Who is Westerlund?
Add business legend to the long list of accolades bestowed by the media on the 30-year-old entrepreneur of Swedish origins, including inventor, circular sneaker pioneer, and social impact hero. His crowdfunding campaign, which aided in the launch of his business, raised $10,000 in 15.5 hours and ended at around $30,000.
The trained psychologist, who has also lived in Singapore, Ireland, Germany, and Switzerland, earned his master’s and bachelor’s degrees from the University of Luxembourg and the University of Gothenburg respectively, and says his entrepreneurial journey began with a simple desire to make an impact in the circular economy. The volume of plastic waste ending up on the shores and the non-stop annual community clean-up exercises that never seemed to make it all go away sparked his idea.
“One year, I was just looking on my feet, and I remember thinking, ‘hey, why am I cleaning up plastic while also wearing plastic.’ I think that we can do better and that’s why I started and that’s why I did the campaign. I was like ‘I'm going to be the greatest eco entrepreneur the world has ever seen.’ That was my mindset, and it still is.”
Little did he know that just a few months later, his brand would attract a consumer base from over 24 different countries in a crowdfunding exercise, couples would choose to get married in his sustainable sneakers, or that his entrepreneurial process would become a topic of interest for students in India, and would grow to include more fashion items made from sustainable raw materials.
“It's less about the buzzwords [but] going back to basics, going back to quality and the circular economy… I can measure the CO2 impact of a pair of sneakers, but to shift mindsets and to affect people on the other side of the globe and their behaviours. I mean, we can't measure that impact,” says Westerlund.
Westerlund was one of the winners of Luxinnovation’s inaugural Circular by Design challenge. His resilience in the face of the pandemic, as well as his sustainable brand, earned him a “coup de coeur” sustainability award from Junior Chamber International Luxembourg in December 2021. Among other awards, he also won EY’s Circular Economy Startup Series.
From psychologist to business mogul
The transition from his academic studies to the establishment of his business was always intuitive. He explains that having a degree in psychology meant thinking of ways to solve problems, and he chose to build his circular business using the value hill model. But his ultimate goal has always been to influence consumer behaviour.
“If you think about [our] behaviour around products, we’re affected by so many different things--personality, marketing, moods, etc.-- and I would say it's the most complex piece of psychology, and it always interested me a lot,” he explains.
He attributes a portion of his success to the University of Luxembourg, citing key resources such as the Incubator and Entrepreneurship Programme, as well as the dynamic multicultural context that ticked all his boxes.
However, he adds that he didn’t know about these entrepreneurship possibilities when he first moved to Luxembourg. “It was something that I discovered [later] and that I'm super happy with.”
Our Choice: combatting fast fashion with high quality and ethics
The rule of the game for Our Choice is to prioritise the planet and people over profit. The brand's products are made from circular raw materials and are free of plastic. For the lining, the brand, for example, uses Italian calf leather, a byproduct of the Italian food industry, 100% natural rubber for outsoles, coconut fibre for insoles, and eco-cotton laces.
“Every material is of premium quality,” he emphasises. The sneakers are also made to be durable and easily repaired, upgraded, recycled, or upcycled. There is also the option of reselling the sneakers on the secondhand market if a customer no longer wishes to wear them.
All of these options increase the estimated seven-year lifespan of a pair of Our Choice sneakers, compared to the industry average of three to twelve months, which Westerlund explains is caused by some manufacturers’ use of low-quality materials that wear out quickly and tend to break easily when damaged. To avoid waste, the brand produces custom-made items on-demand, with all production taking place in a partner factory in Portugal.
Every pair of sneakers, I see as an intervention.
By re-directing priorities to focus on more quality, functionality, and ethics, he explains that the industry’s fast-fashion standard can be challenged, as most unethical brands already spend a substantial portion of their budget on brand and retail markups, whereas this cost could be re-directed to prioritise sustainable and ethical fashion standards, which dedicate the majority of their costs to things like labour and quality materials to the benefit of the consumer.
The brand has also expanded its product line to include card holders made from other food industry byproducts, such as upcycled fish skin that would otherwise be discarded, and he plans to expand the brand’s offering in the future.
Still to come…
The brand’s next steps will be to expand its partnerships, drive B2B operations, boost co-branding and other special initiatives, and grow its product range following customer input on what they’d like to see.
“We’ve taken an interesting step in expanding and working with other retailers and with other web shops. And I think that’s also been a process for us. I call myself a circular economy activist. I still am. But I can also see that it’s about collaboration and I want people to buy less.”
The brand has sold approximately 800 circular products, including hundreds of sneakers, to customers ranging in age from 14 to 81 years.
The most difficult challenge encountered
As an entrepreneur, Westerlund highlights two major challenges that most fashion entrepreneurs face. First, managing a capital-intensive business without going into debt, and then pacing oneself in an evolving business context.
“Starting a fashion company is very difficult… It is really like planting a seed and you need to watch it grow. I’m very proud to have met that challenge and be able to showcase organic growth in a country like Luxembourg, even though we’re global,” he says.
Advice for aspiring young entrepreneurs on their first steps
“Just start. Starting also means that you need to stop overthinking, so just start and then look after yourself, because if you burn out, nothing will happen. You can ask for advice for years and years and do market research but be aware that the market moves on. If you have a momentum, work with that momentum, and you learn as you grow. [Also] celebrate your mistakes, there’s no shame in that.”