Gonzalo Pertile is a year into his role as vice president of sustainability at Theory. So far, much of his time at the New York-based brand has been dedicated to flatulent sheep.
“Our emissions footprint is the largest in Scope 3,” he explains, when we meet at the brand’s headquarters in June. “Within that, raw materials account for most of our emissions, so we knew we had to work with our supply chain partners to address this at the farm level.” First on the list was wool, one of Theory’s most-used materials, alongside cotton, flax-linen, leather, cashmere, and cellulosics. And one of the primary concerns with wool? The methane emissions sheep leak when they fart, which can be 86 times more potent than carbon dioxide in the short term.
Theory recently concluded the second phase of a pilot program with Australian supplier Congi Farm, which it has been helping get certified by regenerative agriculture body RegenAgri. In a bid to drive down the amount (and potency) of methane that sheep emit, Congi Farm fed them seaweed tablets, developed by environmental technology company Sea Forest. The initial results showed promise: the seaweed tablets made up just 1% of the sheep’s diet, but reduced methane emissions by up to 43%. So Theory scaled the pilot from 2,000 sheep on Congi Farm (the wool from which is already available in-store) to 10,000 sheep across four farms. “Now, we’re waiting for the third-party verification of phase two, to see how the methane emission reductions scaled,” says Pertile. “We’re pretty excited.”
Regenerative wool products from the methane pilot are already available in Theory stores.Photo: Courtesy of Theory
The methane project is part of Theory’s decarbonization strategy, says Pertile. The brand is hoping to transition half of all materials to low-emission alternatives by 2030 — defined as materials that generate at least 30% lower greenhouse gas emissions than conventional materials. This might mean moving from conventional cotton to organic or regenerative, swapping conventional synthetics to certified recycled, or investing in wool with lower methane emissions.
Theory is starting with its signature fabrics. The wool program is already underway, combining the methane project with Congi Farm’s bid to become certified for regenerative wool. Now, Pertile is turning his attention to cotton. In Peru, Theory is working with its three largest cotton suppliers to accelerate the transition to regenerative agriculture practices. “Peru is one of our most significant sourcing regions for cotton. We have nominated one cotton farm [from which] we want to source 60% of our Peruvian cotton from by fall 2027, and we are supporting that farm to transition to regenerative agriculture, certified by a third party,” Pertile explains. “We are starting with cotton in Peru, but the idea is to scale this across fibers.”
Specific farm-level projects are crucial to making sustainability happen, but they won’t be enough on their own. “We also have public-facing goals related to our greenhouse gas emissions, which are very much in line with the science-based targets that have been approved for our parent company,” says Pertile, referring to Fast Retailing, which also owns Uniqlo, Gu, J Brand, Helmut Lang, PLST, Princesse Tam Tam, and Comptoir des Cotonniers.
