Martini Trust Pledges to Match Remake Donations Through the End of the Year

From November 1st to December 31st, The Martini Education & Opportunity Trust will be matching donations to Remake through the #GiveYourValues campaign if a target goal of $100,000 is reached.

The Martini Education & Opportunity Trust works “to provide holistic education opportunities to students and young business professionals as they lead the transformation of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) structures worldwide.” Or, in the words of founder Brent Martini, the trust seeks to “put wind in the sails of changemakers.”

In a Remake interview with Martini, he stated that his goal is ”to help individuals learn to effectively influence companies and organizations that already exist within the fashion sector” and equip individuals with what he refers to as “changemaker expertise.” Remake, he believes, can do this.

“I believe in their cause. I believe in their leader. I believe in the enthusiasm and passion that thousands of young people have to make this industry better.”

Martini notes that it is his intention is to motivate “people who are doing great things,” and that one of those individuals is Remake’s founder, Ayesha Barenblat, whom he met at a sustainability event at Stanford University. He said of Remake and Barenblat, “I believe in their cause. I believe in their leader. I believe in the enthusiasm and passion that thousands of young people have to make this industry better.”

Barenblat’s “Movement,” as he calls it, inspired him due to its “purpose-driven nature” to change “that which already exists within the fashion sector,” including the behavior of brands that may be engaged in behavior that is negatively impacting people or the planet. He remarked that “we should be able to influence fashion because it is a consumptive industry” that continues to impact aspects of ESG structures globally, and therefore, he wants to “invest in the future of fashion by doing what [he] can to help Ayesha and her team.”

Through an ongoing relationship between the Martini Trust and Remake, Martini hopes to educate young individuals in business on the “competencies around how to be as effective as possible at making change” while “tailoring the changemaker journey to Remake and the fashion industry,” thus equipping individuals with the skill set to be better advocates for ethical, sustainable, and transparent fashion. Through an understanding of business metrics and sustainability, Martini believes that young people will have the skills to influence organizations into creating positive change both corporately and within their supply chains.

Through the #GiveYourValues campaign, we hope to raise funds in order to maintain Remake’s impact in creating a more transparent and accountable fashion industry. Donations are essential in building our advocacy movement, as our organization has pledged to take no corporate money as a 501C3 non-profit. Citizen donations assist us in maintaining an impactful and honest approach to our work in the industry, and they allow us to continue to do the “great things” that Martini has mentioned.

Just this year, we made a substantial impact in the renewal of the The Bangladesh Accord on Fire and Building Safety and the passage of The Garment Worker Protection Act (Senate Bill 62) through our online and in-person activism. This legal agenda is an essential step forward in the elimination of human rights violations in garment manufacturing. Furthermore, Remake’s #NoNewClothes campaign, which asked participants to buy only secondhand clothing or none at all in order to reset their relationships with fashion, saved 18,587,740 gallons of water, prevented 7,187,434 lbs of CO2 emissions and 26,267 lbs of waste from entering the landfill, and left a total of $294,121 in 1,297 participants’ pockets.

Furthermore, since the start of the pandemic, we outwardly championed the #PayUp campaign, gathering 272,327 signatures and leading the way in pressuring brands to unlock $22 billion for unpaid garment orders that had been previously cancelled. Building on the success of this, we launched #PayUpFashion, a movement that goes one step further in demanding a better future for fashion through the follow seven action items:

1) #PayUp, and/or honor factory contracts in order to pay garment makers (and ultimately prevent them from going hungry).

2) Keep workers safe by protecting their basic human rights and labor rights.

3) Go transparent by “providing annual data on where their clothes are made” and reveal how much workers are paid.

4) Give workers center stage through unionized factories in brand supply chains and “brand-funded major coalitions, organizations, and conferences” to ensure shaping “fair representation of women worker voices.”

5) Sign enforceable contracts that can, and will, hold retailers and brands accountable for human rights and labor rights abuses.

6) End starvation wages in order to help “lift workers out of poverty,” reducing the commonality of starvation and homelessness among garment workers.

7) Help pass laws that “support rather than thwart the work of citizens and government to reform corporate power, labor laws, and trade deals” within the fashion industry.

Aside from our activism, we have taken pride in our ability to be an educational resource for the public through our social media accounts and website. Our network of contributors and over 1,000 ambassadors around the globe assist in arming others with knowledge about the injustices in fashion, which is essential in continuing to grow our Movement.

By donating to the #GiveYourValues campaign, you are driving fashion towards a more sustainable and transparent future, free of labor and environmental injustices.

We thank the The Martini Education & Opportunity Trust for its partnership with us in the #GiveYourValues campaign and its generous support of our ever-growing community.