With Benefits is a series featuring for-benefit companies — for-profit models that inherently benefit social causes — written by Janette Crawford, founder of the consistently excellent ethical fashion daily Fashion Loves People.

I’m told that the founding of Nau went something like this: a small group of do-gooders (some of them ex-Patagonians) got together to launch an endeavor that, whatever it might be, would be truly world-changing. They considered the many ways they might be able to “un-fuck the world” (their original working name was an acronym of this phrase). In the end they were most compelled by the positive change they could effect through the power of capital-B Business. They decided they would start an apparel company that would change the garment industry’s paradigms on environmental impact and social good from the inside out, and launched Nau in 2007.

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