the basics

The basics

We treat people and the planet with respect. This is trivial but sadly not common in the industry. Therefore, it is not something that we boast about, but something that we put forward so that you know that the basics of our business is fair and sound.

Certifications and standards

As a company, we want to take responsibility for our activities. It also means that we take ownership of all steps in the creation of a product. We want to be aware of our choices and de-choices as well as the consequences thereof. Standards and certifications are an important aspect to create transparency about the process and ensure that our products always live up to our visions and wishes for this. Standards can also give you - as a customer - confidence that our products live up to what we say.We have actively decided to use only factories in Italy and yarns from Italian manufacturers. Most of our raw materials also come from Italy. We only use yarns and producers with recognized certifications for environmental sustainability, ethics in material development, working conditions and social responsibility.

ISO9001

Most of our factories have the ISO 9001 certification which is the international standard for quality management. In order to be certified to the ISO 9001 standard, a company must follow the requirements set forth in the ISO 9001 Standard. The standard is used by organizations to demonstrate their ability to consistently provide products and services that meet customer and regulatory requirements and to demonstrate continuous improvement.

ISO45001

Most of our factories have the ISO 45001 certification, which is an international standard that aims to ensure a good working environment with a continuous focus on the employees' physical and mental working environment. The purpose of ISO 45001 work environment management is to improve the factory's performance in relation to the work environment by creating the framework for management and control of the risks that exist within the work environment. This helps to reduce accidents at work and create safe and healthy workplaces.

Global Recycled Standard

Our biggest supplier of nylon tights as well as all of our recycled yarns (polyamide, elastane, wool) are certified by Global Recycled Standard - a holistic certification for products and manufacturers working with recycled content. The desired effect of the GRS is to provide brands with a tool for more accurate labelling, to encourage innovation in the use of reclaimed materials, to establish more transparency in the supply chain, and to provide better information to consumers.

GOTS

We use organic cotton certified by The Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS) - the worldwide leading textile processing standard for organic fibres, including ecological and social criteria, backed up by independent certification of the entire textile supply chain. 

OEKO-TEX® Standard 100

Most of our factories are certified by STANDARD 100 by OEKO-TEX® which is one of the world's best-known labels for textiles tested for harmful substances. It stands for customer confidence and high product safety. 

Responsible Wool Standard

When we do not use recycled wool we mainly use virgin wool certified to the Responsible Wool Standard, which promotes standards for animal welfare and land management. Our cashmere yarn manufacturers are certified by the Sustainable Fibre Alliance which encourage the adoption of responsible production practices that minimise environmental impact, safeguard herder livelihoods and meet high animal welfare standards. All wool we use is fully traceable.

EU Ecolabel

Our preferred nylon yarn - Q-NOVA® - is certified by EU Ecolabel - a label of environmental excellence that is awarded to products and services meeting high environmental standards throughout their life-cycle: from raw material extraction, to production, distribution and disposal.

CHOOOSE

We've partnered with Chooose, an organisation that makes businesses and individuals carbon balanced by investing in UN verified or Gold Standard CO2 reducing projects in developing countries - like hydro power in Laos and wind power in Vietnam. This creates the most effective combat to climate change - the fastest.

B corp

We want to use our business as a force for good and to solve some of the challenges we face in relation to climate and social inequality.

It sounds grandiose, and to ensure transparency, we have undergone a demanding third-party audit and certification of our company and our efforts and become part of the global B Corp movement.

This means that our work with sustainability and responsibility has been recognized and blue-stamped, even with one of the highest scores of all certified companies in the Nordic region. The B Corp certification is not only an extremely comprehensive certification, it is also a promise to not only be the best in the world, but to be the best for the world.

Working conditions

All our suppliers must sign our code of conduct. By doing so, they sign basic things, such as not using child labor or forced labor, and that they undertake to pay a living wage.

Our suppliers are regularly audited by third-party organisations in the field of certifications and standards such as the WCA certification (Workplace Conditions Assessment), which ensures that workers have a safe working environment, all necessary safety equipment is present and worker rights such as the right to organising is upheld.

We see our suppliers not just as a facility that delivers the products we have specified, but as partners. For both them and us, it is a matter of course that they provide a good working environment, competitive wages and highly educated staff. They are part of the development of our products and we find solutions together when we get feedback from customers.

Management systems

Management systems may sound boring, but it is through those systems that it is ensuring that the production lives up to continuously increasing quality and environmental requirements.

In our factories, this is ensured through the ISO 9001, ISO 14001 og ISO 45001 standards. 

Chemicals

The production of synthetic materials demands chemical processes that can be dangerous for workers and the people wearing the end products.

In our products, harmful chemicals and heavy metals are restricted and even prohibited.  This is ensured through the OEKO-TEX 100 standarden  - a certification that ensures that our products are tested for harmful substances after production. 

Our main manufacturer's OEKO-TEX 100 certification number is: 19CX00035

Animal welfare

The wool we use is either recycled or virgin, RWS certified, mulesing-free wool. By switching parts of our wool consumption to recycled wool and cashmere, we are reducing the impact from our animal-derived products, since it eliminates the need of land-use for grazing sheep. It is also less water intensive in processing, than the conventional production of virgin wool, and prolongs the lifetime of valuable wool fibres.

The virgin wool we use in our products are certified RWS - Responsible Wool Standard - ensuring animal welfare, preservation of soil health, biodiversity and native species and working conditions by a third-party audit. This includes prohibiting mulesing - a painful procedure where the skin around an animal's buttock is removed to keep flies away from the wool typically performed on merino sheep.

Energy

As a global society, we need to drastically cut down on our greenhouse gas emissions. The production of electrical energy is a substantial factor of those emissions and switching to renewable energy sources is an obvious move to improve. 

When Dear Denier's products are made, renewable energy from water, solar, wind and geothermal energy is primarily used. Some of our manufacturers have installed solar cells in their production facilities, and others use renewable energy certified through a “guarantee of origin” system from the energy provider (this is in accordance to directive 2009/28/ec). This means that even if the actual electricity going into the machines comes from the general electrical grid, the energy provider that we pay is only producing renewable energy.

At our head office in Denmark, all used energy comes in the same way from renewable energy sources (RECS-certified).

Transportion

We reduce the impact our transport has to the bare minimum. Our products are being produced in Italy. Therefore, our production lies fairly close to Denmark and other European countries considering how the global economy and how the textile industry normally operates. That means that we need to ship the products fewer kilometers and that visiting our suppliers has a lower negative environmental impact. When transporting our products to Denmark, we use trucks, not planes - the difference in impact between the two is significant. Apart from that, vehicles transporting our products use Smart Driving. This means that they don’t drive with half-empty trucks and that they make an extra effort to take the most efficient route.

packaging

Although the packaging usually has a fairly low negative impact compared to the product inside the packaging, it still has an impact. The paper and cardboard industry cut down trees to create their products. To ensure that this is done in the most responsible way possible, we use FSC certified cardboard. That way, we are sure that the trees for the packaging come from forests that are managed responsibly and that care is taken for the people that live in those forests. 

We have to pack a number of our products in polybags to protect the products from moisture and dirt during transport and in the shops. We have therefore developed a polybag made from 100% recycled plastic materials. Our activewear and underwear also come in a high-quality polybag with ziplock that can be reused for storage and protection.

water

Water pollution is often a major problem in the textile industry - from the cultivation and harvesting of natural fibers to the production and finishing of products. Our primary fiber is recycled polyamide, instead of virgin polyamide, which requires chemical processes that normally severely affect water resources through production discharges. By choosing a recycled fiber over a virgin fiber, we save up to 9 liters of water on the production of a pair of tights.

Our suppliers recycle large amounts of water from production, and have all purification procedures in place, to prevent chemicals from being discharged into the Italian groundwater and soil.

CO2 cOMPENSATION

Although we do our best to limit the negative effects of our production, it still uses valuable natural resources and costs greenhouse gases emissions.

As a last resort after reducing the impact, one can compensate for the emissions. We have chosen to do this by purchasing compensation for 400 grams of CO2 from CHOOOSE for each product we sell. 

CHOOOSE uses the money to invest in projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and they are acknowledged by the UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) as supporting the best standards of international emission reductions.