Sustainability - Our Sustainable Design Criteria
If you are coming to this page, it’s probably because you’ve found one of our QR codes in our fabric hangers or because you want to know more about our efforts and commitments toward making the products of our brands more sustainable.
At Zimmer + Rohde we understand the importance of balancing tradition and innovation to create the most exquisite designs that reflect and suit the times we are living in.
In our more than a hundred years of history, we have learned to adapt and improve time and time again to provide the best possible products for our clients while meeting the needs and values of the current times. Today, the value of a product goes way beyond its beauty and technological innovation and is also measured by the conscious production processes beneath the exterior, demonstrated in the respect and value shown for the craftsmen and women and the skills behind each textile. Although we are aware that we cannot yet provide certified products, we understand the importance of taking responsibility and action for our processes, and we are committed to working towards this goal.
5 CRITERIA FOR PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT
As we proceed along this path, we have come up with a set of five criteria for our brands, helping us to design more consciously and responsibly, to bring even more meaningful beauty to your projects and interiors with our textiles. These criteria can be found on the hang tags and hangers of our textiles to help you identify which ones were adhered to in the making of that product. By creating and implementing these criteria, we are working not only towards improving our own processes and products, but also committing to sharing our learnings and developing better practices together with our suppliers, who have long shared their knowledge with us, while providing quality and a loyalty to their craftsmanship and technology. We believe true progress is only possible when we support each other. That is why each of the criteria presented here represent some of the values that guide us, as well as our suppliers and partners, in building a more responsible and sustainable textile industry.
Regionally Sourced
Proximity leads to efficiency. That is particularly true when it comes to reducing our carbon footprint. By ensuring our suppliers work within a radius of 2,500 km at all stages of their production chains, from the raw materials to the textile finishing, our textiles accumulate a minimal carbon emission footprint in their production process. Even when our suppliers are from overseas, by assuring a regional ecosystem in their production, we ensure a lowered environmental impact while contributing toward higher levels of social impact. By incentivizing our suppliers to work with resources in their proximity, we help ensure that the value generated from the production of textiles has a higher positive impact on the region and the people who created it in the first place. Very often in big, global value chains, those producing the raw materials and spinning the yarns are unable to fairly benefit from the value of the final product they helped create. By promoting regional production chains, we help reduce the dissipation of value along the supply chain and help foster healthier and fairer distribution.
Resource-efficient Production
Just like our textiles, the resources that make them are precious. With this criterion, we bring attention to the underlying resources that go into the production processes of our goods and the better management strategies that involve them. Above all, we look to the consumption of energy, water and waste management (e.g. zero waste), but also to the use of renewable raw materials for the production of synthetic fibers. Here we value our suppliers who already have convincing strategies in their entire production processes of a product, and who demonstrate significantly more resource-efficiency than suppliers with conventional production methods. This helps us acknowledge and support them, by making more conscious decisions when selecting our mills and the designs for each collection.
Eco-friendly Products
Sustainability is also about promoting safer and healthier products, not only to our clients but also to the people that make them and our environment. Promoting significantly lower use of concerning chemicals throughout the entire supply chain when compared to conventional production, allows us to move closer to this goal. This reduction includes the use of pesticides in the cultivation of natural fibers and raw material for man-made fibers (such as viscose), dyes, printing processes and finishes. When looking into more eco-friendly products, our aim is to incentivize suppliers who are taking stringent actions to make their processes and products better, even if these actions are not yet validated by certification. Furthermore, all our suppliers are asked to sign and comply with the European REACH regulation.
Contains Recycled Fibres
Making use of the resources we already have is a key aspect of creating a more circular economy. By including more recycled fibers in our products, we help reduce the impact of waste and support the understanding of the quality and beauty of recycled products. To ensure the highest quality of our recycled materials, we aim to work in adherence to GRS (Global Recycling Standards) for our fibers and facilities. With regards to our products, our goal is to incorporate at least 50% of recycled fibers.
Containing Organic Fibres
In addition to recycled fibers, we also try to ensure better harvesting and production processes for our natural fibers. In our use of organic fibers we work with the following seals: GOTS, BCI, C2C, Fairtrade, European Flax – as well as RWS for animal fibers. Where we use natural fibers in our products, our commitment is to use at least 50% of organic natural fibers. At the moment, many of our suppliers already work with these certifications for their yarns. Once our suppliers are certified, we can also ensure the certification of our own textile products. It is a laborious process that requires time and great effort, but we are dedicated to working together with our mills on the path to creating a more sustainable value chain.
