Sustainability Planet

OUR PLANET

At Pretty Lavish we care about the planet and how our business affects it, which is why we are working to lower the negative effect we have on the environment.

See below for some of the actions we are taking.

OUR PACKAGING

In the fashion industry, excess packaging is common and extremely detrimental to environment. All this packaging comes in the form of paper label returns, multiple tags on the garments, and plastic packaging for the garments through online orders.

In 2016, only 6 years ago, the EU ended up with 87 million tonnes of packaging waste, with a large majority plastic. Up to 8 million tonnes of this plastic is expected to have ended up in the ocean.

To make matters worse it is estimated that 72% of this packaging is thrown away and not disposed of properly. With plastic taking up to decades to decompose it is negatively affecting the environment by releasing chemicals into the earth both in the short-term and the long-term. To tackle the issue of plastics in the fashion industry, we need to act now!

WHAT ARE WE DOING AT PRETTY LAVISH

Recycling our Poly Bags

We have started using First Mile to dispose off our poly bags used by our in-house reprocessing team to ensure we are utilising recycling schemes within the office.

RECYCLED MAILING BOXES

Our mailing boxes are made from 100% recycled FSC cardboard.

ECO LABELS

We are working towards increasing the recyclability of our labels too. Our woven labels and branded seals are partly recycled. We are working towards our Tags & Care labels to be recycled as well in near future.

PAPERLESS RETURNS

We have gone paperless with our returns, head to our returns page to see just how easy it is

RECYCLED GARMENT BAGS

We introduced Recycled Polybags for our garment packaging

WHY ARE RESTRICTIED SUBSTANCES IMPORTANT

Restricting chemicals in the fashion industry is key to protecting the suppliers and the consumers from any danger. Chemicals occur through producing raw materials to producing items through dyeing and other production techniques. When dangerous chemicals are included in products, factories and their workers can be exposed during production and consumers are exposed through skin contact of their product.

In 2020 the EU restricted 33 substances to ensure the safety of consumers and put maximum concentration limits on certain substances to ensure safety within the industry. Restricting chemicals is also important to limit the risk to the environment as these chemicals can end up in freshwater systems posing severe health threats to those who rely on these systems.

That’s why at Pretty Lavish we operate with a list of restricted chemicals to ensure the safety of our supply chain and our consumers. It also motivated our use of digital printing for our patterns to reduce our need for such chemicals.

Please see our restricted chemicals list below.

What are our restricted substances and materials at Pretty Lavish

At Pretty Lavish we follow the guidance of the REACH regulation implemented by the EU with approximately 200 banned substances that is continuously updated. Click here for more information

We also regularly test for the below:
• Azo Dyes
• Ph Value
• Formaldehyde
• Cadmium
• Lead
• Nickel

OUR HEADQUARTER SUSTAINABLE STRATEGIES

Lowering our carbon emissions is important to us which is why we are starting at the root of our business, our headquarters.

WHAT ARE WE DOING AT our headquarters?

reduce single use plastic at our headquarters

We ensure our employees have access to bowls, cutlery and any utensils required for food use.

Plastic production requires large amounts of energy, negatively affecting our environment. High amounts of single use plastic end up in the ocean killing marine animals and disturbing their habitats. This is why we need to act now to reduce our use of plastic wherever we can.

Change to LED lighting at our headquarters

Changing to LED lighting is a great step to provide more efficient and sustainable energy at our Pretty Lavish headquarters. They are estimated to last up to 20 times more than a normal lightbulb, in turn also reducing waste. They also require less power putting less pressure on the environment.

Recycling schemes

Reducing the amount that goes to landfills from our office is important as a fashion brand. That’s why we want to ensure we have adequate recycling schemes set up for all areas of our business. The average recycling rate in the UK is 44% and we want to make sure we are positively contributing to increase this number.

Recycling our Poly Bags

Additionally, we now use First Mile to dispose off our poly bags used by our in-house reprocessing team.

WHAT ELSE ARE WE DOING?

Animal Welfare

At Pretty Lavish we have introduced an animal welfare policy to ensure we are not using animal biproducts in our collections, contributing to our transparency around ethical trading. We have taken the decision to remove any products that are derived from animals including any that are considered bi-products.

These include:
1. Leather and Suede
2. Real fur and animal hair including Wool, Cashmere, and Mohair
3. Feathers and Down
4. Shells, Bone, Horn, Ivory and Civet musk

All our suppliers must sign our animal welfare policy to ensure that none of the above restricted items are used to create Pretty Lavish products.

Air freight to Sea & Rail freight

To help reduce our carbon footprint we made the decision to increase our collections transported by sea and rail freight to reduce our use of air freight. Air freight produces the largest carbon footprint which was the motivation behind our decision.

Our goal was to significantly increase the share of sea/air freight in our shipments. Since 2022, we’ve made remarkable progress - growing sea freight from 42% to nearly 80% by AW25, with further improvements still underway.

We are slowly navigating this shipping improvement, whilst still allowing for shipment delays and continuity stock.

We are navigating this new way of shipping collections and we hope to continuously reduce our reliance on air freight helping our company lower its carbon footprint.

Digital Printing

We are actively shifting from screen printing to Digital Printing for the majority of our products - reducing fabric waste and conserving water in the process.

It also uses fewer chemicals and is considered ecofriendly. We love our prints and we know our consumers do too so providing a more eco-friendly option was important to us as a business.