Fashion Enter Ltd (FEL) is committed to promoting sustainability. Concern for the environment and promoting a broader sustainability agenda are integral to FEL’s professional activities and the management of the organisation. We aim to follow and to promote good sustainability practice, to reduce the environmental impacts of all our activities and to help our clients and partners to do the same.
Our Sustainability Policy is based upon the following principles:
· To comply with, and exceed where practicable, all applicable legislation, regulations and codes of practice.
· To integrate sustainability considerations into all our business decisions.
· To ensure that all staff are fully aware of our Sustainability Policy and are committed to implementing and improving it.
· To minimise the impact on sustainability of all office and transportation activities.
· To promote our Sustainability Policy to our colleagues and stakeholders and encourage them to adopt sound sustainable management practices.
· To review our sustainability performance and to continually strive to improve it.
We provide a secure space for the storage of bicycles at our office at Unit 14, Crusader Estate,167 Hermitage Road, N4 1LZ
We will walk, cycle and/or use public transport to attend meetings, site visits etc. in London, apart from in exceptional circumstances where the alternatives are impractical and/or cost prohibitive or where the demands of our service portfolio make this difficult.
Travel outside of London will normally be undertaken by train. International travel will consider a balance between economy and practicality and we will consider carbon offsetting schemes where we have to fly to meetings for our international business.
We will avoid physically travelling to meetings etc. where alternatives are available and practical, such as using teleconferencing, Skype, video conferencing or web cams, and efficient timing of meetings to avoid multiple trips. These options are also often more time efficient, while not sacrificing the benefits of regular contact with clients and partners. We balance the need for ensuring that our office is fully staffed with alternative working arrangements, including home working, to reduce commuting. We promote the use of public transport by having located our offices in Haringey in an accessible location that is not particularly convenient for driving. There are road bumps in Hermitage Road plus there is a pollard no entry system to prevent Hermitage Road being a cut through for traffic. Our websites also offer full instructions on how to attend meetings at Crusader Road by rail and bus.
We minimise our use of paper and other office consumables, for example by double-siding all paper used for photocopying, and identifying opportunities to reduce waste. We discourage staff from printing emails and papers where this is not necessary for the effective performance of our business. We re-use items of stationery wherever possible.
We operate a scheme at Unit 13, 167 Hermitage Road, N4 1LZ for the reuse or recycling of office waste, including paper, computer supplies and redundant equipment. We also operate a recycling scheme in our office kitchen area.
We use rechargeable batteries in our wireless office equipment and reduce the energy consumption of office equipment by purchasing energy efficient equipment and good housekeeping (all wireless devices are turned off at the close of business). We also monitor our company energy usage by taking regular meter readings which we review to help reduce our energy consumption going forward.
We have signed up to the HIGG Index, which is an online platform produced by the Sustainable Apparel Coalition and is used as a tool that enables brands, retailers, and facilities of all sizes at every stage in their sustainability journey to accurately measure and score a company or product’s sustainability performance. The organisers of the HIGG index also provide advice and support to help businesses to improve their score.
We comply with REACH regulations and guidelines when sourcing materials and ensure to only work with suppliers who also comply with REACH regulations. REACH is the EU regulations concerning the registration, evaluation, authorization and restriction of chemicals.
We conduct fabric testing to ensure that none of our sourced materials have any banned chemicals or substances.
We are also constantly updating our customers to enable them to map the polyester supply chain which is our most used fabric type. We hope from this we can not only build relationships with virgin polyester fibre producers, but also support suppliers in transitioning to recycled polyester as some customers are aiming to switch to 100% recycled polyester by 2025.
Viscose is our second largest fabric and we are able to provide visibility of our supply chain back to the source. Including the fabric mill and spinner name and address, the wood pulp producer (aka cellulosic producer) supplying the spinner and provided documentation to verify that the cellulosic producer is supplying the spinner, e.g. PO or confirmation from the producer. We are also working towards only sourcing FSC certified wood.
We re-use fabric waste from our factory so we can supply current fabrics for students to use in SA 1 and 2 and all other associated lessons.
In addition, we aim to source fabric sustainably. We aim to continue to make use of our internal stock fabrics and trims whenever possible, as well as ensuring that we continue to source materials from suppliers that are sustainable and environmentally friendly. This includes local suppliers wherever possible to minimise our carbon footprint. Local suppliers are particularly relevant for our own brand “Belles of London”.
It is our policy to promote sustainable fashion wherever possible. We do this by supporting various sustainable fashion events such as EcoLux showcase, Circular Economy Club, Ethical Brands for Fashion Revolution and The Sustainable and Ethical Fashion show.
We ensure that timber furniture, and any other timber products are recycled or from well-managed sustainable sources. We have approached lead bodies such as Haringey Council and asos to re-use their tables and chairs.
We are currently moving to a Moodle on line e learning platform to ensure that we minimise the use of paper in our learning portfolios
Where possible we use lighting that is on a saver system and automatically turns off if movement is not detected.
All our students are asked to turn off their computers after each session and all overhead projectors are switched off after each session
We use a reputable, authorized, waste contractor to meet our environmental responsibilities and to ensure that we recycle as much waste as possible.
We endeavour, where possible, to find users who can take fabric remnants.
We are currently reviewing purchasing generic tea and coffee from fair-trade
and/or organic beverages.
We do not generally use water in our processes, except in steam irons. We encourage employees, students and visitors to mininise the use of kitchen and toilet water. Our water waste is general kitchen and toilet water that is suitable for discharge into the normal drainage system.
