Our approach to sustainability
As a small slow fashion brand, we value a calm approach to everything we do. We avoid pushing towards impulse purchasing or rushing our customers. We make sure to follow our own path and stand out next to fast fashion practices. We are proud of how we operate and don’t shy away from transparency. We also acknowledge that a fashion brand can never be fully impact free as long as we are involved in creating something new upon this planet, however we are committed to being our best self we can be and to continuously working on improving ourself. On this page we have gathered all our sustainability practices. We welcome feedback, suggestions and an open conversation with you!
Greetings from our founder
“I originally started Lilja the Label back in 2016, and what a journey it has been! I have loved watching Lilja the Label grow from a personal project to an active community of our Lilja team members, the many amazing customers around the world and everyone that has been a part of the story over the years. As we grow, our positive impact and responsibility need to grow as well. We are not perfect, but we are working towards a more circular business model that allows us to aim for a conscious approach in navigating in the fashion world. Personally, my favourite initiatives towards greater sustainability and circularity have been launching #liljapicking, our initiative to save the Baltic Sea, and Lilja Preloved, our campaign to create a channel to find new homes for 2nd hand swimwear.”
– Laura Saarinen, founder & CEO
Life cycle of Lilja the Label items
As a brand operating with fashion and textile goods, sustainability has a role at all stages of the life cycle, starting from the very initial design phase. The below graph shows you all the different steps within our value chain, each as important to us as the next. We must truly take sustainability into account at every turn in order to minimise any negative impact, and on the flipside, maximise the positive. Read more about our choices in design, materials, production and logistics below. You can also get to know how you can have an impact with your actions, and how we aim to develop the afterlife of Lilja the Label products in the future.
Design and material choices
All Lilja the Label items are designed in Helsinki, Finland by our team. We like to think of sustainability in multiple facets: creating items that will serve as many people as possible, as well as being practical and long-lasting, and doing all of this by utilising the best recycled and natural materials.
As our main materials for swimwear we currently utilise ECONYL® regenerated nylon and REPREVE® recycled fiber, made our of reutilised plastic bottles. In our lounge and underwear collections we use organic cotton, bamboo and recycled polyester.
High quality production
For production it is crucial to find a good partner to ensure the most fruitful collaboration. High-quality items require high-quality craftsmanship. A part of the process also entails the most efficient use of fabric, and to eliminate any unnecessary waste materials.
Currently we work with two family-ran factories, in Portugal and Bali. During the year 2023 we will have moved our entire production into Portugal. It has been our long-term goal to move production within the EU. This move also has a massive positive impact into our emissions.
Impact actions from us and you
Our consideration of minimising emissions caused by our items starts already by attempting to make sure our website offers all the necessary information, both written and visual to make the right decision about style and choice, avoiding unnecessary returns and exchanges.
Once the item has arrived to your care, we advise with product care instructions to help elongate the lifecycle. In the future, we hope to also discover a proper end-of-life placement for our items. Currently, the inclusion of elastane that the item requires prevents proper recyclability.
Our actions
Preorder system
Our collections are available on preorder, which means all items will be manufactured according to the preorder amounts and our estimated future orders. This way we can avoid both over- and underproducing and can meet the demand better.
#liljapicking
We have launched our trash-picking campaign, #liljapicking, to spread awareness and take action. Lilja the Label is donating 1€ for each order placed towards saving the Baltic Sea via the John Nurminen Foundation.
Care guide
We have gathered our swimwear care guide to share information on how to best take care of your favourite swimwear items. As we see, taking care of our items helps elongating each products lifecycle.
Preorder system
Our collections are available on preorder, which means all items will be manufactured according to the preorder amounts and our estimated future orders. This way we can avoid both over- and underproducing and can meet the demand better.
#liljapicking
We have launched our trash-picking campaign, #liljapicking, to spread awareness and take action. Lilja the Label is donating 1€ for each order placed towards saving the Baltic Sea via the John Nurminen Foundation.
Swimwear care guide
We have gathered our swimwear care guide to share information on how to best take care of your favourite pieces. Taking care of our items helps elongating each products lifecycle, and also makes sure that favourites can stay by your side the longest.
Completed sustainability steps:
- We have moved our production to the European Union. The factory we have partnered up with is a family-run company located in Guimarães, Portugal. The move will be completed fully during 2023, with some overlap during the year.
- We have committed to using only recycled, regenerated, natural and sustainable fabrics and other materials in our entire collection.
- We have launched #liljapicking, our challenge to activate our customers in taking care of their local nature.
- We never discard returned items, photoshoot samples or faulty items. Returned items go through a careful manual check and are re-sold. Samples and 2nd quality items are sold at our store in Helsinki with a discount or via Lilja Preloved.
- We have left out all unnecessary packaging materials. We don’t send our items in individual inner packaging or include paper packing lists, return forms, discount cards. etc. with our packaging.
- Our paper hang tags are single-paged and only for product information, not for branding.
- We make scrunchies from leftover fabrics.
- We do not offer free returns. We see this as a sustainability step as free returns often lead to impulse purchasing and a higher rate of returns.
- We use a coworking space as our office and an external warehouse shared with other vendors for our warehousing and logistics. We don’t maintain all these different functions by ourselves and can therefore share the environmental costs.
Our first sustainability report for 2022 & future sustainability goals
We are in no way perfect, however we are tirelessly working to become more circular and overall a more sustainable swimwear brand. We have built a roadmap for the coming years to track our progress and to stay accountable, to ourselves as well as to our community.
It is important for us to also include our community into our impact actions. This we have done for example with our trash-picking challenge #liljapicking launched in 2022, as well as Lilja Preloved launched in 2023.
Read our full sustainability report on the year of 2022 by downloading the report here.
