Christian Jermyn, ESG director of Cornish fashion brand Seasalt, shares how the retailer has embedded sustainability into everyday decision-making; that modesty can be a communications challenge; and why the UK fashion sector needs greater investment in circularity. 

For many retailers, sustainability is still treated as a separate workstream something to be consulted on once a product, store or logistics decision has already been made. At Seasalt Cornwall, Jermyn says the opposite is true. 

When joining the fashion retailer, he discovered that the business didn’t need sustainability to be bolted on, it was already deeply woven into how Seasalt operates. 

“It’s quite odd being a sustainability professional,” he says. “When I came in, the biggest challenge was to identify how integrated it was, because the brand didn’t understand how integrated it was.” 

He explains that areas such as responsible fabrics, circularity, ethical trading and energy procurement were already part of the retailer’s commercial rhythm, rather than projects sitting outside the core business. 

“It took me a long time to identify that the reason why it wasn’t spoken about was because it wasn’t something else. It was already integrated,” notes Jermyn.  

That level of assimilation means ESG is not brought in at the end of a decision-making process, he argues, but is considered by teams across the business from the start. 

“It’s not like a trade decision or a retail decision or a shop or a logistics decision, and then, ‘Oh, we should speak to ESG,’” he notes.  

“ESG is integrated into the commercial decision, into the retail decision, into the logistics decision.” 

There’s something very special happening 

Jermyn explains that Seasalt’s culture leaves his role focused less on persuading teams to consider sustainability, and more on helping the business assess future risks, opportunities and strategic choices.  

“From an ESG perspective, that’s great because it’s about enabling and assisting the business to say, ‘What’s next?’” he says.  

“As legislation accelerates, as demands and trends change, and as climate change really starts to take hold and impact the business, it’s nice for me because I can actually be a sustainability professional.” 

He points to Seasalt’s long-standing use of renewable energy contracts, its move to a power purchase agreement, and its operational work on waste as examples of decisions being made by teams across the company rather than driven solely by ESG. 

“I have people coming to me often saying, ‘By the way, we’ve done this,’” he says. “Their conversations are already happening.” 

For Jermyn, that is what makes Seasalt’s approach stand out. “I’ve never seen it in another brand. Living in it every day, doing it every day, it’s phenomenal.” 

This is the way 

While Jermyn is clear that Seasalt is “not perfect”, he says the brand’s approach is rooted in a willingness to trial new ideas and learn from them. That has included work on responsible sourcing, post-consumer waste and supply chain partnerships aimed at turning material that might once have been treated as waste into value. 

“The thing I’m proudest about is that we are realists, but we’re showing the way,” he notes. “There’s a real spirit that we’ll go and give it a go. We’ll try and see and learn, and then we’ll come back and think about whether we can make it better.” 

Seasalt’s fabric strategy as one shining example: “Most of our fabrics are responsibly sourced. All of our polyester is recycled, all of our cotton is organic, all of our wool is from responsible wool standards.” 

Jermyn adds that the commercial benefit of those early choices has been as important as the environmental one. Seasalt became certified for organic cotton in 2005 and has since built closer relationships across its supply chain, which he says has helped reduce risk and strengthen resilience. 

“At the time, that probably didn’t make any commercial sense,” he recalls. “But what it did was build a supply chain that we were closer to, where we could build relationships and build out a little bit of risk. It’s paid dividends.” 

Why fashion needs investment in circularity 

Looking beyond Seasalt, Jermyn believes the UK fashion sector has the appetite to improve, but there is work still to be done and investment needed from beyond the sector.  

“There’s a real willingness to do better in the sector,” he says. “I think EPR Textiles has the opportunity to be a game changer for the UK.” 

Seasalt already works with the Salvation Army Trading Company on terminal stock donations and is exploring further schemes around circularity. However, Jermyn says individual brand schemes will not be enough if the UK wants to build a genuinely circular fashion economy. 

“It can’t be left to individual businesses,” he stresses. “If we’re really serious about circularity in the UK, we need to see proper investment in tech.” 

He argues that the UK has the talent and emerging technologies to lead in circularity, pointing to innovation coming through universities and young entrepreneurs. But without the right support, he warns the industry risks falling back into old linear models. 

“The technologies are there, and we have the opportunity in the UK to be leading the way in circularity,” Jermyn says. “The will is there, but the sector can only invest so far. If the infrastructure is not there to support that investment, we’re going to default back to what we were before.” 

Calls for simpler, shared reporting 

Alongside investment, fashion and textiles also need a more consistent approach to sustainability reporting, particularly around Scope 3 emissions. 

Jermyn explains: “We need to have a standardised approach. We need to be doing more sharing at the manufacturing level — understanding the opportunities and the risks, and how we can help support suppliers.” 

He says suppliers face an increasing burden from brands asking for similar information in different formats, and argues that the sector would benefit from common reporting templates. 

“I wouldn’t want to be a supplier right now, getting probably hundreds, if not thousands, of requests about reporting,” Jermyn reveals. “The way that we can help them is all to report off the same template.” 

The ambition, he suggests, should be a sector-wide standard that allows retailers and suppliers to focus less on administrative duplication and more on practical improvements. 

“Just have a standard template that everyone uses,” he says. “We’re all asking the same questions, we all get the same responses, and we can move forward.” 

For Seasalt, the message is that sustainability does not have to sit in opposition to commercial growth. Done well, Jermyn argues, it can support better products, stronger supplier relationships and more resilient retail decision-making. 

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