Our Sustainability Efforts

"Sustainability" is a buzzword which many companies use to "greenwash" their customers, without doing much to minimize their impact on the environment. We've decided that rather than assigning ourselves the sustainability medal like everyone else, we prefer to tell you instead about our sustainability efforts and let you decide if you think that by your definition we are a sustainable brand or not.

TØY sustainability efforts are actions we take in order to become as close to a sustainable baby clothing brand as we can, minimizing our impact on the already vulnerable planet Earth and its population. Our sustainability efforts include, but are not limited to:

 

Creating timeless products meant to last

We are big believers in the circular economy, so we only create timeless, gender-neutral clothes and accessories which with proper care can be enjoyed by multiple babies, regardless of their gender, and for many generations. We only use highest quality materials to maximize our products' durability.

 

Using certified 100% organic cotton yarn

Our custom-made fabrics use only GOTS certified 100% organic cotton yarn, grown from natural (non-GMO) seeds and without the use of toxic pesticides and fertilizers, which contaminate local soil and waters and negatively affect the farmers and local communities. Compared to conventional cotton, organic cotton uses 88% less water and 62% less energy, which drastically reduces the impact on the environment. 

 

Refusing to add unnecessary chemical substances to our clothing

While it's common practice for manufacturers of organic and non-organic fabrics across the world to add synthetic enhancers to the fabric finishing, like chemical washes/softeners, bleach, anti-shrinkage chemicals, flame retardants or silicon oil, we refuse to do so. We only work with transparent manufacturers, who can offer or work with our fully customized fabric and produce clothes without these unnecessary chemicals. The less chemicals used in clothing production, the less chemicals end up irritating the sensitive skin and get released to pollute waters and soils.

 

Minimizing fabric waste

During each production we are working closely with our manufacturers to make sure that the amount of fabric waste from our orders is minimized. While we do not yet have a strategy for turning the fabric scraps into something useful, we continue to explore our options.

Since we work with unbleached organic cotton fabric, it is natural to sometimes see parts of the cotton seed in it, which looks like a small dark dot or line within the knitted fabric. These dots typically fade away after bleaching/dyeing or the fabrics containing them get thrown away by manufacturers. We proudly keep such fabric and do not discard it, unless it clearly affects the look or feel of a product, because nature itself can be a little imperfect and we think that is perfectly ok!

 

Offering Imperfect TØY

As previously mentioned, nothing natural is always perfect. Also because our TØY baby clothes are made by humans they sometimes have small imperfections. We have a high standard for quality control before we ever ship anything out to you and clothing which doesn't pass our standard is set aside as Imperfect. Imperfect TØY is then occasionally offered for sale at a discounted price here or repaired and donated to families in need. 

 

Minimizing plastic usage

Whenever possible, we abandon individual bag packaging when shipping larger quantities of clothing between our manufacturer, our warehouse and our partners. We choose to rather combine multiple products into one or two large protective bags per carton, which helps us drastically reduce the amount of plastic typically used in transportation of clothing. There is already enough plastic in the Ocean, so whenever we see an opportunity to use less or no plastic at all we do that. 

 

Using eco-friendly packaging

The TØY packaging you and/or your loved ones receive from us is carefully designed and made to have as little impact on the environment as possible. All our domestic shipping mailers and boxes as well as paper wraps are made with recycled and recyclable paper. Our stickers are also 100% recycled. 

 

Minimizing print

When you order TØY, you won't find any packing slips, default return labels, large promotional cards or other unnecessary paper in your package. We prefer to give you all information digitally and we print out information only when necessary, in order to help save as many trees as we can. The only thing you might sometimes find inside is a small note, written on (obviously..) recycled paper.

Neither do we offer printed catalogues to our partners and customers, because majority of fashion brands end up overprinting and throwing away up to 80% of them. Everything we can do digitally we do digitally.

 

Rewarding clothing donations

We donate our samples and unsold Imperfect TØY to families in need and we encourage our customers to do the same by rewarding them for their contributions, unless of course they choose to keep the products for their own future use. Everyone who sends us proof of clothing donation or a photo of themselves giving away their used TØY to someone in need is eligible to receive a 15% discount towards their next purchase. 

 

We always appreciate your feedback and suggestions, so if you have any ideas on how we can be and do better, feel free to share your thoughts with hello@shoptoey.com