Filippa K

To ensu­re the ethi­cal aspect, Filip­pa K pro­po­ses a Code of Con­duct to all sup­pli­ers. If a part­ner vio­la­tes any of the rules, dra­stic mea­su­res will be taken imme­dia­te­ly. The Code of Con­duct is divi­ded into two levels.

–> The first level con­ta­ins rules, such as no child labor, no forced labor, no dan­ge­rous working con­di­ti­ons, no envi­ron­men­tal pol­lu­ti­on, no cor­rup­ti­on, trans­pa­ren­cy about working hours and wages and com­pli­ance with the ban­ned che­mi­cals list.

–> The second level includes the fol­lo­wing rules: no dis­cri­mi­na­ti­on, trade uni­on free­dom, living wages are paid, no extre­me working hours, employ­ment con­tracts, good working con­di­ti­ons, employee trai­ning, envi­ron­men­tal mea­su­res. If a level two rule is vio­la­ted, Filip­pa K will give the com­pa­ny the oppor­tu­ni­ty to recover.

Filip­pa K has been a mem­ber of the Fair Wear Foun­da­ti­ons sin­ce 2008 and has been award­ed the sta­tus of Good. This means that the brand is alre­a­dy making gre­at efforts to impro­ve working con­di­ti­ons, but the­re is still room for impro­ve­ment. To impro­ve this, the brand has been working with QuizRR sin­ce then. This is a tool that explains labour rights by means of short films. After­wards, employees can be ques­tio­ned about their new­ly acqui­red know­ledge and how things are going in their fac­to­ry. In this way, you teach the employees their rights and the brand gains insight into the working con­di­ti­ons in that par­ti­cu­lar fac­to­ry. It gives the brand the oppor­tu­ni­ty to increase know­ledge among employees and thus impro­ve their working con­di­ti­ons.

Sur­veys also allow the brand to assess the real sta­tus of the working con­di­ti­ons and thus take tar­ge­ted actions to impro­ve the con­di­ti­ons. Invol­ving ever­yo­ne in the sup­p­ly chain and sha­ring the value sys­tem is important for Filip­pa K, and is an important fac­tor in buil­ding suc­cessful long-term part­ner­ships.
To achie­ve this, the brand requi­res the coope­ra­ti­on of all partners.

The main focus at Filip­pa K is less on the use of the new eco mate­ri­als, but rather on the hig­hest qua­li­ty and 100% natu­ral mate­ri­als. Most basics are the­r­e­fo­re 100% mule­sing-free meri­no wool or 100% silk, which makes them easi­ly recyclable.

The safe­ty of the cus­to­mer and the employees is of enorm­ous importance to the brand. That is why Filip­pa K stri­ves to increase the use of sus­tainable mate­ri­als and sys­te­ma­ti­cal­ly eli­mi­na­te the use of hazar­dous che­mi­cals during pro­duc­tion. For exam­p­le, jeans are not sand­blas­ted becau­se of the health risks asso­cia­ted with them. Filip­pa K has also iden­ti­fied all pos­si­ble pro­blems in the field of lea­ther and ani­mal rights. The brand only works with lea­ther from the slaugh­ter industry.

For each pro­duct line, the clot­hing brand has estab­lished clear rules to which its own sourcing team and sup­pli­ers must adhe­re. In addi­ti­on, during the design pro­cess, the brand alre­a­dy con­siders the repair and/​or resa­le as second-hand, as well as the reco­vera­bi­li­ty of the fibres at the end of a gar­men­t’s life.

At the moment, spring 2020, we do not yet assign the brand the icon of micro­pla­s­tics, becau­se the­re is still some poly­es­ter in the coll­ec­tion. Nevert­hel­ess, Filip­pa K is very actively inves­ti­ga­ting how they can replace poly­es­ters in blends with, for exam­p­le, ten­cel of biode­gra­da­ble Euca­lyp­tus. But main­ly how they can work with mono mate­ri­als.

For some garm­ents, the brand starts from the crad­le-to-crad­le prin­ci­ple. The­se pie­ces are ful­ly biode­gra­da­ble, such as The Throw Away Dress. Other garm­ents, such as The Eter­nal Trench Coat, are made from 100% recy­cled mate­ri­als and are again 100% recy­clable.

Do you have some Filip­pa K garm­ents that you no lon­ger wear? No pro­blem becau­se Filip­pa K has its own second-hand shop whe­re it sells worn clo­thes of the brand. And what about the over­stock of the new coll­ec­tions? It goes to the three out­lets in Nor­way and Swe­den. What isn’t sold the­re goes to cha­ri­ties like Stock­holms Sta­ds­mis­si­on and Red Cross.

Filip­pa K wan­ted to achie­ve the fol­lo­wing tar­gets by 2020: a design for cir­cu­la­ri­ty; increase the num­ber of used clo­thes brought in; increase the num­ber of second hands Filip­pa K clo­thes sold; increase the use of recy­cled materials.

For the first action point, the brand wants to train all desi­gners within Filip­pa K on cir­cu­lar design, so that they can app­ly this in sub­se­quent coll­ec­tions. 25% of the coll­ec­tion must be made of mono-mate­ri­al, 60% of the coll­ec­tion is made with repa­ra­bi­li­ty in mind. The Filip­pa K Care Con­cept is shared with all cus­to­mers. The aim is to ensu­re that cus­to­mers tre­at their garm­ents with the best care.

Action point two means that the brand wants to increase the num­ber of Filip­pa K garm­ents brought in by 10%. In this way, it wants to pre­vent peo­p­le from thro­wing it in the gar­ba­ge and give the garm­ents a second life in the Filip­pa K second-hand stores.

The third action point wants to increase the num­ber of second-hand clo­thes sold by Filip­pa K. The brand wants to do this by having their own cus­to­mers return items after use and sell the­se second-hand clo­thes in their own second-hand stores and in the future to online consumers.

The last action point wants 5% of the coll­ec­tion to be made out of recy­cled post-con­su­mer mate­ri­als. COSH! can based on what we have seen on the labels in the clo­thes and on the web­site, say that the brand adhe­res to all the abo­ve goals.

Filip­pa K has also set some goals it wants to achie­ve by 2030:

First of all, it wants to use only sus­tainable and recy­clable mate­ri­als by then. Second­ly, the­re should be full tracea­bi­li­ty and trans­pa­ren­cy throug­hout the sup­p­ly chain. Third­ly, it will only pro­du­ce what is requi­red so that over­stock no lon­ger exists. Fourth, ever­yo­ne who comes into cont­act with Filip­pa K pro­ducts should work in good working con­di­ti­ons. Final­ly, the brand wants to build rela­ti­onships and make enough pro­fit to invest in a more envi­ron­men­tal­ly fri­end­ly Filip­pa K.

No emp­ty pro­mi­ses at Filip­pa K. A 110 page CSR report sup­ports their state­ments and pro­gress in detail. No green­wa­shing by making test pro­jects look big­ger than they real­ly are, but exact cla­ri­fi­ca­ti­on of how they roll out sus­taina­bi­li­ty pilot pro­jects year after year.

The brand com­mu­ni­ca­tes both the main sup­pli­er and the sub-con­tracts at pro­duct level, which is why we grant this brand 100% trans­pa­ren­cy.

The brand per­forms tests with Block­chain. This tech­no­lo­gy pro­vi­des full pro­duct tracea­bi­li­ty.
Filip­pa K has alre­a­dy done this for two basic garm­ents. We only wel­co­me the fact that Filip­pa K is taking more and more steps towards trans­pa­ren­cy, becau­se even though we alre­a­dy know the end sup­pli­er at the pro­duct level, a litt­le more trans­pa­ren­cy on the mate­ri­als and their ori­gin is still nee­ded. The­re is also litt­le infor­ma­ti­on about the dif­fe­rent cer­ti­fi­ca­tes that some mate­ri­als would have. COSH! has cont­ac­ted the CSR mana­ger for this. We are curious about the answer.