in October 2022. “We don’t ever bring something to market that isn’t better than the incumbent,” Greg Taylor, Step One, founder and CEO told Inside Retail. This commitment led Taylor to create the world’s most ethical seamless underwear made out of natural bamboo fibre in 2017 – a task with many challenges and pain points. “When I started this company, I couldn’t get an investor to save my life,” Taylor said. “I’d raised $10 or $15 million in previous businesses, I’d had a guy invest in every one of my businesses.” But even after selling 5000 pairs of Step One underwear and offering the investor a 30 per cent stake in the company for $30, 000, Taylor was met with a lukewarm response along the lines of, “Look, mate, you just got lucky”. Struggling to get investors for the first few years of the business, Step One didn’t hold stock until its repeat customer rate reached 40 to 50 per cent daily; at this point, Taylor knew he was onto something with the product. The business’s second-largest shareholder—a lawyer and business partner of Taylor’s posed the question, “Mate, have you ever thought about going public?” Taylor had a knee-jerk response: “Yeah, but you’re going to need a new CEO because I’m not being a public company CEO,” he said. “He wrote down a number and said this is what you’d get off the table.” Going public and prioritising the triple bottom line Going public and prioritising the social and environmental impact of the business alongside delivering positive shareholder outcomes is what Taylor calls the secret sauce of Step One. In October 2021, Step One launched its IPO and on November 1, the business was listed on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX), raising $81.3 million. However, this was not Taylor’s preferred way of raising capital to grow the business initially. However, Step One has proven that it’s possible to have commercial success without sacrificing environmental and ethical standards, as evidenced by the brand’s recent certifications.  FSC and COC certification is a formalised measure of Step One’s commitment to preventing deforestation, supporting fair wages and safe work environments in its entire supply chain, and a commitment to supporting local communities in its apparel production. This means that the business’s 56 sub-suppliers can be spot audited at any moment and its entire supply chain sets a gold standard in the sector, from processing the raw materials to making the finished goods. It also requires total transparency. “FSC certification lists every one of your supply chains for people to look up; that’s something you’d normally keep so secret,” Taylor said. The business has patents in place to protect its intellectual property, but Taylor said he hopes other industry players benefit from its transparency when it comes to the supply chain. “I actually hope people use it because then it will shine a light on the fact we have one planet,” Taylor said. “I’ve been into factories and seen kids working. “To think a child could be sitting there making underwear, hiding in a room — it’s heartbreaking,” he added. Ensuring this doesn’t happen in Step One’s supply chain is what guides Taylor’s decision-making, despite the fact that these ESG initiatives represent a financial investment for the business. “This does cost the business money, but it’s non-negotiable because this is what we’re doing, so if you’re on board with that, great – it’s not for everyone, but a lot of funds nowadays won’t invest unless you have these [standards],” he said. “Out of my own pocket, it probably cost me $2 million,” he said, noting that he started investing in these areas before going public. “I didn’t know I was going public, but I did it because I wanted to do the right thing.” Step One produces a mere 1 per cent of the business’s overall carbon emissions, the remaining 99 per cent come from other players up and down the supply chain. “There’s actually not a lot more we could physically do to reduce our carbon footprint, but now we’re looking at not only being carbon neutral but how to be carbon positive,” Taylor said. “What people don’t know is that digital services and advertising accounts for 15 per cent of carbon [emissions], everyone talks about how good AI is, but people don’t realise the carbon it emits to power it.” Community engagement and social responsibility Step One recently launched a collaboration with Surf Life Saving Australia (SLSA) that brought over 10,000 new customers to the business and drove a significant donation to SLSA, with $5 from every pair sold donated directly to the not-for-profit organisation. However, in order to use the SLSA logo on the collaboration collection, Step One had to complete a 90-page document detailing its supply chain. “I was like, this is going to take us a year to fill out,” Taylor said.  Instead, he said, “I’ve got this, [FSC certificate], will this work? And it just went straight through.”  “I believe in doing the right thing, but I also truly believe that in turn, it will return a commercial benefit,” Taylor said. “Obviously the commercial side of the business has to make money but if you can do it, whilst having a good community impact it just creates this flywheel.”