Sustainability
What Does it Mean to Us?
However, with activewear such as golf clothes, that is not always possible. Think sweaty range sessions or exciting rounds that made you break into a nervous sweat. If you have been wearing your clothes to the point where they are falling apart: good on you, that is great! But handing them to someone else is not always an option. Ocean Meets Green is producing high quality garments with thoughtful designs. Because I hope you will wear and love your pieces for many years to come, not just for one season.
The ultimate goal is to create a circular production system where you can send your pre-loved clothes back to Ocean Meets Green so that we can recycle them into regenerated nylon and create new pieces with the same old resources. Imagine an infinite loop of using only existing materials. At this stage that technology is still evolving, but I will be onto it as soon as it becomes available. And you’ll be the first to know 😊
So for now, I'll give you an insight into what we are doing and where your clothes are from:
Fabric
Every single Ocean Meets Green garment is made with 100% ECONYL® yarn. ECONYL® regenerated nylon is made from recovering nylon waste such as old fishing nets, fabric scraps or old carpets. These are all items that would otherwise end up in landfill or polluting the ocean. But thanks to ECONYL® they’re given a second life. By rescuing and regenerating this waste and then spinning it into yarn, ECONYL® is turning trash into treasure. And then we're turning it into your Ocean Meets Green pieces.
To read about the process in detail, head to the blog post about ECONYL®.
Small Capsule Collections
To me, running a sustainable business also goes beyond the obvious. Using regenerated fabrics and selecting production and packaging that keep our environmental footprint as small as possible is the least we can do. We also decided to produce small collections which sell out rather than having a warehouse full of items which would end up in landfill if not sold.
And our goal is to focus on creating only necessary pieces that do not go out of fashion. Think timeless designs that can be combined with pieces from previous or following collections, and a colour scheme that can easily be combined with other colours.
We hope that some of our Ocean Meets Green pieces become the staple items you will pack in your suitcase week after week, year after year. Travelling from competition to competition. And if they do: please let us know, we’d be stoked to hear from you!
The Manufacturer
If you're following us on Instagram you might have heard us talk about our manufacturer. In November 2021 we were introduced to a small sewing studio in Poland (it was actually through a friend of my mum who is from Poland and created the initial connection). After the manufacturer made a first sample for us we decided to visit them in person.
In January 2022 we drove across to Poland to meet the owner, Magdalena and her team. They welcomed us into their office, cutting room and sewing room and talked the samples through with us (think potential issues, improving the quality and the cut and speeding up the manufacturing process). After this meeting we knew we had not only found a great manufacturer, but also a very valuable business partner. The fabrics we chose are not that easy to work with. And the seamstresses have done an outstanding job in creating high-quality garments for us. Their work stood out from the work of any other manufacturer we did samples with. Hence we chose to go into production with Magdalena and her team.
While all the manufacturing aspects, such as cutting, sewing and adding trims is done in Poland, the patterns are done by a local patternmaker in Germany. If you've never heard of patternmaking before, let me give you a quick intorduction: The patternmaking part is the most important part. This is where the cut of each piece is defined. It's almost like seeing a custom tailor who is creating a 2D version of the garment, including all the specs. The pattern is the 'plan' for the garment, like a floor plan for a house.
We believe it is much easier to speak to someone in our first language to express what we need the products to look and feel like. And through a recommendation from another manufacturer we found Meike. She's got many years of patternmaking under her belt and gave us a lot of useful tips along the way. She's located only 2 hours from our office, which makes it easy to drive up for a visit whenever required.
Accessories and Packaging
It is important to us to not just be sustainable on the surface. That’s why we did a lot of research to find sustainable alternatives for conventional accessories. Some of them you might have heard of.
For most of our packaging, we have chosen to buy our products from a company called noissue. They have a huuuuge range of customisable, sustainable packaging and accessories as well as very small minimum order quantities (such a big deal for small companies!). Plus their Eco-Alliance is an amazing opportunity to contribute to global reforestation. All that sounded like a great combination to us - not to mention their media kit with lots of cool stickers and images... (yes, we absolutely love these!)
The poly bags we use for sending your items are certified home compostable. Unlike traditional shipping mailers, they are not made from plastic. Instead, they are made from mostly plant-based materials and corn starch. You can easily re-use them or throw them in your home compost. It’ll break down and turn into great fertiliser for your garden! Learn more about these wonder bags here.
Shipping Labels
What's a compostable mailer bag without a shipping label that's at least as compostable..? That's why we chose to buy this sustainable option: made with FSC-certified paper and finished with non-toxic adhesive and 100% compostable and recyclable. Woweeee, what a combination!
Tissue Paper
You will receive your order wrapped in tissue paper. But let us tell you, this is no standard tissue paper! It is 100% compostable, acid free, printed with soy-based ink and 100% FSC-certified paper (did you expect anything less fancy from us?). To find out more, click here.
Sticker
If you have ordered from us before, you would have probably noticed the cute little sticker we use to make your order extra pretty. Well, just like the other packaging components, this sticker is no ordinary sticker. It is made with FSC-certified materials and soy-based inks. And on top of that it is 100% recyclable and compostable (#winning!). Follow this link to find out more about the stickers.
Thank You Cards
What's an order without a personalised thank-you-card?! Exactly, that's what we thought. And you probably already guessed it: if we use a card, it needs to come with super powers. So we went with 100% recycled paper, uncoated and natural.
Buttons
The buttons on your garments are not plastic, they are made from the corozo nut and are completely natural. Corozo is a tropical palm, found in South America. It's large fruits contain seeds that can be made into buttons. The seeds can only be collected after the fruit is ripe and naturally falls from the palm. As they grow in the wild, often in areas that are unsuitable for farming, corozo production does not lead to deforestation (like many other farming activities do). We thought it's a pretty cool alternative to plastic buttons and hope you'll like it too.
If there's anything else you'd like to know (or if you want to chat anything golf, chocolate and dogs) - shoot us an email at hello@oceanmeetsgreen.com.
We'll get back to you as soon as we can (actually it's only me, so please forgive me if it takes up to 48 hours for me to get back to you).
Alena xx