Fibershed’s Evolution
Stitching Together Fibershed’s History
For more than a decade, Fibershed has been working to build an environmentally equitable textile model from the ground up. Over the course of the past 10+ years, Fibershed has studied and analyzed the existing textile system, documenting its shortcomings, missed opportunities, and harms. Simultaneously, we have forged connections and collaborations with a diverse network of partners, producers, brands, and artisans, all with a shared objective of reshaping our fiber system. Through this work to understand how Fibershed can provide an essential human need — clothing — Fibershed has propelled the development of a fiber system characterized by ecosystem health and a steadfast commitment to equity.
This is Fibershed’s evolution—from the initial idea taking root, to its growth as a sapling, and finally, to its current standing as a robust presence deeply embedded in regional fiber systems that nurture soil health and safeguard our planet.
A Seed Is Planted: The Origins of Fibershed (2011)
In 2011, Fibershed Executive Director Rebecca Burgess had a simple idea: wear clothing made only from materials grown, woven, and sewn in her local area of North Central California. As she connected with ranchers, farmers, and artisans, she discovered an abundance of raw materials right in her community, laying the foundation for a new regional textile economy focused on mitigating climate change and regenerating soil health.
Rebecca’s project introduced the concept of a “fibershed,” bringing together farmers, ranchers, designers, sewers, weavers, knitters, felters, spinners, mill owners, and natural dyers, all deeply connected to and knowledgeable about their local landscapes.
During this same period, Fibershed hosted its first fashion gala to showcase soil-to-soil fashion, encouraging designers to use locally grown and dyed garments that represent the region. These events became core to Fibershed’s philosophy, celebrating and educating the community about the importance of using natural, local resources to create clothing as a sustainable alternative to ‘fast fashion,’ supporting local artisans, farmers, ranchers, and the well-being of the community.
Rooting Down and Expanding: Fibershed Nonprofit Founded (2013)
Under Rebecca’s direction, Fibershed was founded to provide transformational leadership in developing regional and regenerative fiber systems. Fibershed nurtures a network of regional producers to incorporate carbon farming while strengthening sustainable regional economics and textile communities. Integral to Fibershed’s mission is to educate and enable other grassroots networks. Today, more than 71 Fibershed Affiliates across the world are actively working on their own soil-to-soil textile model. Fibershed provides direct financial support, resources, and amplification to this network of place-based leaders, all of whom have a unique and inspiring story to tell.
Envisioning the Future: Wool Feasibility Study (2013)
As the movement to regionalize clothing production grew, so did the need to enable clothing and textile production in a vertically integrated supply chain. Partnering with engineers and textile specialists, Fibershed produced the California Wool Mill Feasibility Study, outlining a viable regional milling economy fueled by local wool resources. The study addressed the challenge that only .03% of California’s wool is currently being processed within the state, and yet California remains a net importer of wool goods. Fibershed constructed a roadmap for a closed-loop mill design utilizing renewable energy, water recycling, and composting systems, created to support local farms and ranches while providing livelihoods and ecologically sensitive, regional goods.
Restoring Soil Health: Climate BeneficialTM Agriculture (2015)
Fibershed’s goal to restore ecosystem health and stabilize our climate continues to be realized through the development and expansion of the Climate BeneficialTM Agriculture program. In 2015, Fibershed designed the Climate BeneficialTM Verification program, which offers both direct technical and financial support to farmers and ranchers to implement carbon farming practices. The monitoring and measurement tools include a combination of direct measurement, dynamic environmental systems models, and satellite systems. These tools are used to annually track and verify the continual improvement and innovative work that our producer community has embarked upon to stabilize our climate while producing high-quality fiber and food.
Since 2016, the Climate BeneficialTM program has awarded more than $308,506 to 75 carbon farming projects, impacting 14,552 acres and sequestering an estimated 23,677 MT C02e over the next 20 years.
Resilience in Practice: Re-integrating Animals into Cropping Systems (2016)
Building the resilience of our working landscapes in the face of a changing climate and catastrophic fire — all while generating new jobs — was the central question to research Fibershed initiated in 2016. Fibershed set out to study the benefits of re-integrating animals into croplands and understand how this management strategy could improve our stewardship practices and build long-term climate resilience. Fibershed partnered with the Plant Sciences Department at UC Davis and co-hired a PhD candidate who conducted seminal research on the soil health and ecosystem dynamic benefits of integrating livestock into perennial cropping systems.
The research led to the development of business curricula for contract graziers, a suite of Spanish-language grazier trainings, and an ecosystem service credit for sheep in vineyards. It also provided a critical baseline that led to the release of two peer-reviewed papers, a short film, and inspired long-standing research, education, and demonstrated commitment to increasing the integration of animals into croplands. For a synopsis of the beneficial agroecological outcomes of integrating sheep into vineyard systems, explore the study by Brewer et al.
Growing Blue: Indigo Processing (2017)
In 2017, Fibershed began working on an indigo processing system through the “True Blue” project. This initiative involved field research on climate beneficialTM farming practices, assessing current dye methods (both synthetic and natural), and conducting a detailed analysis of planting, harvesting, and pigment extraction from plant-based indigo sources. The findings were shared with the public through three accessible reports, contributing to open-source education in natural fiber systems and advancing textile research.
The success of the indigo research was accompanied by Fibershed’s “Grow Your Jeans” project, focusing on creating locally sourced denim. This project involved prototyping 18 pairs of pants, culminating in a fashion show and gala. Designers collaborated with local fiber farmers and ranchers to craft unique garments featuring materials from the region, complementing the locally sourced and made jeans showcased at the event.
Weaving Relationships: Community-Supported Cloth (2017)
Inspired by models of direct connectivity and upfront investment, Fibershed facilitated a reinvention of the supply chain from the ground up. Community members reserved yardage of a forthcoming Climate BeneficialTM cloth, including a margin to reinvest directly in soil health building practices. More than 100 buyers committed to that first production, igniting a Community-Supported cloth program that continues today.
Growing Manufacturing with the Regional Fiber Manufacturing Initiative (2019)
The Regional Fiber Manufacturing Initiative provided legal, financial, alternative business models, and engineering technical assistance to multiple regional entrepreneurs who have gone on to develop natural fiber businesses within our community and in different regions within the U.S.
Spreading Knowledge: Fibershed Learning Center (2020)
Fibershed opened the Learning Center, a multi-use space that includes a hands-on lab, a small farm, and multiple demonstration sites. The Fibershed Learning Center enables the community to connect to regional and regenerative fiber and dyes, host hands-on workshops to exchange knowledge and expertise, demonstrate and test nature dye and fiber growing systems, and unify a community of learners and advocates. Both a living lab and resource center, the space is actively evolving in collaboration with regional partners.
Illustrating the Path Forward: Fiber Visions (2020)
Fiber Visions was a first-of-its-kind project that modeled opportunities to produce material goods grounded in seasonal cycles, ecological restoration, and fair jobs. This project examines the principles underlying Indigenous stewardship to foster a new vision for human-nature relationships. Fiber Visions explores wool, cotton, and dogbane processing in Northern and Central California using illustrations that offer an ambitious but achievable vision for fiber systems in California.
Scaling Solutions: California Cotton & Climate Initiative (2021)
Fibershed helped launch the California Cotton & Climate Coalition (C4) by inviting all stakeholders from seed to product to join us in this effort to forge a path for farm-forward Climate BeneficialTM sourcing to become the norm. All C4 partners are working within the coalition to build the expertise to design textiles in this way.
Extending Impact: National Climate Beneficial Fiber Partnership (2022)
In collaboration with five partners, Fibershed was awarded $30 million from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to scale the Climate BeneficialTM fiber program over the next five years. The project will expand regional capacity for Carbon Farm Planning, directly fund producers to carry out carbon farming projects, and create an open-source Carbon Farm Planning and Verification Online Portal, integrating carbon farm planning, carbon drawdown calculations, mapping, and producer-specific practice monitoring.
