In 1995, Marci Zaroff coined and trademarked the term “ECOfashion,” giving a name to her vision of bringing fashion and environmental responsibility together. The concept would become the foundation of a career dedicated to changing how the industry sources materials, manufactures products, and thinks about its environmental and social responsibilities.
Marci is the Founder, CEO, and Chairwoman of ECOfashion Corp. A graduate of UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, she has spent more than three decades as an internationally recognized ecopreneur, author, serial founder, mentor, advisor, and consultant.
Her work is guided by five principles: people, planet, prosperity, passion, and purpose. She speaks internationally about conscious lifestyles, regenerative and circular fashion, wellness, social innovation, risk mitigation, and business resilience. Her book, ECOrenaissance: Co-Creating a Stylish, Sexy and Sustainable World, published by Simon & Schuster, extends this philosophy into the broader choices people make about how they live and consume.
The Standard Setter
Marci helped develop the Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS) and championed the development of the world’s first Fair Trade Textile Certification with Fair Trade USA. Her work has consistently connected sustainability principles with standards and practices that businesses can apply across their supply chains.
She is Co-Founder and Board Chair of Textile Exchange (#MaterialsMatter) and has held leadership or advisory roles with organizations including the Organic Trade Association, Fair Trade USA, C2C Fashion Positive, and Fashion Revolution.
Her recognitions include the Entreprenista 100, Real Leaders’ Impact Award, WWD’s 2023 ESG leadership recognition, the Natural Products Industry’s Socially Responsible Business Award, Retail TouchPoints’ Retail Innovator Award, New York Moves’ Power Woman Award, and Fashion Group International’s Rising Star Award. She is also a Henry Crown Fellow of The Aspen Institute and is featured in ECO Amazons: 20 Women Who Are Transforming the World.
The Brands That Came First
Under the Canopy, which Marci founded in the mid-1990s, was her first major sustainable lifestyle venture. She built the brand around environmentally and socially responsible materials, demonstrating that organic textiles could compete on style, quality, and consumer appeal rather than relying on environmental messaging alone.
Through her work with the brand and major retailers, she helped introduce sustainable textile initiatives at Whole Foods, Aveda, Bed Bath & Beyond, Target, and Macy’s. At Target, Under the Canopy helped introduce the retailer’s first organic-fiber programs in bedding and kitchen textiles, demonstrating how responsible materials could become part of mainstream retail offerings.
After stepping away from Under the Canopy in 2009, she returned to a leadership role in 2013, when Hilco Brands acquired Under the Canopy and Portico from Portico Brand Group. She served as President and Chief Marketing Officer during this next phase. Earthbound Brands subsequently acquired the Portico brand in 2016.
Around the same period, Marci founded FASE, a multichannel sustainable fashion and lifestyle brand that she led as CEO and President from September 2009 to March 2011. In November 2011, she also became Operating Partner and Advisor at 6Pacific Capital, a merchant banking firm focused on the consumer industry, where she remained until December 2015.
Earlier Acts
From August 2010 to April 2012, Marci served as Sustainability and Marketing Consultant and Board Member at Operation Warm in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania. She helped develop the supply-chain narrative around recycled PET and U.S.-made production, supporting the nonprofit’s mission of providing coats to children in need. The work extended her interest in responsible manufacturing into a social initiative centered on children and community welfare.
Her work in wellness began even earlier. From January 1990 to December 1996, she was Co-Founder and CEO of the Institute for Integrative Nutrition, an educational venture focused on health and wellness. The institute now reports more than 180,000 graduates across 185 countries, reflecting the international reach of the health-coaching education sector.
In January 2017, Marci co-founded Good Catch Foods, serving as its Chief Marketing Officer until June 2019. The plant-based seafood company launched nationally in February 2019, offering an alternative to conventional seafood through products designed to reduce dependence on fish. Her departure from the company in 2019 marked the end of her executive tenure, not the sale or closure of Good Catch itself. The venture broadened her experience with businesses seeking to connect consumer demand with environmental concerns.
The Platform Today
Founded in 2019, ECOfashion Corp is a New York-based business that combines sustainable apparel and home-textile manufacturing with consumer-facing brands and regenerative agriculture initiatives. Its business model centers on B2B, private-label, full-package manufacturing, connecting material sourcing and production with the information brands need to communicate how their products are made.
The company operates across India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and the United States, with its wider platform connecting textile manufacturing to a regenerative cotton initiative called RESET. The project works with farmers in India to support soil health, biodiversity, and climate-focused agricultural practices.
ECOfashion Corp’s portfolio spans RESET Farming, YesAnd, Farm to Home, Seed to Style, and MetaWear. In 2024, the company also acquired Mission Statement, the apparel label founded by Hilary Swank. Rather than operating solely through direct-to-consumer labels, the business combines consumer brands, home textiles, regenerative agriculture, and B2B manufacturing.
Farm to Home, launched on QVC in September 2019, brought certified organic bedding and bath products to a mainstream shopping audience. Its broader range has included bedding, bath, kitchen textiles, and loungewear, with products associated with certifications such as GOTS, OCS, GRS, and OEKO-TEX. The brand has also reached consumers through additional retail and hospitality channels, with products listed by retailers including Costco, Target, Macy’s, Home Depot, and Kohl’s, as well as through HSN. The TODAY show featured its Rainbow Knit Pillow.
YesAnd, launched in February 2020, is a digitally native sustainable fashion brand focused on making conscious apparel more accessible. Its approach brings together inclusive design, affordability, and more responsible materials. The brand also created an eight-piece capsule collection in collaboration with the Love Serve Remember Foundation, which preserves the teachings and legacy of Ram Dass.
Seed to Style, launched in 2021, extends the same philosophy into size-inclusive apparel. The brand has been positioned as QVC’s first GOTS-certified, size-inclusive sustainable apparel brand, offering sizes from XXS to 3XL. Its focus is on combining organic materials and more responsible manufacturing with everyday wearability, making sustainability accessible to a broader consumer base.
MetaWear Organic, established in 2013, forms the manufacturing backbone of Marci’s broader strategy. Described as the “Intel inside” of traceable manufacturing, it offers a turnkey “source to story” solution, with teams in India and Bangladesh helping connect sourcing, production, and product information. Its Virginia facility also became a pioneer in combining GOTS-certified full-package apparel manufacturing with Cradle to Cradle certification in the United States.
Beyond the Brands
Marci’s work extends beyond fashion through BeyondBrands, a consulting and incubation collective she co-founded with Eric Schnell in 2016. Its focus spans fashion, beauty, food, beverages, supplements, and other consumer categories, helping businesses connect more responsible products with viable commercial strategies. The collective began building its client network after launching at Natural Products Expo West in Anaheim, California, in March 2016.
BeyondCPG, established in 2019, focuses on helping consumer-packaged-goods businesses grow by connecting founders with experienced operators, buyers, investors, and strategic partners. Her consulting work has also extended into fashion-focused advisory activity under the BeyondFashion name.
Since August 2010, Marci has also worked on THREAD, a documentary project examining fashion’s human and environmental impact. Her work includes executive production on the project and the short film Driving Fashion Forward with Amber Valletta, alongside collaborators including filmmaker Leila Conners, Amy Johnson, and Michelle Vey. The project brings her interests in storytelling, sustainability, and industry transformation into film.
In the Press
Marci’s work has attracted coverage across fashion, business, and lifestyle media, reflecting the breadth of her involvement in sustainable consumer products. Glossy has examined how sustainability-focused brands navigate supply-chain challenges, including factory disruptions, fluctuating fiber prices, and transportation constraints. The Style That Binds Us podcast has explored the meaning of ECOfashion, while other features have traced the evolution of the term and its influence on conscious consumption. In her The Outside View column for WWD, Marci has outlined actions business leaders can take to advance sustainability.
Farm to Home has also connected her work with the wider home and hospitality sectors. The TENCEL™ brand partnered with Farm to Home on an exclusive organic bed-and-bath collection, while the hospitality feature “From Green to Clean: 2021’s Hospitality Renaissance” explored the relationship between sustainability and the travel industry.
YesAnd’s work has received attention from This Organic Girl, which included the brand in a 2022 sustainable-shopping guide, as well as Bella Mag and Beauty News NYC for its collaboration with the Love Serve Remember Foundation. Green Living has also profiled Seed to Style and Marci’s broader approach to accessible sustainable fashion.
She has appeared on QVC and HSN as an eco expert and guest host, using those platforms to bring conversations about organic materials and responsible consumption directly to shoppers. Her work with Seed to Style builds on that role, connecting sustainability with design, accessibility, and everyday purchasing decisions.
The Work Beyond the Word
Marci’s career connects the language of sustainable fashion with the systems required to make it practical. ECOfashion gave a name to the idea; industry standards helped establish measurable expectations; and her businesses have sought to connect responsible sourcing, manufacturing, product design, and consumer information.
The challenge remains one shared by the wider fashion industry: making responsible choices accessible at scale without separating sustainability from style, quality, or commercial viability. For Marci, the work is not simply about changing what fashion says about itself. It is about changing how fashion is made, sold, and experienced from the field where a fiber begins to the product that eventually reaches the consumer.
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