Rapanui has just won the UK 2010 Sustainable Business Awards and now employs 12 full time staff in its office in Bembridge. This achievement is even more remarkable considering the brand was founded with only $316 of savings in University halls; recognized when Rapanui won a runners-up place at the 2010 Enterprising Young Brits Awards. The Brothers’ ethos of ‘doing business the right way’ won them a finalist place at the 2010 RSPCA Good Business Awards. Rapanui was set up by brothers Mart and Rob Drake-Knight in early 2008 now aged 23 and 25 respectively. Through surfing they saw and experienced the changing environment and climate at their local beach and as inspired, unemployed graduates in a recession, they took a different path; if you can’t find a job, make one. The aim still is to inform through the brand and mix eco with trend – to make it fashionable for people to go green.
Rapanui makes clothing from natural organic fabrics in a Fair Trade audited, wind powered factory. They say it’s not that people don’t care about child labor, the environment, our climate, it’s just they don’t know. They make it easier for people to see where clothing comes from and how it is made so they can make informed choices. It’s called Traceability. The brand’s forte is its radical approach to Sustainability: Rapanui take a total life cycle approach to their product’s human, environmental and climatic impact, and address each aspect. This is not a clothing company ticking the green box. This is a company aiming to change the entire fashion industry. Rapanui uses Certified Organic fabrics, Fair-Trade labor and Renewable Energy.
Rapanui has held Seminars and Lectures at UK and EU universities and multinational companies such as Centrica PLC on Sustainable Business and sit on the Panel at Plymouth University’s All our Futures Conference. These events have helped Rapanui share their Eco-Labelling idea, a way of packaging textiles products to communicate the effects caused by their buying action, essentially a way of forcing and regulating transparent business ethics in textiles. Rapanui also hosts the national petition for Textiles Eco-Labelling at 10 Downing Street. Rob and Martin Drake-Knight are listed on the Future 100 List of Top young Ethical Entrepreneurs.