In today’s fashion economy, sustainability has become both a necessity and a narrative. The necessity is obvious if you’ve ever watched a white t-shirt age badly, but the narrative is far more curated.
Often, the sustainability narrative leans on branding more than behaviour. Collections are re-labelled or materials are swapped, but the volume doesn’t slow down. Real sustainability asks for less, and less is difficult to sell in an industry built on more.
For South African entrepreneur Jo Farah, that tension is the foundation on which he built The Lab, a company that has spent over a decade challenging one of fashion’s biggest blind spots: what happens after the purchase.
The Gap Sneaker Culture Created
Before founding The Lab, Farah was working in guerrilla marketing, collaborating with brands like Adidas and Puma while embedded in South Africa’s emerging sneaker scene. Through early spaces like Cape Town’s Shelf Life, he watched it accelerate in real time.
At the time, he wanted to build his own sneaker brand but manufacturing had largely moved offshore, and competing with global players meant entering a system already defined by scale. So he looked at the category differently.
Instead of adding another product into a crowded market, Farah focused on what was missing. Sneakers, he understood, were markers of identity, community, and cultural capital. But the way people cared for them hadn’t evolved. They were still cleaning their sneakers with whatever they could find in a supermarket aisle, often using harsh chemicals that damage both the product and the environment.
Farah set out to bridge that gap and make care part of the ownership experience. What followed was a new category designed specifically for the materials, construction, and emotional value of sneakers. Today, that thinking has expanded into a broader proposition featuring biotech-driven fashion care across apparel, headwear, and accessories.
What Sustainability Keeps Ignoring
Globally, the fashion industry contributes up to 8% of annual carbon emissions, with washing, drying, and garment care accounting for a meaningful share of a product’s impact. Yet care remains one of the least innovated categories in the value chain.
Where many brands communicate sustainability through branding, The Lab approaches it through material science and system design. At the core of its products is probiotic cleaning technology, a method that uses beneficial bacteria to break down dirt, oils, and odours at a microscopic level. Unlike traditional chemical cleaners, these microbes remain active after application, continuing to clean for up to 72 hours.
The brand refers to this as “intelligent cleaning”. It’s a system that not only cleans, but reduces the need for energy-intensive routines. Cleaning becomes less aggressive, less frequent, and less dependent on water and chemicals. Sneakers, accessories, and apparel last longer, not because they were made differently, but because they’re treated differently.
The Discipline of Staying Local
While The Lab now distributes across more than 60 countries, its operational model remains in South Africa, where approximately 90% of its products are manufactured.
The fashion industry has spent decades creating distance but when you keep manufacturing close, that separation disappears. You’re dealing directly with the realities of making it, scaling it, and sustaining it in real time. In South Africa, those realities are hard to ignore. Infrastructure isn’t always seamless and manufacturing capacity isn’t infinite.
But proximity also creates advantages by allowing for tighter quality control, faster feedback between idea and execution, and a clearer line of sight into how materials, labour, and cost interact. It also anchors growth locally, tying The Lab to job creation and skills development rather than exporting value elsewhere.
It points to a broader version of sustainability that’s not just about what something is made from, but also where it’s made, who makes it, and what it supports. What began as a niche solution for sneakerheads has evolved into a larger redefinition of care itself.
As the industry continues to confront its environmental footprint, one question is becoming harder to ignore: what if sustainability isn’t just about what we buy, but how we live with it?
To hear more on how these ideas play out in practice, listen to Jo Farah’s conversation
Science Meets Shoe Care & The Truth About Sustainability on the Made to Last podcast on Spotify, Apple Music, or YouTube.