Our success is based on the relationships we build. With our partners, who challenge us to grow with their social and environmental goals. With our customers, for whom more sustainable products are important. With our suppliers and their employees, who deserve fair working conditions. With our planet, which is unique and worth protecting.
That is why we are on a mission: our Sustainability Mission 2025. With this mission, we are continuing our efforts to become a more sustainable company, taking a holistic approach to governance, social and environmental issues. Among other things, we are working hard to make our supply chain more transparent, to safeguard human rights and to make manufacturing safer.
“It is a huge challenge to act responsibly in this industry. But we want to do better: human and workers’ rights have been at the core of our sustainability efforts since 2008.”
Our fields of action
Achieve more transparency
We strive to make our production chain more transparent. Since we started business, we have wanted to know as much as possible about the making of our products. For us, transparency is the foundation for any sustainability efforts. As of 2024, we have achieved article-based traceability on production tiers 1 and 2. Put simply: For every article we sell, we know 100 % of our suppliers and our suppliers’ suppliers. Going forward, we want to achieve transparency that includes raw material stages.
We want employees to work in a safe environment – our own employees, as well as workers in the production chain. Building on trusting relationships with our suppliers, we have intensified collective efforts to achieve fair working conditions. We support suppliers in ensuring compliance with our Supplier Code of Conduct. Step by step, we want to achieve a supplier monitoring rate of 100 %. As of 2023, we monitor 93 % of tier 1 and 2 production units. In the future, we particularly strive to improve the communication channels for workers to share their feedback and grievances through a Supplier Complaints Line. We have set up a complaints procedure through "Speak Up". It enables us to identify human rights and environmental risks along our supply chain at an early stage and to remedy potential violations of our Supplier Code of Conduct.
“Sustainability is not a nice-to-have anymore. If you don’t prepare your business for sustainability today, you won’t have one tomorrow.”
Improve manufacturing safety
We are leaders in making manufacturing safer. We are the first company to implement the Roadmap to Zero provided by Zero Discharge of Hazardous Chemicals (ZDHC) for accessories. Addressing the pollution of water, air, and soil presents a huge opportunity to improve the health of workers in the production chain and make their work safer. We have been testing the cleanliness of waste water at all relevant suppliers since 2023. In 2024, we rolled out additional environmental impact assessments to ensure compliance with our environmental requirements in production processes.
“We take responsibility for our suppliers and their employees. They deserve fair and safe working conditions, as we all do.”
Contribute to climate protection
We want to reduce our climate impact. We calculate greenhouse gas emissions and take measures to reduce them. To date, we have determined our emissions with the help of a Life Cycle Assessment. Since 2024, we have been working on quantifying our Product Carbon Footprint and Corporate Carbon Footprint more comprehensively in order to formulate measurable reduction targets. We reduce our emissions by using renewable energies at our sites and e-mobility for our fleet. In addition, we support climate protection and development projects such as those of our partner natureOffice in Togo.
We use resources responsibly. Among others, we ensure the re-use of unsold products. A large part of these goods are sold to trading companies, which re-sell them in countries not directly serviced by us. A smaller part is re-sold in cooperation with Oxfam Ireland. Since 2009, they sell our products in their charity shops across Ireland and, through this, fund their work on ending poverty and injustice worldwide. In 2023, Oxfam raised more than € 1 million by re-selling our unsold products. The monies generated help to fund their work to end poverty and injustice worldwide. In addition to that, we work on increasing the share of recycled materials in products and packaging. For example, jewelry boxes that are made with plastics contain a minimum of 30 % recycled materials in the plastics share.
Retailers of all kinds benefit from a beeline partnership: fashion and shoe stores, drugstores, groceries, discounters, perfumeries and pharmacies. We are always open for new cooperations and markets. Let’s figure out how we can increase your business per square meter together!
