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Jen Vander Roest, a Traverse City, Mich.-based entrepreneur, launched her sustainable bedding and linens brand, eelo, in 2015, and it has grown to a storefront inside The Flats at Front + Union, her own luxury hotel featuring eelo’s bedding, towels and pillows made from 100% recycled cotton and hemp.
Vander Roest says textiles have been a part of her life since she grew up sewing and upholstering, but she didn’t consider making them a part of her professional life initially. When her children were young, she reflected on her time as a nonprofit environmental land-use planner and began considering other work opportunities.
“I stepped back from work and started to educate myself on the crossover between the professional knowledge I had in environmental science and the hobbyist knowledge about the textile world to design and produce home and on-the-go textiles in a more sustainable manner,” she says.
Creating sustainable products is important to Vander Roest because her family enjoys backpacking and spending time outdoors, and she didn’t want to add to the pollution already caused by the textile industry. To her, sustainability means using low-impact dyes and organic materials from farms and weaving houses that share eelo’s mission of lessening textiles’ impact on the environment. The company’s products are also free from polyesters or nylons and won’t shed microplastics.
She urges companies to adopt a similar approach to eelo and consider using less environmentally harmful materials and practices, regardless of whether it is the easy route.
“It’s a personal decision for any entrepreneur these days and can be a slippery slope if you’re not checking yourself. I have plenty of ideas for products that are much more difficult to produce sustainably, and we are working to overcome those hurdles while staying true to our values,” she says.
