Tearfund Ethical Fashion Report 2022

Tearfund is a Christian non-profit organisation who produce the annual NZ Ethical Fashion Guide. This year, in collaboration with Baptist World Aid, Tearfund researched 25 footwear companies representing more than 90 brands and measured their level of disclosure on human rights and environmental policies and practices in their supply chain. We recently participated in this assessment and received a rating of 12.82 out of 100.

In light of this, our Head of Design & Director, Louise Anselmi, has made a statement about our involvement with Tearfund’s research and our commitment to working toward a more sustainable future.

“When invited to make our submission to Tearfund at short notice, we embraced the opportunity to use the outcome to help inform the basis on our Sustainability strategy. While our focus for many years has been building our internal culture and becoming New Zealand’s best workplace, for both NZ and AU teams as well as our China team, we recognize the need to increasingly turn our focus to the wider supply chain and reducing our impact on the environment. We look forward to benchmarking ourselves against peers in the footwear industry and working towards achieving our strategic goals in this area.

We have the benefit of owning our own ‘WOFE’ factory- Wholly Owned Foreign Enterprise. This is an asset to our business and sets us apart from other retailers as it allows us to have full control over the production of stock, which in turn helps us to reduce overproduction. We invest time, effort, and money into analysis of trends and reviewing sales so that we can be agile with stock and more responsive to trends in sales. On a more human level, this also means that the team we have in our factory is an integral part of our company and we’ve cultivated a collaborative and supportive relationship with them. We are proud of the culture and conditions that our team in China work in and we are currently working towards obtaining a social accreditation for our ‘WOFE’.

When it comes to materials, we consider leather to be a sustainable, natural material when it comes to creating footwear, largely due to the fact that it is a byproduct sourced from the meat industry. To this end, we are working towards using a higher percentage of Leather Working Group leather.

The Tearfund report has highlighted the need for greater visibility for our customers and we will continue to work with suppliers and partners to highlight progress and areas of opportunity, as we work to move the needle on all aspects of our supply chain. We are committed to using the findings of this report to guide us as we take the next steps on our sustainability journey.”