Our Sustainable Philosophy
A holistic approach to sustainability is fundamental to how we do business here at The Fabric Store, founded on our core values of community respect, creativity, and quality. Our purpose and mission as leaders in the home sewing and textiles community is to ensure we run our business with a positive impact on people and our planet. This means encouraging responsible consumer behaviour and doing our part to foster circularity and regenerative textiles manufacturing.
We hope that as a business we can nurture much-needed change for the better within the textile industry and do this in a way that empowers our team and our wider community towards creating a thriving planet for all. We extend this sustainable approach to you as our community, and invite you to read and reach out with feedback, ideas and questions via our contact form.
Sustainability In Action
Our teams across our eight retail stores and head office are committed to sustainable business practices and commitments on a day-to-day basis. Read on for a broad overview of some of the implemented sustainable practices that form our 'business-as-usual'.
Transparent and ethical sourcing are key aspects of our sustainable practice. Of the fabrics we sell, the majority are deadstock fabrics that would otherwise be sent to landfill or incinerated. Learn more about how and why we buy deadstock fabrics here. Our team have implemented supplier analysis processes to gain transparency over our supply chain in areas of environmental and social ethical practices. In addition to this, we work alongside a textile sustainability consultant to ensure we remain up-to-date with certifications, and better understand the points of impact within our supply chain.
At our HQ in New Zealand we collect and use rainwater, have an established worm farm, a well-functioning recycling and composting system, and 25% of our vehicle fleet is electric. We have comprehensive workplace policies to keep our staff safe, and we're proud to be able to support local businesses for all of our internal consumables.
Our Online Team use packaging made with recycled and recyclable materials for all ecommerce orders, and we have a comprehensive fabric scrap/remnant donation scheme to divert fabric off-cuts & scraps to local schools, community groups and charities, across our retail stores and HQ. We maintain a philanthropic program supporting a variety of local organisations through event sponsorship, fundraising support, direct advertising and project partnerships. In addition, we nurture long-standing relationships with key tertiary educational providers in New Zealand and Australia, providing ongoing student discount and award programs.
Ensuring we share our journey and our knowledge is also key! Our TFS teams are dedicated to providing our customers with best practice care guidelines for our fabrics, as well as sharing written and visual educational resources to help develop their slow sewing and fabric knowledge.
Understanding Our Impact
Our team have created an actionable Sustainability Strategy for FY22-FY24 structured around three fundamental pillars: Environment, Social Responsibility and Local Community Engagement. Within these pillars, key points of impact, challenges and targets for our team at The Fabric Store have been identified across a three year cycle. If you'd like to read this strategy in detail, you can download and read it here. This document covers our overarching goals in each area of impact, outlines why these are important to our business, identifies our present challenges and provides annual targets for the years to come.
For a broader view, join us via the two links below as we unpack our Environmental and Social impacts.
The language of sustainability is complex and evolving, making it tricky to understand and open to misinformation and greenwashing. To help us on our sustainable journey, we've put together a glossary of commonly used fashion-related sustainable terminology and certifications. We hope you'll find it helpful too!
Our team are also here to answer your questions. If you have any sustainability-related queries, general feedback about this information, or you'd like to share your thoughts, feel free to get in touch via community@thefabricstore.co.nz