“Green is Good”
Making clothing is a mucky business, it involves the use of dyes, bleaches and lots of water. Peter Christian has not the clout of major brands, but we are making every effort to reduce the impact on the environment throughout the manufacturing process, transportation and packaging of everything we offer. We have a small network of trusted supplier partners and we encourage them to find new and better ways of doing things – whether it’s helping to reduce pollution and emissions, or sourcing more responsibly produced fabrics and respecting animal welfare. We regularly visit our key factories, and they appreciate the need to improve their sustainability credentials both to secure contracts from buyers like us and to improve the environment they live and work in.
Celebrating slow fashion
Our natural fibre clothes are timeless, crafted from the best quality materials and made to last. With the right care most of our garments will last for years, not good for business perhaps but much better for our environment. And when your garment finally reaches the end of its useful life, it can be binned with the reassurance that it will gently degrade back into the soil.
Carbon mileage
It is in our thoughts all the time how we can improve our environmental footprint. Unfortunately, nearly all our domestic clothing manufacturers were lost in the 1980’s but the green shoots of a British clothing industry are just starting to show. We can now place some orders with nascent UK factories, and we are encouraged by the growth and confidence of this industry. With the recovery of the British knitwear industry we are now able to source British wool, this reduces air miles and heralds the return of a highly skilled workforce. All our tweeds are British – Scottish or Irish as you would expect.
Sunshine energy
Lord and Lady T were green before “green” was invented. It used to be called “ecology” way back in the day and they are fully committed to reducing the impact of their business on this planet. Our 2024 project is to power the warehouse and offices on solar energy, a rooftop solar array planned for installation this year will make a significant contribution to our power needs and reduce our carbon footprint. Car chargers are already provided at Trouser Towers for car charging at work.
What comes around, should go around …
As well as being predominantly made from recycled materials, our mailing packaging is reusable (for returns) and biodegradable. The Trouser Towers team are provided with re-cycling bins for all their daily needs, the culture of eco- consideration is encouraged, and the business diligently separates biodegradable and recyclable waste, leaving as little as possible for landfill.
Animal welfare
One of our customers pointed out the cruel practice of mulesing; the painful removal of strips of woolly skin around the buttocks of sheep to prevent flystrike. Fly strike is the infection of fly larva (maggots) in dirty and damaged tissue, it is an horrendous condition but good husbandry and best hygiene practice will prevent fly infestation. We now only use mulesing free yarns.
We are not perfect
But we are striving to do the right thing. Every day we are seeking to improve our impact on our planet, the people we work with and the people we serve.
