Sustainable Products and Packaging
Reminder of Objectives
For Zadig&Voltaire, playing a role in combating climate change and preserving biodiversity means prioritising changes to the materials it uses and its products as they represent more than 90% of the brand’s impact!
Its collections are dependent on the services provided by nature. Zadig&Voltaire believes it is essential for it to protect resources, biodiversity and ecosystems, so that it can continue to create.
To this end, Zadig&Voltaire’s strategy focuses on the following:
• Strict compliance with international recommendations, which means using raw materials of plant and animal origin which respect recommendations published by the CITES and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) red list. The brand does not use any fur or exotic hides in its collections.
• Making use of certified key raw materials a brand standard
• Developing circularity of materials • Rolling out a certification approach for the entire supply chain when it is possible and relevant
• Ensuring animal welfare in our supply channels, a commitment formalised in the Zadig&Voltaire Animal Welfare Charter
• Promoting processes with a reduced environmental impact
• Aligning the product manufacturing processes with the most rigorous standards regarding chemicals
• Ensuring our packaging can be recycled
Our ambitions for 2025
• 100% of key raw materials certified sustainable or with a reduced environmental impact
• Zero virgin plastic made from fossil fuels
• 100% of our packaging made from certified sustainable, biobased or recycled and recyclable materials.
• 100% traced products
Committing to sustainable key raw materials:
Cashmere
The vast majority of the virgin cashmere used by the brand comes from Inner Mongolia. In order to support sustainable cashmere production, Zadig&Voltaire joined the Good Cashmere Standard and set itself the goal of using 100% certified sustainable cashmere in all its collections by 2025. At the end of 2022, 90% of Zadig&Voltaire’s virgin cashmere knits were made from Good Cashmere Standard certified cashmere. In order to promote the circular economy dynamic, we are also developing styles made from certified recycled fibres and working on accelerating this programme in our cashmere collections.
Wool
Wool is also an important material for the brand, which offers many of its iconic styles in sheep’s wool. Zadig&Voltaire’s goal is to use 100% wool from RWS-certified channels guaranteeing animal welfare, traceability and sustainable development of grazing land.
Cotton
Zadig&Voltaire is committed to using 100% certified organic cotton by 2025. This means cotton grown without pesticides, insecticides or chemical fertilisers, and without GMOs. At the end of 2022, 95% of cotton jersey products and almost 60% of denim products were made from organically-grown fibres.
Leather
Leather is also one of the materials that are part of the brand’s DNA. In order to support more sustainable leather production, Zadig&Voltaire has committed to only sourcing leather from certified Leather Working Group* (LWG) tanneries by 2025. Zadig&Voltaire is also an LWG member. Leather Working Group members include brands, suppliers, leather manufacturers and other stakeholders from the leather industry. The organisation has developed a programme of audits, which certify leather production sites based on their environmental performance level. At the end of 2022, 100% of leather used for the Zadig&Voltaire ready-to-wear and accessory collections came from LWG-certified tanneries.
Polyester
Polyester is a by-product of oil and is non-biodegradable. That is why we are working on using recycled polyester for our ready-to-wear and accessory collections from 2022 onwards. We want to use 100% recycled polyester by 2025. With this in mind, our iconic Japanese satin is now made from 60% recycled fibres.
Viscose
Using viscose made from fibres certified as coming from sustainably-managed forests is part of Zadig&Voltaire’s standards and requirements. The majority of the viscose used by the brand is EcoVero®, which also guarantees the implementation of particularly rigorous environmental practices during the manufacturing phase of the material. This reduces the brand’s impact in terms of CO2 emissions and energy and water consumption.
Tracability
Zadig&Voltaire works hard to continually offer its customers increased transparency, share the know-how developed with its partners in various countries and allow customers to identify products that are part of the VoltAIRe programme.
Objective: 100% of our products traceable by 2025 Tracing for increased transparency and performance
In 2022, Zadig&Voltaire took measures to allow for traceability right through to the knitting or weaving stage for 100% of the ready-to-wear and textile accessory collection, and to stitching for 100% of the shoe collection. This information is made available to our customers, in accordance with the French AGEC law. To go even further and gradually provide information from the origin of raw materials, Zadig&Voltaire works in partnership with Fairly Made® which provides a traceability and impact assessment solution. Launched for the summer 2024 collection, the project will allow the brand to gradually provide more information on traceability and take its assessment of the environmental impact of its products further, in order to improve their performance. In parallel, the certification process for an increasing number of products throughout the entire supply chain, launched by Zadig&Voltaire in 2021, also plays a role in making the traceability process more reliable and ensuring that each stage meets requirements in keeping with the company’s standards and industry best practices.
Packaging
Zadig&Voltaire is committed to using packaging made from 100% traced, certified sustainable, recycled, biobased and recyclable materials. Traced, certified and recyclable paper and cardboard packaging: e-commerce boxes, store bags, shoe boxes
In all countries, 100% of the brand’s store bags and e-commerce boxes are made from certified paper/cardboard, composed of a mix of certified traced, recycled fibres from sustainably-managed forests, and are 100% recyclable.
• The paper used to make our store bags is certified as made from 60% recycled fibres.
• The cardboard used to make our e-commerce boxes is composed of 75% recycled fibres.
• The cardboard used to make our shoe boxes is composed of 70% recycled fibres.
Roll-out of the zero virgin plastic made from fossil fuels ambition
Zadig&Voltaire is also working to eliminate virgin plastic made from fossil fuels. To this end, all polybags used to package and protect products are made from a biobased material derived from sugar cane or a recycled material, and are recyclable.
The brand will gradually roll out its approach across all packaging to achieve 100% packaging made from sustainable and recyclable materials and the elimination of virgin plastic made from fossil fuels by 2025.
Promoting the circularity of materials used for our textile packaging: leather goods, jewellery and shoe pouches
The pouches provided with Zadig&Voltaire products are made from certified 100% recycled cotton.
Made In Voltaire Respect
Made In Voltaire Respect (MIVR)
In 2022, Zadig&Voltaire launched Made in VoltAIRe Respect, a logo placed on all care labels and the product pages on the website, for products which comply with the VoltAIRe programme. These products respect specific specifications and one of the following criteria:
• any textile product certified (GOTS, OCS, GRS, RWS) at each stage of the supply chain
• any virgin cashmere knit from certified farms, traced at each stage by the Good Cashmere Standard
• any textile product composed of at least 90% certified raw materials or with a reduced environmental impact
• any leather product which comes from tanneries with at least an LWG silver rating
• any jewellery containing at least 80% recycled metal At the end of 2022, the MIVR logo was associated with 64% of the products developed for the Winter collection.
Making a commitment that goes beyond just materials by means of a certification process for the entire supply chain
In addition to its objective to use 100% certified key raw materials by 2025, Zadig&Voltaire is taking measures in an effort to have its entire supply chain certified for the majority of its products.
This process ensures that traceability details are reliable and that each manufacturing step meets requirements in keeping with Zadig&Voltaire standards.
In this context, Zadig&Voltaire has been certified since 2021 in accordance with recognised and particularly rigorous standards such as GOTS (Global Organic Textile
Standard), OCS (Organic Content Standard), RWS (Responsible Wool Standard) and GRS (Global Recycled Standard). At the end of 2022, the certification of products in the collection, at every stage of the supply chain, represented:
• 90% of the Cashmere Knit collection
• 90% of the Wool Knit collection
• 65% of the Jersey collection
• 30% of the Denim collection
In 2023, the brand is aiming for a substantial increase in the number of products concerned by this process.