THE CHALLENGE
We identified that, currently, in the Fashion Industry, the shoppers are confused about the Circular Economy concept and it is quite difficult to know if a specific product has been designed and manufactured following circular economy standards. The challenge was to create a new concept that could help to communicate this feature to the shoppers, as well as raise awareness about sustainability for the whole value chain of the fashion-industry.

THE SOLUTION
The Vegan Sheep is a newly created concept with the objective to help identify sustainable products in the Fashion Industry, and more importantly, to help the shoppers understand why. It gets inspiration in other existing rating systems in other industries, such as in the food or the film industry, that guide and help consumers decide what product to purchase. This new concept includes an all-digital auto-rating system for sustainable products, and some cool, fresh and carefully designed icons. 
The Vegan Sheep rates products, not brands, with a quick, easy and transparent digital form, and we think it is ideal for companies creating sustainable products for the fashion industry, because you can download the results and share them in your social media, or directly on the label attached to your product. On top of it, we offer a whole range of digital-marketing services for fashion brands to maximise your communication efforts in your go-to-market plan. These services include, for example, visual identity or advanced AI tools specifically designed to maximise your impact on the social networks.
We decided to launch a rating system to promote this essential feature, and also to try to help companies making an extra effort launching sustainable collections to the market. The WORTH project (https://www.worthproject.eu/) has helped us to connect with industry experts that have provided advice to focus the concept and to correctly define the rating parameters. If you want to know more and help us, please visit: TheVeganSheep.com

THE IDEA
Although Andrej and myself (Ander) did not know each other before participating in the 3rd call of the WORTH project, found that it was quite exciting to try to find innovation though a creative process and trying to find collisions with our backgrounds. Sustainability is clearly one of Europe’s main challenges and decided to try to find a simple solution that can contribute to solve a complex problem. Although our background is not in fashion, we thought that we could contribute to raise awareness about the circular economy in the fashion industry from our design, marketing and technological expertise. Our first idea was to develop a similar concept such as the existing rating systems for the film industry and bring this concept to the fashion industry. A rating system that can help consumers to identify good sustainable products to buy based on the opinions on other shoppers. This idea evolved through the creative process, the market test and thanks to the valuable guidance of our mentors until we decided to name this new concept “The Vegan Sheep”, as an inspiration from the word baumwolle, which means cotton in German. The Vegan sheep includes an all-digital auto-rating system for sustainable products, and some cool, fresh and carefully designed icons. The inception of The Vegan Sheep is full of funny moments, and we hope that you also enjoy them when you recognise it out there.

THE BIRTH OF THE PROJECT
Sustainability is little by little becoming a standard demand from the fashion consumers and shoppers, and we found that it is quite difficult to know if a garment has been made using sustainable criteria or not. It is also confusing, because some brands do promote themselves as sustainable, although it is not very clear what a sustainable brand means, not to speak about how difficult is to find the label where it says so, or the complex world of certifications. We believe that it is essential to help the customers with essential information about the sustainability standards for the products they buy and also try to raise awareness about sustainability by helping the fashion brands designing with sustainable criteria to differentiate their products. All this in a simple way. The Vegan Sheep is an all-digital auto-rating system for fashion products (not brands!). It is very easy to use and the idea is that you go through a quick and transparent rating system based on 12 main sustainable criteria for fashion. It takes around 3 mins to get your results and then, depending on your score, you get a specific icon that you can share in the social media, display it on the label of your product, or on your e-commerce platform.

THE CREATIVE PROCESS
We tested the market, and found that the early stage fashion brands working with sustainable products find difficulties to certificate their garments or other products as such, and that there is a bit of confusion between the final customers and also inside the industry about what is a sustainable product, or even a sustainable brand. It is common to find confusing messages about sustainability, more in line with the marketing strategy of the main players than with their actual manufacturing policy. This are the grounds where The Vegan Sheep was born. We have explored and found inspiration in other rating systems designed for other industries. One of the main challenges has been to develop a concept that is useful for companies manufacturing sustainable products, but also taking into account that we would like to interact and engage with the final customers looking for sustainable products.

THE COLLABORATION
International collaboration is always an enriching experience. We found an interesting match between Andrej’s experience and expertise as a designer and digital marketing and myself that I am currently leading Tagenea, a newly created technological organization developing advanced electronics tags and software intelligence. We decided to go ahead with the project and try to launch a radical new concept. The Vegan Sheep is the result.

THE FUTURE
Although we are new in the fashion industry, we are here to contribute as much as we can, so are looking forward to receiving feedback, learn, improve and build community. We believe that the technology is a key tool in order to raise awareness about sustainability in the fashion industry.

THE MESSAGE
Please, send us your comments/feedback directly to: hello@thevegansheep.com or if you want to know more and help us, please visit TheVeganSheep.com