FASE founder Marci Zaroff and Timberland’s Betsy Blaisdell

“Green is Good” welcomes Marci Zaroff, founder and CEO of FASE (Fashion Art Soul and Earth), a green fashion company based out of Florida.

“I’ve always been a fashion consumer,” Zaroff reveals. After a decade of working in the organic health and beauty field, she discovered the missing link.

“It dawned on me that you can’t support food without supporting fiber,” Zaroff says. “The premise of organic agriculture is the interconnection in nature. When I married that with my passion for fashion, I saw a market opportunity.”

Zaroff, who founded another organic clothing line, Under the Canopy, in the 1990s, wants to change the market from “hippy to hip,” making organic fashion that people want to wear and will buy.

“It’s not about ‘Why would I buy organic?’” Zaroff says. “It’s ‘Why wouldn’t I buy organic?’”

In the second half of the show, John and Mike talk with Betsy Blaisdell, Senior Manager of Environmental Stewardship at Timberland.

Timberland, which operates in more than 20 countries all over the world, has long engaged in improving environmental standards in its operations and manufacturing.

“[Timberland] has this great outdoor culture, because we’re in the outdoor industry,” Blaisdell says of Timberland’s naturally green sensibility. “We recreate outdoors, we design products for consumers who love the outdoors.”

The company has a corporate-social responsibility ambassadorship program that focuses on environmental and community service initiatives, is pursuing LEED certification in its stores and is designing labeling information on materials used in its products.

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