Green heart, feminist soul: making sustainability our second nature

When feminist ideals meet environmental goals, beautiful things can blossom. I believe this season’s gorgeous Mother Earth collection is the ultimate proof of that. But how did we make it happen?

Don’t get me wrong; I am passionate about gorgeous lingerie. But that wasn’t the main reason I was keen to start working with Marlies Dekkers, nearly 20 years ago. What did it for me was her mission: to empower women. In Marlies, I recognized a kindred soul, someone determined to make the world a better, more beautiful place. And by combining our feminist and environmental ideals, I knew that Marlies and I could make that happen. Soon, in my role as Head of Product and Design, I became the ‚green conscience‘ of the company, making sure that every step we took contributed to our ideal: making beautiful products with an empowering message in a way that does not harm people or the environment. With a project group consisting of a member from each department, we started focusing on sustainable solutions. From embracing digital printing – which is saving 40 billion liters of water worldwide annually! – to officially committing to transparency in our supply chain; in a relatively short time, we managed to move mountains. To me, this season’s gorgeous Mother Earth collections are the perfect wearable manifestation of our company’s green heart and feminist ideals. Recently, I was appointed Chief Product & Sustainability Officer (I love how that sounds!) but my crowning achievement is the fact for everybody working at Marlies Dekkers, green thinking has become second nature. I proudly present our sustainability goals, divided over four key ambitions.

Female empowerment

‘Dare to dream, dare to grow, dare to be’ – Marlies Dekkers motto perfectly encompasses the core mission of our brand: female empowerment. It’s in the confidence-boosting designs and the superior quality of the products but extends into many other platforms, including the popular ‘Unlock Your Potential’ seminars and the Self-Love show series on Instagram Life. Not only do we support women wearing our products, but we also support and encourage the women who make our products in the factories in Asia where we recently introduced the ‘Bringing Females Forward’ (B.F.F.) program. The B.F.F. program is a training program developed in tandem with our production partners. We offer our valued factory employees a number of training sessions a year and herewith the opportunity to develop themselves on a personal and professional level. With our acts of kindness and empowerment, we hope to have a positive influence on the lives of the women across our value chain. You know what they say: ‘empowered women empower women!’

Fair and equal

To us, fair & equal stands for fair jobs while promoting equal treatment between men and women. It means we will do everything we can to make sure human rights are respected within the company and across our supply chain, and that the factory employees make a decent living in a safe and healthy environment. Being passionate about this, we regularly check our sewing facilities and practices in Asia and are transparent about our supply chain. We aim to raise living standards by discussing salary levels openly with our partners and together we work actively towards a 100% living wage standard for our factory employees. We believe that this benefits not only the employees, but also their families and communities. It’s only fair, isn’t it?

Sustainable solutions

Designing a durable product and advancing the use of responsible and ethically produced materials are some of the main priorities in reducing our environmental footprint, and the areas where we can make the biggest difference. This includes finding sustainable solutions for the materials we use on our products as well as choosing less polluting printing and dying techniques, but also includes packing materials and paper use. We have prioritized the materials we will replace by sustainable options, but it is our long-term goal to find sustainable solutions for all material we use, and we have been making great progress lately. In 2022 we have more than 30% of all materials replaced by recycled options. By the year 2025 we are aiming for at least 75% recycled materials.
Per 2022 we said goodbye to the traditional printing methods and chose to go for 100% digital printing of our fabrics. Digital Textile Printing saved over 40 billion litres of water worldwide in 2018 offering an efficient solution when compared to traditional water usage for rotary screen printing. Digital Textile Printing also uses smaller quantities of color, typically 10%of the volume used when compared to screen printing. Our materials are certified and verified by third-party standards: Oekotex and REACH for control over harmful and chemical substances, Global Recycled Standard (GRS) for recycled materials and Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) to ensure the paper we use is harvested responsibly.

Product care

Together with our partners, we strive to make high-quality and durable products, putting lots of love and effort into the process to make sure you can wear our lingerie and swimwear for years! Why? Because we care. About you and about the environment. While we focus on durability and sustainability on a production level, you can play your part by, making your lingerie last much longer by wearing it correctly. Adjusting your bra straps to the right length, for example, can avoid wearing them out unnecessarily. Also, when laundering your pieces, you can save energy by washing at the lowest possible temperatures and skipping the dryer. Although our products are made to last for ages, some wear and tear over time is of course unavoidable. Rather than getting rid of them, get in touch with our customer service. We may be able to help you make your beloved lingerie look close to new! In the end, it’s all about caring enough about something to take care of it. Whether it’s our products, our people or our planet. Let’s do this together!