SUSTAINABILITY

CHANGING THE GAME

The clothing industry is the second-most polluting industry in the world, second only to oil. Due to fast fashion, more than 90 pounds of clothing per capita are dumped into US landfills each year – even without being sold. We think this is unacceptable.

We have fundamentally redesigned the make to-sell culture of the established fashion industry. Instead, we produce limited editions on-demand, thereby allowing a sustainable production and reducing the incredible amounts of textile waste generated by today’s fast fashion industries.

THE TEXTILE WASTE ISSUE

No other industry, apart from agriculture, uses more water. Textile production consumes around 25% of the world’s chemicals and generates roughly 10% of global carbon emissions. This is due to many contemporary brands focusing on fast fashion, a race to always capture the most recent fashion trends to make apparel an even quicker cash generator.

Pounds of textile waste per US citizen (source: EPA)

In the US only, over-production drove an incredible amount of 14.3 million tons of textiles in landfills or incineration plants in 2017. This equals an unbelievable pile of 97 pounds (44 kg) textile waste per US citizen, every year. Today, the pile could well exceed 100 pounds after decades of uninterrupted production increases due to the fast fashion race. Excess items are shredded or burned to avoid flooding the market with discounted apparel.

ON-DEMAND PRODUCTION

We see on-demand production as the key game changer to decrease textile waste to a minimum, thereby reducing huge amounts of water consumption, chemicals, energy and carbon dioxide emissions. At the same time, we also use environmentally friendly fabrics from organic or renewable materials wherever possible.

CERTIFIED SOCIAL ACCOUNTABILITY

At stylekontor, we firmly believe that a better working environment creates a better product. Hence, all our processes are focused on improving our work environment every day. We also expect our business partners to take pride in their employees and we select each individual partner personally and carefully.

All our production partners adhere to the highest certification standards established in the industry, namely we request social compliance and workers’ rights protection as established in the Business Social Compliance Initiative and require additional, more demanding standards such as SA8000 to ensure the highest possible level of certified social accountability. Most importantly, we work together with partners to whom we have built personal and trusted long-standing business relations.

IMPROVING THE FUTURE THROUGH EDUCATION

Our commitment goes beyond trustworthy collaborations. We also donate to charitable organizations who aim stop the inhumane practice of child labor. Our aim is to improve the educational perspectives of the children of textile workers. We believe education is the best way to terminate child labor in the textile industry which is our long-term social responsibility goal.