Entrepreneur Spotlight: Amy Hall @ Social Consciousness of Eileen Fisher
This month our social entrepreneur spotlight is on Amy Hall, the director of Social Consciousness at Eileen Fisher. Hall guides the Eileen Fisher Company’s business responsibility, including supporting women through partnerships, ensuring that workers have a safe environment and fair pay, and focuses the company’s growing commitment to environmental sustainability for both their products and business practices.
Who is Amy Hall?
Amy Hall started working with Eileen Fisher 22 years ago following a fundraising career with various Asian-American cultural, educational, and social service organizations in New York City. She studied at Georgetown University for her B.A., received her M.A. from Teachers College and Columbia University, and obtained her MBA from Green Mountain College.
Her long career at Eileen Fisher is dedicated to business social responsibility, a position which did not exist before her, and she continues to pioneer the field with her dedication to business social accountability.
Social Consciousness Overview
Primarily, Social Consciousness is dedicated to three practices on Eileen Fisher’s website:
- Support women through social initiatives that address their well-being.
- Practice business responsibly with absolute regard for human rights.
- Guide our product and practice toward sustaining our environment.
Social Consciousness uses organic fibers and recycled fibers for materials, partners with manufacturers that offer certified dye processes and green cleaning, lowering the amount of shipping and store emissions, and supports organic farming. They also have a human rights program that enhances workers’ livelihood, and empowering them socially and economically in their areas.
“Our environmental vision is holistic,” says Shona Quinn, Sustainability Leader. “We believe in paying attention to what happens in the field, the dyehouse and our customers’ washing machines. Our goal is to design out negative impacts—and design in positive change.”
The Impact
Using improved water and chemical practices, Social Consciousness of Eileen Fisher has transformed the way they make silk, which accounts for 10% of the products, decreasing chemical use by 45% and water use by 25%.
In June 2011, Eileen Fisher’s distribution center in Secaucus, New Jersey, installed a 500-kilowatt solar system across the roof, producing 80% of the warehouse’s electricity needs. The amount of energy generated annually is equivalent to taking 36 cars off the road.
In 2013 at the WNSF Summit, Amy Hall revealed how Eileen Fisher is responding to the risks of climate change and opportunities through a long and durable process of adaptation with their latest initiative of the Social Consciousness brand called Green Eileen.
Credit: http://wnsf.net/
Green Eileen is a recycling program that collects and resells gently worn Eileen Fisher clothing to extend the life of the clothes and keep clothing out of landfills.
“In just three years, sales from our gently worn clothing [from the Green Eileen Program] have added up to $1.3 million in proceeds, all of which goes towards non-profit groups supporting Eileen Fisher,” Hall said.
Enhancing social and environmental well-being
Amy Hall is a pioneer in the fashion world as the director of Social Consciousness. Her team works hard to bring awareness about the amount of waste that happens in the fashion industry during production, the conditions that employees overseas work in, and has actively pursued ways to not only improve the quality of life, but reduce the amount of clothing that ends up in landfills.
Social Consciousness of Eileen Fisher enhances social and environmental well-being. For that, we applaud the Eileen Fisher Company’s commitment to change and credit Amy Hall for persuading a large clothing brand to take the leap to make the world a better place.
