SUSTAINABILITY
We are committed in finding ways to reduce the impact we have on the environment, supporting sustainable changes within the textile and fashion industry wherever possible with the balance of non-mass production for each of our collections.
YARNS
The yarns we use are mainly spun in Italy and Scotland, highly respected mills in the industry with systems in place to implement sustainable processes to reduce the impact manufacturing have on people, animal and the environment.
Some of the Extra Fine Merino Wool in our collection are RWS (Responsible Wool Standard). The Lambswool we use are currently non-mulesed, and are soon to also meet RWS criteria. The mill are in process of making the transition, which means their stock Lambswool will to be RWS once the transition have reached its full cycle. This will enable us to greater support RWS and meet the quantity requirements, which otherwise would be beyond our reach.
RWS prohibit the process of mulesing, and guarantees that wool comes from farms meeting the stringent standards of animal welfare, along side preserving and protecting nature and native species with strict land management.
Most of the yarns we use have been tested according to OEKO-TEX STANDARD 100, to ensure yarns and fibres contain non-harmful chemicals to people and the environment. Globally standardised, which goes beyond the requirements of legislation to ensure greater safety.
Going forward we will also be looking into GRS (Global Recycle Standard) yarns. GRS encourages reduction of resource consumption, quality of recycle product, restrictions on the use of chemical and compliance with relevant environmental and social criteria.
More sustainable options will be within our grasp as the industry improves on sustainability, and we look forward to exploring and embracing these opportunities.
THE MAKING
We work with makers in England and Wales, some are family run businesses for generations with specific machines required to create some of our designs laced together with skills and craftsmanship. We will also look into working with other makers in other parts of UK as we continue to explore design ideas for future collections, and identify the machines, skills and craftsmanship required for new developments.
The collections consist of knitwear knitted on computerised machines, each individual pieces are fully fashioned to shape to help minimise wastage, and are hand finished in-house. The hand knitted pieces are personally made with love and care by us, exploring the mix of different yarns to find the perfect blend.
We keep the swatches, left over yarns and off-cuts, these will be creatively re-use to reduce our textile waste consumption.
PACKAGING
Most of our packaging are made from 100% recycled consumer waste, some of which are from cotton t-shirt off-cuts and are recyclable. The Essien and Emre magnetic gift boxes are not yet recyclable, however we hope that you will keep the gift box to store your Essien and Emre knitwear and other cherished items.
We encourage our customers to re-use the packaging wherever possible.
