How are we creating eco-conscious fashion?

Lucie & Co was created because there is a gap in the market when it comes to buying for your pets with an eco-conscious mindset. We are creating fashion for your pets that is sustainable, locally handmade and ethical.

Fast fashion and mass production in general for everyday items is causing significant issues in terms of the climate and it also has huge social impacts. More and more there is a shift towards making eco-conscious decisions when purchasing items. This is a great move towards making better decisions however, the fast fashion industry is moving at an all time high. Textile waste is one of the most polluting industries on the planet. Cheap and sometimes poorly made items make their way into your household and we all fall victim to this in some aspect of our daily lives. It can be incredibly hard to source sustainable and ethical items within budget. Unfortunately with these cheaper items comes a huge cost to everyone else. Something that is cheap and convenient for you is impacting someone else negatively. Unethical factory processes is usually where it all starts. From underpaying staff to horrible working conditions and not too mention how many factories dump their waste, in local waterways making water unsafe for local peoples. These are only a very small portion of examples when it comes to the impact fast fashion has in today’s society.

So how do we stand out and how do we get to call ourselves a company that has an eco-conscious mindset?

In all honestly everything we do has an impact in some form.

However, we use sustainable practices such as thrifting second hand fabrics to bring you our sustainable range or using scraps for our patchwork range. When we buy pre-loved items it improves the sustainability of our products. Second-hand items have a huge positive environmental and social impact. This is due to the reduction of carbon emissions, saving resources, water and energy. Not too mention we are saving a tonne of fabric that would be destined for landfill. Our products are all handmade locally in South East Queensland, so in terms of our social impact we are creating pieces at a much slower rate and they are being made by one person. Our waste is significantly less than those of a massive corporation and we are in the process of creating products that utilise most if not all of our waste from our making process. Our patchwork range already utilises some of our waste to create beautiful one off pieces, however we can do better and we aim to do this for the future.

Now we understand that currently we have a range that is NOT sustainable. We have acknowledged this and have in no way hidden the fact that these pieces are not sustainable. We decided to utilise this fabric that was bought before Lucie & Co was Lucie & Co to give them a purpose instead of sitting in a cupboard or ending up in landfill. These items are still handmade locally the fabric just wasn’t sourced sustainably, it is store bought fabric that was purchased in maximum of two meter lengths and will be discontinued once all the fabric is used.

We also acknowledge that our cotton threads are not always sourced secondhand. Unfortunately this is something that at the current time we have only sourced a small amount of thread that is second-hand. Our labels are also brand new labels for what we think are obvious reasons. We are in the process of trying to create a better and more sustainable option for our labels. The labels were sourced as ethically and sustainably as we could find at the current time. They are 100% organic cotton with OSC, OKEO-TEX, SEDEX and Higg Index certifications. You can find more about these terms by heading over to our terms page here.

When it comes to packaging this is something that we at Lucie & Co were determined to get right. We think it is very important in today’s society when there is such a huge online presence to shop to ensure that our packaging is as sustainable as possible. Therefore everything that we use for our packaging is completely compostable or recyclable and was either made from recycled items or with an FSC certification. Most of our packaging has actually been sourced from other Australian companies with an environmentally conscious mindset. We even made sure to source compostable shipping labels, as we think there is nothing worse than receiving a sustainable mailer with a label that has to be removed and placed into the bin. You can find out more about our packaging by heading over to our packing page here.

We understand that being an environmental and eco-conscious company is not a box that can be ticked with full certainty. We are an eco-conscious and an environmentally conscious company in our values and we are fully committed to continue to learn, evolve and improve Lucie & Co.