At VALE, we take Climate Action very seriously and aim to direct all our Collections towards a Zero-Waste Production. Zero-Waste fashion refers to items of clothing that generate little or no textile waste in their production. Our strategy for this aims to educate and encourage individual and corporate behavioral change, mainly by adjusting consumption patterns in our entire production chain.
The waste hierarchy consists of the three 'R's': REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE (in order of impact)
This means that it’s all about Reducing and Reusing new resources, creating a Circular System, and producing no trash or leftovers during the production stage. In other words, the reusage of already existing items is significantly better for our environment than to produce entirely new items from recycled or renewable resources.
Based on this, VALE has implemented several Pre-Consumer Zero-Waste actions to minimize waste during manufacture:
• Optimization of cutting patterns: we always digitally optimize our pattern cut processes in a way that results in minimal textile waste
• Smaller accessories: we normally use the remaining fabric leftovers from garment production (called the off-cuts) to produce other smaller accessories
• Packaging: all our packaging solutions are green, and our customers can choose the way their items are shipped between standard recycled paper boxes or our Reusable Packaging solution (RE-ZIP®), which allows to reduce CO2 emissions by 80%, decrease water consumption by 89% and reducing wood consumption by 93%.
From the Post-Consumer Zero-Waste point of view, VALE tries to eliminate the eventual waste that would normally be the end of the product use life of a garment with the following action:
• Second-Hand online market: all our customers will be able to resell their used garments on our Second-Hand Market in our webshop (still being developed...)