This startup is spinning yarn on solar charkhas, weaving fabric on solar looms and stitching clothes with solar sewing machines

During the pandemic, renewable energy giant ReNew Power stepped in with its CSR initiative and helped Greenwear make masks. In four months, Greenwear made five lakh masks with the help of 240 women who were paid Rs 4 per mask.

National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT) graduate Abhishek Pathak looks at the sun and weaves a dream for every day: Engage 5,000 women across India in spinning 5,000 metres of yarn on solar charkhas that would help weave 50,000 metres of fabric to be metamorphosed into 25,000 pieces of garment. All these on an every day basis. That looking at the sun is not an invocation of the gods, it is an integral part of Abhishek Pathak’s dream-weave - he is the founder and CEO of Greenwear, the country’s first brand for solar-vastra (yarn is spun on solar charkhas, fabric is woven on solar looms and garments are stitched on solar sewing machines).

Incorporated in 2019, Greenwear offers a unique marketplace for eco-friendly, decentralised textile value chain, while generating livelihoods for rural women by addressing three key issues simultaneously - pollution by the fashion industry (fashion industry is the world’s second-largest polluter), poverty in rural India, and empowerment of rural women who comprise 81.29% of the total female workforce in India.

That solar dream of community and capacity building did not spring overnight. With no entrepreneurial strand in his DNA helix, but with a major in textile designing from NIFT Delhi, Abhishek started out as design and product development head of a US-based luxury home fashion brand and then moved up the ladder as lead business development of textile and craft at Drishtee Foundation and later as CEO of Bhartiya Harit Khadi Gramodaya Sansthan. During his last two stints, Abhishek realised that there is a direct link between the rural socio-economic structure and traditional textiles and crafts.

That realisation and the learning came in handy when Abhishek decided to establish Greenwear with support from the incubator Indian Institute of Management-Calcutta Innovation Park (IIMCIP) and Villgro Innovations Foundation. Headquartered in Lucknow (Uttar Pradesh), with its manufacturing unit located in Safedabad (Barabanki, Uttar Pradesh), in its first year, Greenwear worked with 370 weaving artisans who produced around 2.25 lakh meters of fabric with a turnover of Rs 2.5 crore. The artisans took home approximately Rs 9,000 per month for their engagement with Greenwear and as a bonus picked the skill of operating a solar charkha.

“For the artisans, it was a remarkable jump in revenue generation and commendable decrease in manual labour. In a manual charkha, a woman can spin only 60-100 grams of yarn in the 8-hour day and earn Rs 50-60, while with a solar charkha, the spun yarn can hit the 1 kilogram mark and the wage goes up to Rs 200 a day. Since there is no drudgery in operating solar charkhas, one woman can easily run two machines simultaneously and earn up to Rs 12,000 per month while working from her home,” Abhishek said.

Greenwear was started with both the B2B (business to business) and B2C (business to customer) business models. It signed up with buyer partners like W for Women and Aurelia, both leading womenswear retailers of traditional wear, and spread the solar charkha dreams to various locations in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. In one year, Greenwear procured 49,500 kilogram of yarn produced by 590 rural women from Nawada (Bihar) and Varanasi (UP). The yarn was further distributed to  various traditional textile clusters: Gaya (Bihar), Bhagalpur (Bihar), Varanasi (UP), Bijnor (UP) and Barabanki (UP), where it was woven by traditional weavers into fabrics.

When the pandemic struck, though, demand for the fabric spiralled downward. Thankfully, amidst the despair, Abhishek found a few messiahs. Greenwear was one of six companies selected for the ‘Powering Livelihoods’ programme run jointly by the Council On Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) and Villgro Innovations Foundation. CEEW and Villgro provided the much-needed mentorship as well as technical and financial support to keep it afloat. Renewable energy giant ReNew Power stepped in with its CSR initiative and helped Greenwear make masks. In four months, Greenwear made five lakh masks with the help of 240 women who were paid Rs 4 per mask. In all, during the pandemic, Greenwear has made 15 lakh masks that are sold to government offices as well as retail channels.

“The idea was to make masks that were better substitutes of the surgical masks. On an average, a non-biodegradable surgical mask costs Rs 5 while Greenwear’s environment-friendly mask sells for Rs 6,” Abhishek added.

Abhishek Pathak (centre) founded Greenwear in 2019.

It has been two years since Abhishek set out to become a solar vastra entrepreneur. So far, he has been instrumental is getting 3,500 women from UP, Bihar, Gujarat and Rajasthan trained in solar charkha skills, out of which 1,180 women got solar charkhas installed in their homes. In the coming years, Greenwear plans to enter new market segments like maternity wear, yoga wear, lounge wear, kids wear, hospital wear and hospitality wear. With two retail stores in Lucknow, Greenwear is also establishing its retail presence.

“If only 5% of Indian villages become solar charkha clusters (around 30,000), it can produce 180 crore kilograms (18 lakh tonnes) of cotton yarn which is almost 50% of India’s current cotton yarn capacity and generate livelihood for 1.2 crore people without migrating from their villages,” Abhishek stared at the sun as he repeated his solar dream. A dream not only for himself but for those at the bottom of the economic pyramid.