Here at TS Designs we are all about sustainability. We focus on sustainability in our product, our business practices, and our final impact on the environment. However, there is only so much we can do, the rest of the environmental choices are up to the consumer. In a 2007 report commissioned by the Danish EPA, an environmental assessment was conducted on six textile products—one of those was the cotton t-shirt.

The report concluded that it is the consumer of the product that ultimately has the greatest impact on the environment—first by choosing an organic product, and then by washing as little as possible, drip-drying, and not ironing.

So if you have ever wondered what you can do for the environment, you can make informed decisions on how you launder your t-shirts. Here at TS Designs, we recommend you wash your clothes with cold water using environmentally friendly detergents and line-dry. According to the study, the consumer can reduce primary energy consumption by 70 percent by not tumble-drying. It is also important to simply wash less. The study concluded that by halving the amount of times you wash your t-shirt increases the life of the t-shirt by 50%.

If you want to reduce your impact, wear your t-shirt more than once before washing it and limit your use of your clothes dryer. Eric Henry, president of TS Designs said, “We are making a sustainable product, but the consumer in the long run has the greatest influence on the impact to the environment on how they care and dispose of it.”

To read the full report, click here.

Good morning, I am Eric Henry, President of TS Designs based in Burlington, NC.

Since NAFTA we have lost over 100,000 textile and apparel jobs in North Carolina.

At TS Designs we want to be a different company, a company based on a triple bottom line of People, Planet and Profit. We print t-shirts, 90% of them are domestically made and 60% are made in North Carolina.

North Carolina is the 4th largest grower of cotton in the US and we export 50% of that cotton, so last year we launched a new brand, Cotton of the Carolinas. The Cotton of the Carolinas shirt is grown, made, and sold entirely in North Carolina. Our t-shirts impacts 700 jobs in North Carolina at 6 different companies. We go from dirt to shirt in 750 miles when an average t-shirt can travel 17,000 miles!

It is the only apparel line that is completely transparent for the consumer all the way to the farmer. When you get one of our shirts you can connect directly to Ronnie Burleson, the cotton farmer, and the other 5 companies that are involved in making this t-shirt.

Our t-shirts do cost more, but hopefully one thing that we have learned from this record unemployment in a jobless recovery is that there is more than just low price.

For more information about Cotton of the Carolinas, go to the website. cottonofthecarolinas.com

Both Tom Sineath and Eric Henry here at TS Designs are committed to reconnecting their employees back to local food. It is better for them, their wallets, and the environment. TSD will be moving ahead with their community garden this year after a successful first year under the management of Glenn Kern. Glenn will be returning, but there will be a lot of changes for this season. This year, instead of volunteering, all employees will be required to work a half hour a week in the garden—they will be paid for their time, of course.

TSD lost the hoop house during a recent windstorm (see photo above), but that opened the door to bring in chickens. Ben Wright from Peacehaven Community Garden and Will Hooker, head of the Permaculture program at NC State, will help with the chicken endeavor. The plan is to start with about six chickens, which will be allowed to graze in the fallow rolls of the garden, contained in a fence, within the fenced garden.

Tom is working on updates to our greenhouse (see photo above), which should be complete by the end of January. After taking a refresher course at the fall conference of Carolina Farm Stewardship in Black Mountain, Eric is planning to dive into heirloom tomatoes this year. Partnering with Weston Monroe from Peacehaven, they will start the seeds next month in the greenhouse.

There will also be other changes in the garden this year, including improvements to the watering system, putting in individually controlled soaker hoses for each row. The deer fence will also be improved. Last year there were continuous issues with sections coming down, deer never got into the garden, but it is just a matter of time if the problem is not corrected. It should be a bumper crop at TSD this summer, come by and have lunch with us!

Eric Henry receive the Sustainability Champion Award from Sustainable North Carolina. The SNC Awards honor businesses, organizations, and individuals who have demonstrated leadership in promoting a sustainable economy in the state. Eric was one of two individuals who were selected as Sustainability Champion, an honor which recognizes individuals whose efforts are advancing sustainable “triple bottom line” approaches through creative leadership and dedication.

Eric is standing between Chuck Swoboda, CEO of Cree, and Katy Ansardi of Sustainable North Carolina after accepting his award.

It’s the most wonderful time of the year for our small business: healthcare shopping time! TS Designs is looking at yet another health insurance rate increase this year. The private sector healthcare system is not working for us.

Ever since Tom and I started the company we have offered our employees healthcare. We pay for 50% of the individual’s cost and as the years have gone by and rates have increased so have the number of employees who have had to drop out.

We’re getting squeezed from a couple directions. First, we are a very small group; less than 20 people compared to the 100+ employees we had before NAFTA. Second, we are an older group with some serious pre-existing conditions – even a COBRA ex-employee that has health issues in the family is hurting our rate. It looks like we will be staying with Blue Cross & Blue Shield North Carolina, the largest in our state.

BCBSNC is a nonprofit healthcare company but is making so much money on their plans they paid their CEO, Bob Greczyn, almost $4 million last year, a $750,000 raise from the year before. They are planning an 11% rate increase this year. Why not give that excess back to their customers?

I would have no problem with his compensation if this were a competitive market, but in the US healthcare is not competitive. We need to remove the exemption from anti-trust laws the healthcare companies enjoy. Traditional market competition ideals do not apply to an industry that bases its decisions on risk pooling. In our system, the goal of profit-driven healthcare companies is not to provide healthcare, but to deny as many claims as possible to maximize profit. As economist Paul Krugman wrote, “The most successful companies are those that do the best job of denying coverage to those who need it most.”

Unless something is done, healthcare at TS Designs, and thousands of other small businesses, will become a casualty. And we’ll all share in those losses since the health issues will not go away. The number of uninsured will rise, bankruptcies due to healthcare will increase, and healthcare costs themselves will continue to creep higher and higher.

We need a public option to bring competition to the healthcare industry. The healthcare industry and their lobbyists clearly have the bucks to compete with it.

by Eric Henry and Eric Michel
I recently celebrated the fifth anniversary of running my 2000 Volkswagen TDI on locally-made biodiesel. That’s over 100,000 miles on a fuel that was made from waste vegetable oil, collected from restaurants right here in Alamance County. People frequently ask me why I drive a foreign-made car when [...]

On Halloween, Tom and Eric were pleasantly surprised to receive the Business of the Year award from the Carolina Farm Stewardship Association.  CFSA promotes local and organic agriculture in the Carolinas by inspiring, educating, and organizing farmers and consumers.

Eric Henry has been invited to be the keynote speaker at UNCG’s Consumer, Apparel, and Retail Studies‘ Fall Symposium.
The focus of the symposium will be Sustainability, making Eric’s and TS Designs’ stories the perfect discussion-starter.
The event will be held from 2:00pm to 4:00pm on October 9th and is free to all visitors, so if you’re [...]