BEEN London
London, United Kingdom
Fashion
Shipping: Global
Who are we?
BEEN London is an award-winning brand making accessories entirely from recycled materials, handmade in East London.
What do we do?
Combine innovation with local skills and heritage to create products designed with functionality and durability in mind.
Sustainability
BEEN London completed a sustainability assessment as part of our partner application process. To promote transparency, their responses to our questions are below:
What is our mission?
To create a world without waste.
Our sustainability statement?
Our approach is simple. Instead of creating products and then solving the problems that arise, we find an environmental or a social problem, and create a solution to it. Each year we dump 2.12 billion tonnes of waste and if all of this was put on trucks they would go around the world 24 times. This is because 99% of what we buy is thrown away within 6 months. The solution is obvious: let’s get hold of what normally gets discarded and turn it into beautiful things that people will want to wear every day.
What UN Sustainable Development Goals are we contributing to?
GOAL 12 - Responsible Consumption and Production: At the heart of BEEN London is the innovative materials. Refusing to take more virgin materials out of the earth, simply because there is no need, BEEN London instead choose to work with only certified recycled materials from trusted global organisations. GOAL 13 - Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts: In 2020 BEEN London conducted a Life Cycle Analysis and learnt that its products have an 87% smaller carbon footprint in comparison to a similar highstreet styles. GOAL 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth: At present, BEEN London is a tiny all female team based in East London and believes in supporting British manufacturing and craft.
Do we have any certifications?
Global recycled standard, Recycled 100 claim standard, Standard 100 by OEKO-TEX, Global organic textile standard, Blue sign approved
What internal measures do we take to reduce our company’s carbon footprint?
Terra Neutra conducted a full Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) for BEEN London in order to calculate the carbon footprint of our products The study revealed BEEN London are managing to create accessories with a fraction of the carbon footprint compared to high street giants. The biggest saving comes from using innovative recycled materials including recycled leather along with making adaptations by changing the linings to recycled cotton instead of polyester. Transportation is also a significant contributor. BEEN London manufactures everything locally, in their studio in East London and ships all their raw materials by sea, significantly reducing their carbon footprint.
How do we adhere to fair labor conditions?
We make everything locally, here in East London, to minimise carbon footprint and create the highest level of transparency. We want to make sure every person involved in making our products is paid well and treated with respect, so we choose not to produce in far away countries where human rights violations are more widespread.