Transparency and Sustainability Goals for Lahana swim

by Kunti Benson June 01, 2021 5 min read

Transparency and sustainability are qualities that we value highly here at Lahana. We think it is vital that our customer base is informed and included in the processes, research and development of our product.

Gone are the days where businesses are not held accountable for their decisions, values and impact, and rightly so. The world is changing, and business methods must change alongside that. When you are buying from a business, you are investing your money, and we want to make sure you are investing wisely. The product we make and sell we are incredibly proud of, and that is something that we want to continue to feel.

In the past two years, Lahana has made a conscious change to improve upon our carbon footprint and reduce our environmental impact. These changes have been prompted from the simple, but profound question:

How can we do better?

We started this journey by firstly making HQ plastic-free and vegetarian/vegan, provided our team with reusable coffee, smoothie cups, alongside investing back into both local and international communities and charities.

We have supported charities such as Thryft GC, Pay a Sack Forward, The Globals Women's Project, Wires, RFS, Treading Lightly Inc., The Bail Project, Black Vision Collective, Black Rainbow Aus and more.

However, this is just the start of our journey that we hope you will join us on, with 2020 being our year to set and achieve goals towards greater transparency and sustainability. The year to go deeper and explore, how we can do better?

Our 2020 Goals include:

Work alongside our manufacturer to encourage sustainable practises throughout our supply chain
Introduce Recycled fabric into minimal and luxe range
Introducing Bio-degradable inner packaging and compostable outer bags

Sustainability is a word or topic that gets thrown around quite often in business these days. It's an important topic, but also complex in defining and achieving. Transparency and honesty are important to us because of that reason. While we always endeavour to explore and improve our methods and practises, there is always going to be something that we can improve. We are meeting that challenge head-on, taking active steps towards sustainability.

We will always endeavour to reduce our overall carbon footprint. Our team is excited to research, trial, implement and share this process with you.

"We want to be leaders in the shift towards sustainability. While this process takes timeand energy, we can't wait to implement our 2020 goals and beyond to make Lahana evenmore powerful than it already is" - Ramana Benson (Co-found & Head Designer)

Manufacturer Head of Project Management - Eddie

Production assistant

Work alongside our manufacturer to encourage sustainable practises throughout supply chain

In January of 2020, our Co-founder of Swim Ramana, Co-founder of Active Kunti and Creative Capucine went on a research trip to check-in with our Production team that makes Lahana's Minimal Swim Range. All those long-term staple pieces our girl-gang know and love. The primary focus of the trip was to see how we can improve our brand's supply chain by working alongside our manufacturer.

It's not only crucial for our Australian HQ to be implementing changes, but for our manufacturers to be as well. Tracing and improving your supply chain is an essential step forward in moving towards full sustainability.

Lahana's team are acutely aware of the fashion industries impact on the environment. Because of this, we want to make sure the standards of our products are high, and waste production is low.

We spoke to Lahana's Production Manager Mandy about the shift currently taking place in the industry.

Mandy lets us know that:

"There is a huge shift taking place in China. Not only is our government working to improve internal standards, but clients are requesting sustainable fabrics, better practises, better methods that are not so harsh on the environment or people."

Mandy went onto explain that because of the shift in consumer and company demand, safer and more environmental practises are being integrated into the work process, such as waste disposable. We discuss this more in-depth below.

Co-founder and head Designer Ramana Benson and Marketing Manager Kunti, went on to discuss establishing a positive work environment, the happiness of their staff and the pride the team take in their work.

It is fundamental to Lahana that the production team they work alongside are willing to make the necessary changes to ensure our overall supply chain is ethical and conscious of its impact.

So let's go into this a little further.

Head Pattern Maker - Jason

Quality Control Team

Waste Management

Waste management is a crucial part of cleaning up and improving our production practices. Our off-cuts and leftover fabric are not only kept to minimal through smart production techniques, but the raw material left is recycled, saving it from ending up in Landfill.

The reclaimed fabric in the production rooms is collected, bagged and sent to recycling treatment centres to be re-purposed into new raw material and yarn. This raw material is then abled to be reused and transformed into sustainable swim pieces.

The implementation of recycling of our fabric waste brings us one step closer to a more sustainable production line.

2. Introducing Recycled fabric into our minimal and luxe range

Creating and introducing recycled fabric into both our minimal and luxe Range has been a long-term goal for us here at Lahana. On a pre-covid research trip abroad, we got to understand the process and production of the fabric we are creating for Lahana's unique recycled blend. We traced the material right back to the yarn of fibre and watched it be spun into the beautiful fabric your swim is created from.

Our manufacturer and supplier are carefully helping us achieve our set goals, with their detailed knowledge and experience they bring to the table we are able to customise our blend. Alongside our fabric production team, we are researching and developing new sustainable fabrics that are GRM certified (Global Recycle Standard) and specially constructed for optimum quality.

These fabrics now perfected, and are the core fabrics of our first ever Minimal Swim Sustainable. We are excited to be launching all future ranges with this specially created Sustainable blend fabric.

The new sustainable blend is shoppable in the Black Luna, Black Amara and the Red Piper. The blend stands true to Lahana's integrity and quality of swim, consisting of 27% Elastane & 73% Recycled Nylon.

Our future goals for our fabric production include increasing our percentage of recycled fabric use while maintaining stretch, longevity and comfortability.

Swim Co-founder Ramana & Active Co-founder Kunti

3. Introducing Bio-degradable inner packaging and and compostable outer bags

In our efforts to go plastic-free in the Lahana HQ, we switched our inner bags to cotton tote bags last year. However, while cotton is a natural fibre that breaks down in our environment, they require a considerable amount of water to produce. So our efforts and direction then switched to finding an alternative that was more environmentally friendly.

With a little research, we came across inner and outer packaging made from corn-starch that is 100% bio-degradable. What a great option to keep your swim safe and clean, but that doesn't cost the earth long term!

The swim that you know and love is now individually packaged in eco bio-degradable bags and shipped out in Hero outer package. Your swim journey is developing and shifting into a process that is friendlier to earth, and we couldn't be more proud of that.

Bio-degradable Inner Packaging

Join us on the Journey

Our journey to being sustainable is not yet complete, but every day we are making small changes to improve our practises and production long-term.

Lahana is committed to being a progressive, accountable, empowering brand that is conscious of its impact. We not only want you to feel like the empowered queen you are when wearing our swim but also empowered by choice to support a brand that is moving towards greater sustainability and transparency as company.

We can't wait to take you along this journey with us!