What One Man's T-Shirt Test Says About Sustainability

For the past two years, startup founder Torleif Markussen Lunde created a quiet test of the sustainability of three comparable white t-shirts. The most expensive was a $92 shirt from Norwegian sustainability brand Livid. The second was a $12 shirt from Uniqlo. The third was a $7 shirt from H&M. Over two years, he washed and wore each shirt an average of 100 times. His experience was unexpected:

"Here’s the uncomfortable part: the shirt made with synthetic fibers, the one that might shed microplastics, is the most durable. The ones made from “natural” 100% cotton, including the one with sustainability claims stitched into its brand identity, wore out the fastest."

His overall winner, a t-shirt that wasn't actually part of the test, was a linen shirt from MCR in Italy that has lasted 20 years. The experiment led Lunde to ask the question of what sustainability actually means—a question we should all ask more often. Too often sustainability gets reduced to good storytelling and little more. The truth is messier. After his test and sharing what he learned, Lunde had this conclusion to offer:

"Maybe sustainability isn’t a label. Maybe it’s a practice. I want to shop better. I want to tread lightly. But I also want the truth. Not a campaign, or a claim. Just clothes that last. Because perhaps the most sustainable thing we can do is hold on to what we already have."