Sustainable Branded Merch
The most sustainable merch is the merch that was never overproduced.
Recycled materials matter. Not making the units nobody ordered matters more. Brikl's on-demand model produces only what gets ordered — so sustainability is built into the supply chain, not bolted on at the end.
Recycled fabrics and water-based inks are real progress. But in branded merch they solve the second problem, not the first. The biggest environmental cost isn’t what a product is made of — it’s making products nobody ends up wanting.
Traditional merch runs on minimums: order 500, guess the sizes, hand out 300, bin the rest. The greenest hoodie in the world still has a footprint if a third of the run is never worn. Brikl produces only what’s ordered — so the waste never gets made.
73%
of material entering clothing is landfilled or incinerated
~70%
of fashion’s emissions are locked in before an item is ever used or sold
44%
higher impact from mass production vs. on-demand, in a 2026 life-cycle study
8×
less carbon per remembered impression than digital advertising
Every figure on this page comes from independent, published research — sources below.
On-demand removes the waste at the source
If an item is only made after it's ordered, the overproduced-and-discarded category simply doesn't exist.
No overproduction
Every piece is made after it’s ordered. With no minimum order quantities, nothing is produced on a forecast that turns out wrong.
No deadstock
Zero inventory means nothing sits in a warehouse going obsolete — no boxes of wrong-size shirts or dated logos to write off.
No sizing guesswork
Each item is made to an actual person’s choice, so there are no unworn sizes left over at the end of a run.
No leftover event run
Nothing is produced ahead of demand, so there’s no surplus from the order you rounded up “just in case.”
In merch, the surplus has a name: unwanted swag
The waste isn’t really about materials — it’s mismatch. Bulk ordering forces guesses about who wants what, in which size, in what quantity, and every wrong guess becomes waste no fabric choice can undo. Consumers say the top reasons branded products get tossed are simply that they aren’t useful (38%) or are poor quality (27%).
On-demand removes the guess: people order what they want, in the size they want, and it's made for them.
7 in 10
employees say their last piece of company swag missed the mark — they'd have chosen something else, already had something similar, or simply didn't want it.
Materials, stacked on top
On-demand handles the surplus; sustainable materials and methods handle what remains. Reduce what you make first — then lower the impact of what you do make.
Lower-impact materials
A conventional cotton tee carries a ~2,700-litre water footprint. Recycled and lower-impact options are also what customers ask for most — over two-thirds name them their top sustainability preference.
Lower-impact decoration
Independent research by VTT, Finland’s national research institute, found digital textile printing has a markedly lower environmental footprint — including lower water use — than conventional screen printing.
Longevity
Well-made merch gets kept and used, and use is a lever: extending a garment’s active life by nine months cuts its carbon, water and waste footprints by around 20–30% each (WRAP).
What we do — and don't — claim
We’d rather be precise than sweeping. On-demand production isn’t carbon-free; every physical product has a footprint, and the largest part of it — the raw material — is shared with conventional production. What on-demand removes is the avoidable layer: the overproduction, the deadstock, the guessed sizes, the unwanted swag, and the destroyed inventory that’s endemic to bulk manufacturing.
And we don’t claim materials don’t matter. They do. The argument is about sequence: don’t overproduce, then make what you produce as low-impact as possible. Get those in order and the reductions are real.
New to the category? Start with what branded merch is, see how on-demand fulfillment works, or browse eco-material options in the marketplace.
Sources & references (10)
- 1. Ellen MacArthur Foundation, “A New Textiles Economy: Redesigning Fashion’s Future” (2017).
- 2. McKinsey & Company and Global Fashion Agenda, “Fashion on Climate” (2020).
- 3. Hester, van der Velden & Vogtländer, life-cycle assessment of on-demand vs mass production, “Textiles” (MDPI, 2026).
- 4. ASI & PPAI, carbon-footprint study modelled by 51toCarbonZero (Bureau Veritas-certified, ISO 14067-aligned) (2026).
- 5. PPAI, “The Things We Don’t Throw Away” — why branded merch is kept or discarded (2026).
- 6. SwagDrop, “Company Swag Study 2026” — survey of 2,500 employees.
- 7. Water Footprint Network — Chapagain et al., “The water footprint of cotton consumption” (2006).
- 8. PPAI, “Product Power 2026: What Consumers Want Next” (2025).
- 9. VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, “Environmental performance of future digital textile printing” (2014).
- 10. WRAP, “Valuing Our Clothes: The Cost of UK Fashion” (2017, updated 2024).
Build merch that doesn't end up in landfill
Launch on-demand stores that produce only what's ordered.