She turned London’s retired fire hoses into a luxury brand

Kresse Wesling CBE is the co-founder of Elvis & Kresse, the British company that has rescued decommissioned London fire hose from landfill since 2005 and turns it into luxury bags, belts and accessories. Half the profits from the fire hose range go to the Firefighters Charity. The first year that came to £134. It is now approaching half a million pounds, and has funded more than 29,000 therapy sessions for firefighters and their families. In this conversation with Daniel Epstein, Kresse goes back to the beginning: Silent Spring at 13 in Western Canada, a scholarship to Hong Kong at 16, the coal-black air of Guangdong Province, and a biodegradable packaging company whose first shipment biodegraded on the way to the UK. Then a week apprenticing problems in sewers, waste transfer stations and landfill sites, and the rooftop where she found the material that changed everything. The second half is about what came after circularity. Since 2015 they have been rebuilding the company around regeneration, defined strictly: clean more water than you use, generate more renewables than you consume, sequester more carbon than you emit. That produced a straw bale workshop that cut power consumption by 94.7 percent, a wetland sewage system, and a farm of degraded pasture now holding 11,867 hand-planted vines. She is candid about the near-death moments too, from an Apple order that shipped back to a seller who pulled out on the day of exchange. Kresse joined the Unreasonable Fellowship in 2016 in the very first cohort of the Unreasonable Impact program, run in partnership with Barclays. (00:00) Introduction (01:54) Commander Kresse, and Meeting the Queen (05:41) Silent Spring at 13, Hong Kong at 16 (06:53) A VC Job, and a Package That Biodegraded Too Well (08:05) Apprenticing Problems, and the Hoses on the Roof (09:25) Half the Profits, and 29,000 Therapy Sessions (11:38) Why Fire Hose Became a Luxury Good (14:29) Circularity Is the End of All Stress (15:48) Who Is Elvis? (19:07) Redesigning the Company for Regeneration (22:29) Exponentially More Good Than Bad (23:23) Straw Bales, Sewage, and a 94.7% Power Cut (25:12) The Farm Nobody Wanted, and 11,867 Vines (27:44) The Wine (29:03) The Mother Moose (31:15) Twenty Years of Working With the Love of Your Life (34:28) The Apple Order That Nearly Killed Them (38:00) A Vendor, a Pandemic, and 12,000 Thirsty Vines (40:59) What the Land Teaches, and the Sheep Rule (44:34) Twenty-One Years of Watching Minds Change (48:54) "If You're Capable, You're Responsible" (51:15) Two Tickets to the Bat Show (52:06) "I Think This Is Spam" (54:25) Sell More Flowers, and Alchemy (57:25) Barclays Buildings, 200 Bottles, and Tasting Nature