Protecting the planet with sportswear

By Cliff Newell

The Lake Oswego Review, Oct 4, 2007, Updated Oct 30, 2009

Jim Beriault spreads out some merchandise from his new sustainability-oriented business Planet Protect Sportswear. Starting the business was much more difficult than the Lake Oswego resident ever imagined, but now it is up and running.

Cliff Newell / Lake Oswego Review

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Sometimes the most casual thing can change your life. Just ask Jim Beriault.

A couple years ago he picked up Rolling Stone magazine while working on a recording session, and the article he read made him very, very upset.

“It was all about the rollbacks on clean air and clean water that had been made under the Bush administration,” Beriault said. “I was already pretty frustrated, the way we were just dumping stuff into the environment.

“Also some members of my family were suffering from neurological problems, and I was sure it was due to the chemicalization of the world.

“The erosion of protections made me angry. It upset me. I wanted to do something.”

Beriault was already doing something. In fact, he was doing quite a bit. An entertainment producer and marketer by profession, Beriault devoted much of his spare time to fighting to preserve the environment as a member of many earth-friendly organizations, including the Sierra Club, the Audubon Society and Earth Justice.

“But letter writing and donations were not enough,” Beriault said. “I’d been in the marketing business for years, so I thought ‘Why not start a business and donate to organizations you believe in?’”

So, after two years of saving, developing a concept and lots of hard work, Beriault has come up with Planet Protect Sportswear. It offers pants, shirts, shorts, tops, backpacks, and sandals for men and women.

And best of all, everything is sustainable. Or at least getting there.

“About 65 percent of my products are very responsible toward the environment, and the rest are on track to getting there,” Beriault said. “It’s a good beginning considering I’ve been in business for one month.”

Yet Beriault found that becoming a sustainable sportswear marketer was by no means easy. Especially when you are as dedicated to sustainability as he is and unwilling to cut corners that would make you – well – unsustainable.

“I didn’t know it would be such a journey,” Beriault admitted.

For example, Beriault found a great sustainable product in China, bamboo T-shirts. Unfortunately, they were not produced in a very sustainable fashion.

“When I pressed him on recycling and chemicals, the owner kept dodging me,” Beriault said. “Later I found they were basically throwing all of their waste products into a stream. Everything came out of a big pipe.

“It would be hypocritical to have a company called Planet Protect Sportswear and be involved with something like that.”

Check that one off, and others, too. No hypocrite, Beriault was not taking any easy paths to sustainability. He simply had to investigate potential suppliers to find out what they were all about.

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