Sustainability
lives at our core
Fashioning a Better VINOKILO
We are all about being accessible and authentic. That’s why we are keen to be open about the things we do well and the aspects we must improve upon moving forward.
For us, sustainability is a holistic way of life, consciousness and awareness that transcends beyond the clothes we sell. It’s the sweet spot of how we treat our team, our customers, our supply chain, and our environment every single day.
We commit to the UN Sustainable Development Goals
Goal 8 to promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all.
Goal 13 to take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts.
Goal 17 to strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development.
OUR GOALS
IMPACT TRACKING
Become more data-driven to track our positive and negative impact along our supply and value chains
LIFE-CYCLE
Push Vinokilo Circle, a life-cycle service, and similar innovations to further develop the circularity of our business model
REPORT
Issue a comprehensive and engaging social and environmental impact report
OUR CUSTOMERS
ARE OUR COMMUNITY
Without our customers, we would never be where we are today. What began with a small event in someone’s living room is now a company present in 14 countries with our numerous events and e-com platform. In 2020 alone, we served a total of 153,607 happy customers, who purchased 141,676kgs of clothing.
Read moreTo us, customers are not merely customers. They are our community. We want to form a bond with our community and collectively care about our environment! We want to forge societal changes together and play an active role in everyone’s path to lead a more sustainable and conscious lifestyle.
Without our customers, the ones who believe in us, support us, and enjoy this crazy ride with us, we would never be where we are today.
*based on customer survey conducted 2020
Without our customers, the ones who believe in us, support us, and enjoy this crazy ride with us, we would never be where we are today.
95%
of our customers would recommend our events to their friends
43%
of our customers come to events because of our clothes
26%
of our customers come to events because of the vibe/atmosphere
*based on a survey conducted with 533 customers in November 2020.
One team
One dream
Our team is our pride and joy! We are diverse, unique, and inclusive. Our employees come from 41 different nationalities from all over the globe. And we celebrate every single one.
Read moreOver the last 18 months, we had lots to celebrate as we expanded from 83 to 221 employees – a job growth rate of 100% in one year. 65 of the 221 people are full-time and the rest are part-time employees.
We take care of everyone equally. All our employees are eligible for health care benefits, have access to on-job, cross-job, and life skill training, as well as counselling sessions with a professional upon request.
We offer legal counsel whenever needed for residency or visa purposes, and seek to accommodate personal circumstances whenever possible.
75% of our employees report being ‘very satisfied’ at Vinokilo based on a survey conducted in April 2021. Teamwork makes the dream work!
At Vinokilo, we build on diversity, people, and passion. Family is everything to us and Vinokilo should feel more like a home than just a place to work. It’s a diverse and safe space for everyone.
At Vinokilo, we build on diversity, people, and passion. Family is everything to us and Vinokilo should feel more like a home than just a place to work. It’s a diverse and safe space for everyone.
47%
of employees identify as women
37%
of employees are under the age of 24
100%
of employees are paid a living wage
*based on an internal survey conducted by our HR Team in April 2021.
A SUPPLY CHAIN
THAT HIDES NOTHING
The question we get asked the most is, “where do your clothes come from?” Our supply chain is different from that of a production-based company, and many parts and pieces are much more difficult to trace. After all, our clothes can date back as far as the 1950s. How do they come to us?
Our supply chain starts with clothes that are thrown away. In Europe, that’s an average of 11kg of textiles per person per annum. These clothes are then brought to recycling warehouses. We currently have 25 recycling warehouses in our supply chain, located everywhere from Canada to Norway, but over 90% of our warehouses are in Europe. Vinokilo also sources most of its clothing from Europe, with 90% of our clothing coming from European countries. The remaining ten per cent are sourced from a variety of places: 4% comes from the United States, 2% from Japan, 2% comes from miscellaneous countries, and the last 2% of our clothing is dead stock offered from brands in Europe. Most garments in these recycling warehouses are meant to travel to overseas destinations such as Africa and Southeast Asia. What finally ends up in our own warehouse in Mainz-Bodenheim is picked out from our leading supplier in the Netherlands before clothes are shipped to a developing country.
Read moreFollowing the credo of ‘another (wo)man’s trash is another (wo)man’s treasure’, our Dutch supplier has trained people to select clothes according to long-refined quality standards, picking approximately 1% of the clothing waste. He then washes, repairs, and hand-folds the selected items before they are sent from Amsterdam to our warehouse in Mainz-Bodenheim. That is where all vinokilo clothes go before heading to our events or your home. But not only does our supplier strive to provide a consistently high quality of clothing for you, he also heavily emphasises the importance of acting in an ethical and conscious manner to create a positive social impact. He now employs 20 people from very diverse backgrounds in Amsterdam, paying them well above the living wage.
On average, we receive between 25 and 40 tons of clothes every month and at any given moment, we host between 400,000 and 700,000 items in our warehouse. From past data, we know that 97% of the stock that arrives in our warehouse is sold, while 3% of all items are broken and enter an upcycling process. This is something we cherish and are very proud of. We minimize waste where we can!
Read this article to know more about the ‘dumping’ of secondhand garments in other countries and why it makes sense to re-circulate them in Europe.
100%
of suppliers receive our supplier code of conduct
100%
of suppliers are eligible for support to improve their social and environmental impact
95%
of our event suppliers and collab partners are local
*based on an internal assessment conducted in July 2021.
OUR SUCCESS
FOR OUR PLANET
Over the course of our existence, from 2016 to 2021, we reduced the negative impact on the environment by re-circulating and up-cycling quality clothing. They would otherwise end up in landfills, be burned, or pollute our oceans in the form of microplastic. That’s something we are proud of.
Read moreGlobally, around 92 million tons of textile waste are created each year. It is expected that by 2030, we will be throwing away more than 132 million tons of textiles annually. Around 70 million barrels of oil are used to make the polyester fibers in our clothes each year, and 1.2 billion tons of greenhouse gases are released into the atmosphere from textile production alone. Producing one kilogram of cotton for a pair of jeans requires about 7,500–10,000 liters of water. That’s about ten years’ worth of drinking water for one person. Read more here.
The more circular and long-living people’s wardrobes become, the fewer resources we will need globally to produce new ones. That’s our purpose.
Create and support a more sustainable life for our planet. As a customer, the best you can do is buy less, choose well, make it last. Quality over quantity.
To produce 1 cotton T-shirt, the environmental costs are:
Extending the life of clothes by an additional 9 months reduces carbon, water, and water footprints by 20-30% per item.
Create and support a more sustainable life for our planet. As a customer, the best you can do is buy less, choose well, make it last. Quality over quantity.
11.2m
cubic metres
of water equivalents saved
109.9m
megajoules of energy saved
6.1m
kilograms of CO2 equivalents saved
*based on an estimated 409,488.7kg of clothes sold between March 2016 - May 2021.
OUR INITIATIVES
PACKAGING
All our packaging materials used to ship orders to your home are 100% recyclable. Our carton boxes are FSC 130790 certified and made for a second or third use. We use organic packing tape with natural rubber (also certified) to close your package. What’s more, inside of each shipment, you will find a lavender bag out of organic cotton to make your clothes smell nice. We also add a sustainability flyer made from seed paper so you can plant lovely wildflowers. More to come!
FANS OF OUR VANS
The most significant chunk of our CO2 emissions come from transporting the clothes from our warehouse in Mainz Bodenheim to our events across Europe and shipping them to your home. We are working on alternative solutions such as having more storage space across Europe!
DATA FOR GOOD
Data is key to trace and improve our impact. As such, we are currently building a data warehouse with our new Business Intelligence team and are working closely with fellow start-up Planetly to assess our carbon footprint across our e-commerce and events business. Stay tuned!
TRAIN NOT PLANE
We seek to reduce our CO2 footprint by choosing wisely how we travel to events. To do so, we have started working with TravelPerk to obtain real-time data on our transport emissions. We plan our teams’ event travels accordingly.
EDUCATE TO EMPOWER
Never stop learning! We increasingly want to move from being a clothing brand to also becoming an educational forum. That is why we initiated regular diversity, inclusion, and equity workshops for our teams and sustainability training for employees, suppliers, and soon: our event community.
VINOKILO CIRCLE
Vinokilo Circle is our 100% community-based initiative to reduce fashion waste. The community can now send their pre-loved items to us for up-cycling and recycling, and receive discount vouchers in return. Items are sorted by hand at our warehouse in Bodenheim. Most will be used for our events and our online store. The rest will be up-cycled or sent to local fashion designers to support their businesses.
A pledge to our customers
Vinokilo believes that customer service and satisfaction are critical to the success of our company and our mission. We are committed to continuously improving our service.
It’s because of our customers that we exist, and we, therefore, commit ourselves to the following:
You, our customers, can return 100% of our products within 30 days. We want you to enjoy your purchase.
We put our customers first- you deserve the highest quality of customer service. We’ll find prompt and accurate answers or solutions to any product problem you might face. We know it can be confusing if you are new to vintage clothing. Whether it’s about sizing, materials, or something else, our team is happy to advise you. You never have to wait more than 4 hours for an answer from us. We also promise that you’re doing your bit to save the planet with your purchase: all Vinokilo products are 100% secondhand or sustainably produced. Guaranteed.
Vintage is for everyone. We want to cater to all body types, backgrounds, and ages. We believe that diversity is better for all of us. And we can all be a part of that. Let us fight in your corner and make sure your voice is heard.
