Materials science brand PANGAIA is no stranger to cribbing from nature. Best known for its planet-friendlier fabrics, the label is frequently found looking to all kinds of flora – from fruit waste, to nettles, to bamboo, to harnessing literal flower power in its down jackets – for better ways of doing things.

PANGAIA’s latest endeavor, though, puts the focus on fauna – specifically, the worrying plight and awesome purpose of the humble bee.

As a rule, event products tend to raise eyebrows at FUTUREVVORLD: when a brand pumps out new product for Earth Day, for example, you have to wonder whether they’d have been better off doing nothing at all. In this case, though, PANGAIA’s two-piece World Bee Day capsule shows how it can (and should) be done.

The pieces themselves – a t-shirt and sweatshirt with a bold bee-themed graphic – are crafted from undyed and 100% organic cotton, treated with the brand’s signature PPRMINT™ oil to retain freshness and reduce water wastage through unnecessary wash cycles.

More than just an homage, however, the low-impact capsule is being released with the sole intention of creating that impact elsewhere. Released to coincide with the 20th May event, 100% of the proceeds – that’s proceeds, not profits; everything, the whole shebang – will go to the brand’s own Bee The Change Fund.

Launched back in 2020 in partnership with Milkywire, Bee The Change supports four grassroots organizations dedicated the preservation of our planet’s pollinators: BugLife, which creates safe and essential insect pathways across the UK, Nordens Ark which tracks and monitors bees in Sweden to help protect their habitats, the Bumblebee Conservation Trust, currently reintroducing the Short-haired Bumblebee back to the UK, and the Milgis Trust, a sustainable beekeeping effort in Northern Kenya run in partnership with indigenous groups. All of which, it’s fair to say, are worthwhile groups to be supporting – either on World Bee Day or any day at all.

If you’re wondering why, exactly, these organizations are so important – or even, perhaps, why World Bee Day exists – the answer is quite literally all around you. Without bees and other pollinators making the rounds and doing their business, life on Earth as we know it cannot be sustained. As PANGAIA rightly points out, “they pollinate 70 of the around 100 crop species that feed 90% of the world.” Which, to offer up a gross understatement, is no mean feat at all.

Coming ahead of World Bee Day on May 20th, PANGAIA’s “Bee The Change” capsule is avilable now, priced at $145 USD for the sweatshirt and $60 USD for the t-shirt. And if that doesn’t sounds like money well spent, just picture a world without coffee. Get it now? Okay.