What does sustainability mean?

‘Sustainability’ is a word that is banded around a lot – but what does it actually mean? It isn’t just a buzz word, or a marketing catch phrase, it’s an action - and for it to be really effective it needs to be an on-going process.

At Devon Duvets, sustainability has been at the heart of everything we’ve ever done, going back to before we even launched the company over 15 years ago. It’s always been – and always will be – fundamental to who we are and the way we do business with our suppliers, and how we work with our team. It extends to how our individually handcrafted products are designed and created to help our customers achieve a more restful sleep, which is so important to physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing.

So…what is the simple definition of sustainability?

Sustainability is the ability to maintain or support a process or action over time. In business terms, it’s often broken down into three core concepts or pillars: economic, environmental, and social. We want to share with you how, at Devon Duvets, we are committed to these and how they are crafted into every stitch of our products.

Devon Duvets and Economic Sustainability

Economic sustainability isn’t necessarily associated with rapid growth (which is often unsustainable), however it does involve being committed to practices that support long-term, steady economic growth but - and here’s the key - without negatively impacting on social and environmental aspects. We do this by:

• Growing our business, carefully researching materials for each potential new product but not taking short cuts through choosing easy options that might be ultimately less environmentally friendly.
• Only doing business with suppliers who share our values, helping us all to build our businesses together in a sustainable way.
• Putting strict quality control procedures in place to ensure our products are always made with skill, have minimal to no wastage, and are of exceptional quality.
• Employing local people, whether that’s experienced seamstresses or ‘first jobbers’, who require training into their role.
• Encouraging our staff to share our values and commitment to our business and our products.

Devon Duvets and Environmental Sustainability

Environmental sustainability involves making decisions and taking actions that minimise negative impact on the natural world and ensures the environment can still sustain our lives. Every element of our work supports this. Before our first duvet was ever crafted, we had undertaken months of research to achieve our goal of making products for customers that were truly environmentally sustainable. It doesn’t stop there because we are constantly re-evaluating our processes to ensure this continues by:

• Crafting luxurious products that are made with natural and sustainable materials and are designed for an optimum sleeping environment. Our products won’t sit in landfill for decades releasing harmful plastic into the eco-system when the time comes to eventually replace them.
• Using fully traceable British wool – a 100% sustainable fibre, which is washed and needled in British mills, resulting in a lower carbon footprint. All of our wool is certified by British Wool.
• Not using chemicals to wash our wool – better for our customers and the planet.
• Using cotton fabrics that are woven to our strict specifications and made from fibres certified by Better Cotton. This global initiative promotes and supports more environmentally friendly cotton farming practices.
• Using packaging that has been made specifically for us by a local business and is 100% recyclable or reusable. In additiona, all our product inserts and product care cards are made in-house using FSC certified paper. The ‘Devon Duvets’ branded labels sewn into our duvets, toppers and pillows are made with cotton.
• Being energy-efficient - we achieve this through making all our soft filled products in our newly built, energy-efficient building, here in Devon. This, together with our supply chain and efficient work practices, ensures our products have a lower carbon footprint.
• Having a Zero Waste policy (you can read more about this here).
• Voluntarily undertaking ethical auditing with Sedex to demonstrate that we and our supply chains are committed to responsible, sustainable sourcing and practices.

Devon Duvets and Social Sustainability

As a family run business, we understand the importance of communities. Social sustainability is a proactive way of identifying and managing business decisions and their impacts on employees, the supply chain, customers, and communities. At Devon Duvets we:

• Support the British farming economy and communities by using British wool. Our wool comes from local farmers we know have the highest standards of animal welfare and is certified as fully traceable, 100% British wool by British Wool (formerly the British Wool Marketing Board). You can read more about British Wool’s commitment to sustainability here.
• Support global cotton farming communities, through our use of cotton fabric woven with fibres certified by Better Cotton. In addition to its commitment to the environment, this initiative also ensures fairer socio-economic working practices, such as fair pay and gender equality.
• Support our staff and those of our supply chain by undergoing voluntary auditing by SMETA, a labour standards audit that’s a key part of our Sedex auditing. This allows us to ensure that we - and all those in our supply chain - are committed to continuous improvement, ensuring all workers enjoy safe and good working conditions.
• Support our customers through offering award-winning customer service – from enquiry through to purchase and after care. Our products are specifically created with our customers’ wellbeing as being central to our endeavours, with the aim of helping them to achieve better sleep.
• Support our local community by employing locals. We do not employ ‘seasonally’ during our very busiest periods to just then lay off staff during our quieter times. Our aim is to provide consistent employment. We also encourage our staff to take part in product development discussions and this has led to specific products being created with a community element (for example our not-for-profit Heart Shaped Comfort Cushions, designed to help those recovering from Breast Cancer surgery).

For further information about our individually handcrafted duvets, toppers and pillows, please get in touch with the team and we’ll be happy to help.