Theresa Vandermeer and Kavita Sabharwal, founders of Work+Shelter, have created a full service sewn goods manufacturing facility that is not only sustainable but also aims to uplift women through economic empowerment. Using organic and recycled materials, Work+Shelter is able to create durable products while actively reducing waste and conserving water. For the women of Work+Shelter, sustainability is survival. To learn more about how they’re making a difference, read on.

Where are you based?
We’re based in Delhi, India, where our production facility is located, and in Chicago, where our U.S. go-to-market team is. I personally spent over five years of my life in India working in our facility and on our supply chain, but since I had my son in 2023 I’ve been purely stateside.

What inspired the vision of building an eco-friendly facility that supports both women and sustainable production?
It all started during a research trip I took to India in 2007 while studying at the University of Michigan. I was focused on how economic empowerment impacts the lives of women working in the informal textile sector. That’s when I met my cofounder, Kavita Sabharwal. She was working for an organization that had a number of training centers. We both wondered, though, what else could be done to really help move the needle for women in India, since training is important, but falls short if there’s no paid work opportunity after.

Another challenge we noticed was that many were confined to their homes or couldn’t travel too far for work due to safety or family constraints. So we built a facility right in their community that offered both paid training and long-term employment.

As we grew, so did our awareness of the environmental challenges in India. Pollution isn’t abstract in Delhi— it’s part of your everyday life when you’re there. That made sustainable practices non-negotiable. We committed to ethical sourcing, reducing waste, and designing with the planet in mind.

Can you tell us more about the latest products in the recent catalog? What was the inspiration behind these pieces?
One of our favorite new additions is our fold-up bags made from recycled polyester (RPET), spun from post-consumer plastic bottles. They're lightweight, compact, and replace single-use plastic with something smarter and more sustainable. So they reduce waste in multiple ways.

They were inspired by a simple question: what if your go-to shopping bag was not only useful, but also aligned with your values? These fold neatly into themselves—small enough for a pocket, strong enough for daily use, and fully customizable for our clients.

They are a great give away especially for companies or non-profits putting on conferences or offsites because they are really lightweight to ship or slip in a suitcase.

What makes Work+Shelter different from other clothing brands out there on the market?
We’re actually not a clothing brand, per se. We’re a full service sewn goods manufacturing facility focused on social impact that has a line of goods businesses and non-profits can purchase at wholesale rates with their own logo or design printed or embroidered.

So that means we take these high quality, organic totes, tees, aprons, or other items, and customize them with our client’s artwork.

Beyond our mission, what’s special about us is that our American and Indian teams are in different countries, but we are one company and one team. The US team is able to respond to clients ASAP during US business hours, but almost like a relay race, we pass on updates and action items to the India team so they can work through the next steps overnight. They then pass the baton back to us in the morning.

What are some of the key sustainability initiatives already in place at Work+Shelter?
In Delhi, environmental degradation is a daily reality. We’re not too far from landfill that’s regularly on fire as the garbage is being burned or just combusts spontaneously and a dead river filled with toxic sludge. On certain days it honestly does feel dystopic.

You just can’t see that and not be impacted. So sustainability is more than a buzzword for us—it’s survival. But part of what’s incredible about working in India is there really are amazing eco-friendly supply chain options. We have access to really lovely local organic cotton, recycled cotton and polyester, upcycled silk and more. We also recycle all of our scraps, partner with suppliers who transform plastic bottles into trims, and are constantly reworking shapes and fabric widths to reduce waste.

We would love to deepen our impact by using green energy in time.

Can you tell us more about the materials you use for your products and why it is important to formulate designs that contribute to sustainability efforts?
We use what causes the least harm and what’s readily available: organic cotton, recycled cotton, recycled polyester, BCI denim, and handwoven, upcycled tussar silk. These choices reduce waste, conserve water, lower emissions, and in the case of the tussar silk, provide folks in rural India with a livelihood that is enduring because the silk rearing encourages them to protect the forset that the silkworms live in.

We also design with durability in mind. A tea towel should last hundreds of washes. A tote bag should be something you reach for again and again year in and year out.

How do you go about turning recycled bottles into zippers, and why is this innovation important?
We source zippers made from recycled materials from zipper behemoth YKK. They turn post-consumer PET bottles into yarn, which is then molded or woven into zippers. These perform like any standard zipper but take a little extra time to order.

It’s a small detail with a big impact. We’re talking about tens of thousands of zippers every year now made from recycled materials. If we can make so much impact with such a seemingly small choice, we can rethink the rest of the supply chain too.

Can you tell us more about Work+Shelter’s positive feedback loop? How does it create long-term sustainability for both workers and businesses?
The more quality work we do, the more clients return. The more work we have, the more women we can hire.

We meet the women where they are, offering paid training and building roles that accommodate caregiving responsibilities or transportation limits. Our approach is rooted in respect and long-term support. Most of our hires come through word of mouth. We offer on-the-spot interviews. Women can just drop in. And then those who complete the program are invited to join permanently. From there, many grow into leadership roles. It’s a merit-based model grounded in empathy. It works because people are seen, supported, and offered a future.

Sustainable corporate swag sounds like an oxymoron. What inspired this idea, and why do you think it is important?
Most swag is cheaply made and poorly designed—thin totes that rip at the seams or generic giveaways that end up in closets or landfills. I’ve seen swag sitting on tables as give-aways that people refuse to take even when it’s free. No one wants more junk.

That just seemed nonsensical to me — I couldn’t do it, so we decided to just do things our way. I personally test and use every single product we make, and since we only sell sewn goods, most of that time it means we’re making something with a pretty direct utility — bags are used to carry things, apparel is worn, and accessories like bandanas are multi-purpose.

I love seeing our products “in the wild,” or actually being used by folks I come across in public. For example, recently I was at an AI conference in Chicago and spotted a tote bag we made FIVE years ago! I approached the guy using it and told him we made it. His response was, “It’s so well made!” It is. On bags, for example, reinforced stitching on the handles makes them a lot stronger. It takes just a few short minutes to reinforce the handles with box stitching, but a lot of buyers in the promo industry are looking for the cheapest price, and many factories will be flexible on price, but won’t communicate the design and quality trade offs that the client will have to live with. Not us. It’s just not in our DNA.

How has Work+Shelter grown since its start?
We started with two women. Today, we’ve trained and employed hundreds. Our core team now includes over 40 people, almost all women.

We’ve gone from making simple knitted scarves that I sold D2C online and at fairs to producing high-volume sewn goods for companies across the U.S. Our quality has grown alongside us, thanks to years of practice, low turnover, and shared commitment.

What is the long-term impact you hope to achieve through this initiative?
We envision a carbon-neutral, vertically integrated campus where women can live, work, and grow. A place with housing, education, and leadership development.

We’ve more or less bootstrapped to get to where we are, but to achieve this vision we would need some serious capital investment. We know it would help us scale our impact and help future-proof us a bit. The impact from the operation we have now is palpable — the: women are healthier, their kids are in school, and their homes have basics like fans, fridges, and clean water. That’s the kind of ripple effect that could compound exponentially with a permanent, thoughtfully designed facility.

Are there any upcoming projects you would like to share?
We’ve been teaming up with some awesome indie restaurants lately to create custom uniforms and branded gear that really match their style. One cool project was with Barbassi, a sandwich shop in Abu Dhabi. We put together aprons, tees, and matching bags in complementary colors that turned out great. It’s been a fun way to help small businesses bring their brand to life in a hands-on way.

It has been a crazy past few years, and we suspect at least four more. How have you been staying positive?
Even in good times it’s hard to be an entrepreneur, especially as an expat in India. I started Work+Shelter when I was 25, and I’m now 39. I had so much to learn when I was younger that there was a lot of self-inflicted craziness. Now I feel like a mature adult who is super capable of rolling with the tumult. Because of that experience I feel more equipped than most folks to navigate the craziness. So much has happened over the years, and we’re still here, after all.

What is your motto in life?
It used to be, “be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.” I’ve chilled out a little bit.

Now, this appeals a little more: “Free-enterprise capitalism is the most powerful system for social cooperation and human progress ever conceived. It is one of the most compelling ideas we humans have ever had. But we can aspire to something greater.”

To learn more about Work+Shelter, please check out the links below:
www.workshelter.co
Instagram: @workshelter
LinkedIn: Work+Shelter

Work+Shelter - Moving the Needle for Women and the Environment