Sustainability & Environment

Sustainable fashion concerns more than addressing fashion textiles or products. It comprises addressing the whole system of fashion. This means dealing with interdependent social, cultural, ecological and financial systems. It also means considering fashion from the perspective of many stakeholders - users and producers, all living species, contemporary and future dwellers on earth. 

Although sustainability is such a complex matter and very difficult to control process, at Minga London, we are committed to work under strong ethical policies and to do fashion in a responsible way.
Below are the steps we have already taken towards sustainability and some that we are still working on:

In-House Manufacturing (Ethical Values & Fair Wages)

Most of our products are cut, trim and finished in our in-house manufacturing.
This allows us to assure that the garments are made following the legislative requirements & best practices of the textile industry and to guarantee that our employees receive fair payments and operate in an ethical environment.
We definitely know “who made your clothes”!

Suppling Locally & Responsibly

Most of the fabrics, materials and processes we use to make the garments (cut, trim, dying, accessories packaging) are developed or bought from familiar companies in Portugal. Not only this allow us to assure a great quality of the materials, but at the same time we are helping the local community.
We would be able to get cheaper prices supplying from other countries (where the wages and work conditions can be poor) but we are seriously committed to follow our ethical values and prefer to pay a fair price.

Elimination of hazardous chemicals

To ensure the maximum safety of our products (for consumers and employees) and to minimize the environmental impact, we follow a Chemicals Compliance Policy of chemicals that shouldn’t be used, or the usage should be limited (RSL) in our garments. All suppliers or partners that work for our business are aware of our chemical compliance policy and are committed to follow it too.

Minimize Waste / Recycle

We don’t stock a lot of products. We have a relatively fast capacity to produce more quantities when a product runs out of stock (in-house manufacturing advantages) and this allow us to reduce the waste of unsold styles. If that happens for some reason, we first try to recycle those garments and to create new styles from them and lastly, we donate them to local associations.

Sustainable Fibers

We’ve already started to adopt some product-level initiatives, such as replacing one fiber type for a less environmentally harmful option – recycled and organic fabrics - although we still have some work to do on this subject. It’s not as easy as it might sound. It implies to find new suppliers, making sure they are as reliable as the ones we work with at the moment, learning new textile techniques, and also considering the prices. We pride ourselves to practice “fair prices” for our ethical commitment as a brand, but we don’t want to develop products our customers can’t afford.
This a matter that we definitely have in mind and will try our best to keep working on.