Sole Responsibility
Sole Responsibility
Our journey towards a more sustainable future.
We’re part of a connected ecosystem and it’s our responsibility to make better choices to benefit our customers, employees and the planet. People and community have always been the heart of what we do, and with 70 years of business under our belt, it’s time to widen the scope of our commitment. We recognise our environmental responsibility to protect the planet for future generations and are making steps towards a more sustainable future.
For us, sustainability is a journey. Our mission, Together we create to inspire, means continuing to create better practices and better innovations that offer inspiration for our people. We are determined to incorporate sustainability in all aspects of our business, from our people, to our practices, the materials we use and more. There are many levels to our responsibility and we are determined to create change to challenge our environmental impact.
We recognise this is a journey and we still have a lot to learn. Every bit makes a difference, and it will be a series of small steps to reach our long-term goals.
Join us as we keep you informed on our Sole Responsibility towards a more sustainable future.
Our Factory.
A portion of our footwear is made by the skilled craftspeople in our own factory in Chang-An, China. We set up this operation a few years ago to gain control of our product and ensure good working conditions for our talented team. We have attained Health & Safety, Fire and Volatile Organic Compound accreditations in our factory. We also provide accommodation and meal allowances for our whole team. There are government entitlements for all team members: a graded wage scale dependent on their skill level. Under no circumstances is there any use of child labour.
Exploring New Materials.
Although leather has always been our material of choice due to its durability, breathability and unique quality, we are committed to exploring sustainable and ethical alternatives for our designs. This includes some of our most recent designs in innovative materials such as Repreve, Bio Veg and recycled canvas.
Kind Soles Collection.
Introducing our considered edit of sustainable styles. We recognise that the landscape of the future relies on us, from our impact on our people, to our planet. That’s why we’re taking steps towards a more sustainable future.
Our People, Our Community.
We recognise that we can play a positive role in challenging some of the social issues that surround us. This is why one of our brands, Deuce, has its own charity, Young Hearts Project, that supports and empowers youth. Alongside this every Merchant 1948 store sponsors a child and their family in Onga, Malawi with the amazing team at World Vision. Our people are the heart of all we do and we pride ourselves on our company culture and values. We’ve been proud finalists of the Best Workplace awards for 13 years, and overall winners for 2012, 2013 and 2017. We also won the HumanKind EX award for 2018 and 2019 in the medium-large category.
Our Workshop.
Found in our Newmarket Auckland store, our Merchant Workshop offers repair and resole services to breathe second life into your footwear. Owning countless shoes ourselves, we understand the importance of protecting our shoes to ensure longevity. Within our Newmarket store we have released a new shoe return initiative, so you can return any pre-loved shoes to be donated to charity. If you can’t make it to one of our Workshops, we encourage the use of our shoe care to support a longer life cycle of your shoes.
Conscious Consumption.
Our collections are the result of research, data analysis, design research and your feedback, and we hope you love them as much as we do.
Increasingly however, what we buy and how often we buy is playing a bigger role in our purchasing decisions... and so it should. We all play a part in taking responsibility for the full life cycle of any product and Merchant is treading this path to increase its accountability for reducing what ends up in landfill and how our products can be recycled.
Our Workshop and instore knowledge is here to help you enhance the life of your shoes and make repairs to give them longevity. Our designs are often classic giving you a timeless investment that will not be out of date next season.
We have a recycling bin in our Westfield Newmarket store and gently worn shoes can be returned for us to revive and donate to charity. We hope to roll this out to more stores in the coming year.
Any shoes with cosmetic faults are donated to charity, and we work with our Charitable partners to donate shoes to youth in need.
Made from algae biomass, our Deuce x BLOOM footbeds return 18 litres of clear water to the habitat and clean 11 M3 of air - all whilst maintaining the utmost comfort!
Our Suppliers.
A portion of our footwear is designed by our team in New Zealand then crafted in our factory in China, however we do source a selection of our footwear from suppliers across the globe who also share a skill and passion for the craft that is, creating footwear. We regularly communicate with our suppliers in Portugal, Spain, Italy and beyond, all countries renowned for their shoemaking artisans with generations of experience in crafting high quality leather product. We are working with all our suppliers to provide more transparency around their social and sustainability initiatives, as well as communicating our own Code of Conduct to follow.
Packaging & Printing
Our printing and packaging is an area of that we are consciously making changes to in order to create more sustainable alternatives. We have now stopped polystyrene stuffing in our factory in China, removed production of cloth bags and have replaced our silica gel packs with a more considered option, Micro-Pak. One of our long term goals is to have recycled and compostable packaging for our online orders. One of our latest steps was the removal of printed seasonal catalogues and loyalty booklets to move to digital. We are saving approximately 5 tonnes of paper per year by making this change.