Ethical Production

Ethical production

At Alchemist, our mission is to combine luxury fashion with an honest lifestyle. Every year, we carefully create two collections. These collections are composed of designs that can easily be combined with our previous collections. Our quality standards for our materials and production are high. When the first samples arrive at our office, we inspect them thoroughly to ensure quality and fit. In this way, we ensure that our clothes are not only beautiful, but also sustainable. That is what we call sustainability.

Our mission

We believe that clothing should be produced in a fair way. This means that production should be ethical and sustainable from start to finish, with attention to social-ethical and sustainable production processes and transparency about our methods. It is important to us that everyone who contributes to our collections can work in a safe environment and for fair wages. All suppliers we currently work with have at least one social certificate and are annually audited by various NGOs, such as BSCI, FWF, SA8000, GOTS and Smeta.

In 2016, we signed the IMVO agreement for sustainable clothing and textiles, committing ourselves to combat discrimination, child labor and forced labor.

These nine criteria from the agreement are strict requirements for the production of our collections:

1. No use of child labor
2. No use of forced labor
3. Safe and healthy working conditions
4. Legal employment contracts
5. Fair wages to live on
6. Freedom of association
7. The right to collective bargaining
8. No discrimination of employees
9. No excessive working hours

Transparency

Since June 2019, we have been registered with the Open Apparel Registry, an open-source database of textile manufacturers, where we show which factories we work with. This offers opportunities for companies and labels to collaborate. You, as a consumer, can see exactly where your products are made. On November 12, 2019, we signed the Clean Clothes Transparency Pledge. After signing this, we commit to update public information about our factories and suppliers every 6 months. Since then, we have added more information about our product on our website. You can see exactly where an item is made under "Origin" on the product page. We have also published our list of manufacturers and fabric manufacturers. Alchemist undergoes a thorough mandatory audit by the SER every year. This is a robust covenant with legally binding agreements between companies, governments, unions and other stakeholders. This also means that we allow two independent parties to look over our shoulder and ensure that we do what we say. Read all about the five-year plan of this agreement and our Action Plan. Their analysis also helps us to identify where we can further improve our sustainability performance. This allows us to show even better what we do and why we do it. At least once a year we visit our factories to check the working conditions on site and make agreements. Since 2015 we have an employee who is fully focused on achieving our set goals and helps Alchemist to further improve its sustainability performance. Because only a maximum of 15% of our collection is produced outside Europe, we are no longer affiliated with the Fair Wear Foundation. We still use their methods, such as their code of conduct.

Reducing co2 emissions

For a couple of years, we have aimed to reduce our CO2 emissions by moving most of our production to Europe. At the moment, about 80% of our collections are made in Portugal. With this, transportation has reduced tremendously. The only airfreight we now use is from Delhi. Moreover, we combine freight shipments from various different suppliers, so we can fill up just one truck and avoid multiple smaller shipments. We work together with production studios, laundries, and dye works that are located close to one another in order to reduce local transportation as well. When we have to send something to different factories, we send it to one address. The factories will then deliver it to the right address close to them. We receive a lot of our materials from Lenzing, an Austrian textile supplier who, among other things, creates Lyocell, Modal, and EcoVero. Lenzing generates 80% of its own energy, locally and sustainably. At this point, about 13% of our collection is made from Lenzing produced materials. In our annual social report 2018 and our blog Our Materials, you can see what percentage of our collection is made from which sustainable materials.

More than just clothing

Next to sustainably producing clothing, we try to practice sustainability in different ways. Packaging Our online orders are delivered in a recycled FSC certified paper bag with a return slip. To protect our clothing, they are packed in recyclable plastic polybags. We are actively sourcing for an alternative that is durable yet also compostable. Our retailers receive organic cotton tote bags that they can gift to customers with their Alchemist purchase. Paper and print We minimize using print advertisements and magazines and focus on our online presence. If we do choose to use paper, we solely use sustainably sourced paper with an FSC label or recycled paper. We use stickers made from FSC certified paper with plant-based glue. Energy use Our showroom and office only use LED lights. Since 2021, we have moved to a new showroom/office, this building is C02 neutral. Photoshoots We do all our photoshoots at home, in the Netherlands, with models located in the Netherlands, so that no one has to fly to get to the photoshoot location. Garment Care Once the clothing is in your closet, it's up to you to maintain the quality of the product. That's why we've created a page with important care instructions for all garments.