jackson, Wyo.

Even when the snow is low, it’s hard to complain about spending the holidays in the Tetons. Walking through the antler arch at JAC, I couldn’t have been happier to be any other place with my family, 8 adults and 5 kids, to seek some mountain adventures. Over the years I’ve made some of the best turns of my life in Teton Village and on Teton pass, but snow is way down this year and it took a little extra motivation to make the best of this winter playground. In a way, I’ve enjoyed the challenge to seek out a stash here or there, earn my turns in the pass or enjoy a snowshoe in Teton park at sunset. As always, Jackson did not disappoint.

Day 1: we were  a large crew on the mountain. Ten out of 13 on snow—impressive for a crew that flew in from Oregon, Vermont, Florida and Italy.  For the first time in 15+ years, I took my first run of the year with my dad, brother-in-law and ripping eight-year-old nephew. All ages were stoked. Over the next several sunny days, I enjoyed skiing and snowboarding with my four year old daughter, husband, parents and siblings. We made the most of low snow on the mountain and explored the magic of Teton park, enjoyed many après beers at the Moose and shared lots of memorable holiday meals.

Winter wishes from Jackson, and I wish mountains everywhere lots of snow in the New Year!

….Happy Holidays.

Oh Dee, how we love thee, with your tool belt and your two-ton jack. You have always inspired us. And we’re honored that you would wear our shirt long enough to have it shred under the weight of your coveralls. You bring a whole new meaning to our motto: “wear it out, pass it on.” Keep up the good work.

For those who might not remember Dee Williams: she traded in her three bedroom bungalow for an 84-square foot house, a toothbrush and a pickup (biodiesel, that is). And for the past six years, she and her business partner have been helping other people do the same. In their business, Portland Alternative Dwellings, they design and build eco-friendly houses small enough to fit on a trailer. We were so inspired by Dee when we first met that we made a short film about her work. In fact, you can still find it on the Collective.

Beach, mountains, Veuve: A montage of our holiday….wishing you all the best.

embedded by Embedded Video

vimeo Direkt

We recently stumbled upon Etsy’s provocative, short film about H.G. “Skip” Brack and his 42-year quest to single-handedly recycle and restore every tool in Maine.  His goal? To help artisans, craftsmen, welders, mechanics—and anyone else who works with their hands—create beautiful things.

Of course, this got us thinking: what was the last thing we built, not for money or merit, but for the simple satisfaction of knowing we handcrafted something beautiful?

Well, it didn’t take us long to discover that, when we’re not working, we’re busy sewing, spinning and soldering whatever we can get our hands on. Here’s a few of our more recent creations:

An entertainment center constructed from a 12 ft. salvaged Douglas Fir log that Tyson impressively milled himself.
An outdoor sofa, table and modern tool shed. Leave it up to Peter, our Design Director, to fume his own fir and weld stock metal to build an outdoor living space.
A sockadile. The name says it all. Jenny, our tech designer, fashioned it out of, what looked like, a rainbow- stripped thigh high.
Wool pants and vest. It’s not surprising that Jamie, our textile guru, spun her own washable wool and hand-knit this toddler get-up.
A galley. Yes, you read that correctly. Mark outfitted his Land Rover Defender with a sink, two-burner stove, fridge and cabinets. Next stop: the desert.
A wedding veil made from Russiun tulle.
Pork tenderloin with pickled kale and cashews.
A snow globe.
A human being.

But we’re curious: what have you put your hands on lately?

[Editors Note: Our friend and copywriter Alex left Portland last January to start a new life in the French Alps. This month, he’s returned as Guest Editor of The Thought Kitchen to share some of his experiences.]

“Everything on a boat must have a place.”

My father taught me that. He’s a sailor, but I’ve found that the rule applies whether the vessel in question is a 30’ ketch in the North Atlantic or—as in my wife’s and my case—a 10’x14’ French Mazot floating among the landlocked Alps. While it doesn’t take long to clean 140 square feet, it takes even less time to make a complete mess of it. So, though the nearest harbor is some sixty miles away on Lake Geneva, part of life in our Alpine anchorage is keeping things ship-shape.

We moved into the Mazot—a French word that I usually translate as ‘hay shed’—in June. The first thing we learned, from the hand-painted board on the deck, was that our new home had been built in 1806 and was named Le Bouet Nir. (Like boats, houses in the Alps all have names.) The second thing we learned was that it was very, very small.

Of course this wasn’t much of a surprise. We’d known what we were getting into from the start; indeed, the smallness of our new home was part of its appeal—at least to me.

Ever since 2005, when I first saw an article about a 2.6-square-meter dwelling called the Micro Compact Home, I’d been fascinated by the idea of living in a small house. Like a bonsai tree, the beauty of the MCH lay in its combination of perfect execution and miniature proportions. When compared with the McMansions of the 90’s, to me the MCH seemed to be on a scale closer to my own. I wanted one.

Later, while working at Nau, I met Dee Williams and learned about her Little House on the Trailer. (Nau’s film profile of Dee, with over half a million views, is still on The Collective). I visited MoMA’s exhibition of pre-fab housing and read Mimi Zieger’s book Tiny. I seemed to be falling in love with one of the micro-trends of the new 21st century: micro-living.

So when the chance came to move into our Mazot, my wife and I jumped at the chance. We were newlyweds. We had love, optimism, and—perhaps most importantly—blissful naïveté. Maybe it was the kind of idea that only a writer and an out-of-work architect could love, but the romance of a cottage in the mountains overwhelmed the scent of cabin-fever that our friends and family caught in the place. “You’re going to live in there?” our parents asked when we sent them a photo. “Of course!” we replied. “Isn’t it great?!”

And so we set about moving in and finding places for all our stuff. Of course, the easiest way to do this is to just have fewer things. For some, this is part of the appeal—being a smugly self-satisfied minimalist is one of the clichés of small-house living—but we weren’t really into counting all our things and only keeping 100. Instead, we took what we needed, and the rest ended up in a friend’s basement.

This done, we settled, quite snuggly, into our new home. The grand tour takes but a moment: The main room has a bed, a table, two chairs and two small dressers. Behind that, a 4’x4’ kitchen sports two electric burners, a mini-fridge and toaster oven. A similarly sized bathroom manages to fit a shower, toilet and sink. What more, we asked ourselves, could we need?

We’ve found living in a small space to be, above all, practical. It’s less money and less work, meaning we have more time to enjoy the mountains that we moved here for. To us, the choice to ‘live lightly’ isn’t primarily about having a smaller environmental footprint—though that certainly is a byproduct. It’s a choice to have the time to focus on the things that matter to us, by keeping the necessity of shelter in perspective.

We find ourselves visiting our friend’s basement less often; the stuff in storage, it turns out, isn’t all that important. Most of what we really need fits. When the weather is fair, we eat outside in the yard. If it rains, we curl up inside or read on the porch. And when we get cold, we make tea: the mugs are warm in our hands and the stove heats up the whole house.

And when the house is a mess, we take a few minutes and put things back in their places. After three months in such a small home, you find that it’s not just your things that find their rightful place, but you as well.

We love Forest Park; it’s 5100 acres of biking, hiking, walking, running—a few of our favorite things. So last Friday, we were excited to get out of the office and give it some love with the rest of the Backyard Collective. We headed up Ridge Trail with the Conservation Alliance and a few other cool companies in Portland to build turnpikes, pull ivy and put in some hard work for a place we love. Here are few photos from our day in one of our favorite backyard parks.

It wouldn’t be summer without a few broken bones. At least, that’s what Josie and Peter can say. For their summer adventures, they either found themselves on the wrong end of a water ski or wrestling with a few Mastodons. But for most of us at Nau, our warm weather escapes took us to places where time and cell service do not exist, to vast expanses of land where we feel incredibly humbled, to islands where new ways of human living are being tested, or to the edge of our surfboard where everything and nothing exists, all at once.

Oh summer, how we love thee. To celebrate your waning days, we’re toasting a few mimosas in your honor and writing down a few words of remembrance by dedicating this short blog series to you and those moments that leave us humbled, broken and so damn happy we did it.

To kick-off our Summer Departure series, Josie takes us to Colorado where she helped unearth 100,000-year-old dinosaur bones buried deep in her grandparent’s backyard in what is now known as Snowmastodon.

Last October, tusks from a wooly mammoth were discovered in the pond at my grandparent’s house in Snowmass, CO.  Since then, scientists have removed over 4,000 Ice Age fossils that were buried under 40 feet of mud and peat. Eight months after the discovery, I flew to Snowmass, CO to see the dig for myself.

I rolled up the driveway with my mom, hoping to get a peek at the action.  To my surprise, after a 5-minute tour of a big mud pit, the welcoming staff from the Denver Museum of Nature and Science handed my clean, soft, office-working hands a shovel and said “start digging.”

Living in Portland, I get excited when I find a new bike street or a food cart that doesn’t suck. I got to experience the real thrill of discovery when my shovel hit rib bones of a Mastodon that walked on this planet about 999,967 years before I was born (give or take 50,000 years).

We logged the GPS location, size, position and type of bone and kept digging. People around me found molars, femurs and claws from sloths, wooly mammoth’s, mastodon’s and various other species from the Ice Age.  A mountain bike racer/fossil nerd from Grand Junction taught my mom and I how to encase the large bones in plaster to keep them from getting damaged during transport to the Denver Museum.  My hands were so beautifully dirty, I was as giddy as a scientist.

For my Grandpa, one of the biggest surprises of his life was waiting for him at the age 84. For now, I’ll keep getting excited about discovering things in my own city, but in the grand scheme of things, I am ruined. My barometer for discovery is skewed for life.

©Daniel Sharp

Last month in The Thought Kitchen, we sat down with Jamie Bainbridge, our Director of Textile Development and Sustainability, to get a behind-the-scenes look at the Eco Index—a collaborative effort to create an industry-wide standard in sustainability. This month, we’re taking a deeper dive into the nitty gritty details of this innovative tool and putting our Men’s Vice Blazer to the test. Find out what we learned and how it’s going to change the way we do business.

How It Works: The Cliffs Notes Version
Building a tool that assesses the environmental impact of thousands of products produced by hundreds of companies is challenging, and some might even say, downright impossible. That’s why the Outdoor Industry Association (OIA) built the Eco Index as a three-tiered system, so that any company, no matter how small or large, can evaluate their business piece-by-piece.

All three levels—guidelines, indicators and metrics—allow companies to evaluate their products based on two crucial elements: lifecycle stages such as packaging, transportation and materials; and impact such as the use of waste, water and other resources.

The first level—guidelines—is merely a set of recommendations that companies can use to lessen their impact: use more recycled content, minimize packaging, institute end-of-life design policies, etc… The second level—indicators—gets a bit more technical and even incorporates a scoring system that allows companies to assign points (we’ll take a closer look at indicators when we evaluate the Vice Blazer). And finally, the third tier—metrics—requires lots of number crunching and accounting that assigns values to each indicator. Confusing? Yes. Effective? We’ll see.

To get a better grasp on the set-up, think of it like this: guidelines ask what am I doing?, indicators ask how am I doing?, and metrics ask how much am I doing? But despite their qualitative and quantitative differences, every level is designed with the same goal in mind: to increase the transparency of the supply chain and lower the environmental footprint.

©Daniel Sharp

Sizing up the Vice Blazer: Materials and End of Life
So what does all of this mean for a company like Nau? To start, we can use the Eco Index indicators to evaluate each of our products. Take the Vice Blazer, for example. We picked three sample indicators to size up its environmental footprint and here’s what we learned:

1 Recycled Content
For this indicator, the Eco Index assigns points based on the percentage of recycled content that is used in the product (1 point for 10-24%, 2 points for 25-49%, etc…). But keep in mind, all scoring is merely an internal gauge of a company’s sustainability practices and, in no way, reflects a standardized ranking system (yet). Since the Vice Blazer is designed with 80% recycled polyester, we feel like we’re pulling our weight in this category. However, we still keep an eye on technology to see if more improvements can be made.

2 Renewable Content
In order to produce the premium quality of the fabric in the Vice Blazer, we added 20% certified organic cotton which reduces the use of pesticides, fertilizers and other chemicals. It also gives recycled polyester the smooth, soft feel of cotton.

3 Designed for End of Life
We designed the Vice Blazer to be recycled at the end of its long life, including the labels which are composed of recycled polyester. However, there are two components that could be improved based on this indicator: the back zipper and the cotton content which are both unable to be recycled at this time.

Even though organic cotton is a renewable resource, it is considered a non-polyester “contaminant” and is, therefore, dissolved through the recycling process. In the end, we are throwing away 20% of the garment even though 80% is being recycled and reused.

This begs the question: do we sacrifice the soft quality of organic cotton to produce a completely100% recycled blazer? Or do we include cotton, a renewable resource to create a more premium garment that looks and feels better to the consumer?

These are the design and sustainability questions we face every day as a company dedicated to creating beautiful performance products that balance the triple bottom line of people, planet and profit. And with the launch of the Eco Index’s pilot program in September, these are the tough questions every apparel company will have to answer in creating more sustainable and transparent product and supply chains. However, one, lingering question remains: will it actually work?

Stay tuned: In part three of our three-part-series, we’ll explore the inaugural launch of the Eco Index pilot program and find out if it will actually live up to the hype.