SUSTAINABILITY FOR US
For us at ByBarb, it is natural to take responsibility for the environment and to work as sustainably as possible. By taking responsibility for our products and ensuring that they are manufactured as environmentally friendly as possible, we contribute to a better and more sustainable environment. For example, our hair clips and headbands are made from bioplastic, and our hair ties and scrunchies also come from environmentally friendly materials.
Production
Currently, we manufacture 70% of our products in China. When it comes to choosing factories, we consider a number of different factors such as working conditions for employees, materials and raw materials, the production's impact on the environment, and of course, the price and quality of the products. The factories we work with in China meet our quality requirements, and we collaborate with a purchasing office in China for factory visits and quality controls. Our silk products naturally come from China. Since 7000 BC, silk has been produced there, and the knowledge has gradually spread to India and Japan, primarily through Chinese emigrants. The center for Chinese silk production is the area around Shanghai, Suzhou, and Wuxi, and ByBarb collaborates with a manufacturer in Suzhou, which is one of the country's foremost. Our hair clips come from a factory specializing in handmade hair accessories made from cellulose acetate, which makes the product quality superior and more durable. We are aware of the carbon footprint generated by transportation and are investigating moving parts of production to Europe for products where it is possible. In Europe, we work with a manufacturer of hard products (headbands) in France, which also uses cellulose acetate in product manufacturing. Our soft products (hair ties, scrunchies) are made in Italy in a factory that works with recycled materials and bio-based materials, and where production is solar-powered. Our basic hair ties come from a factory in Italy that gets half of its energy from solar panels and sources all raw materials within a 10-kilometer radius. Together with them, we have developed hair ties made from recycled polyamide from end-of-life tires.
Materials
The material plays a crucial role in a product's sustainability performance. Therefore, we always strive to find environmentally friendly materials and production methods. Organic cotton, plant-based sustainable materials such as eco-certified silk, recycled polyester/polyamide, and deadstock fabrics are some of the materials we use in the manufacturing of our soft products. We use bio-based plastic (cellulose acetate) in the manufacturing of the majority of our hard products.
Circular collection
We actively work with product development and innovation with the aim of contributing to more sustainable production and consumption in our industry. In an innovation project with SmartTextiles, an initiative for sustainable fashion at the Fashion Center at the Swedish School of Textiles in Borås, we have pushed the boundaries for fashion accessories by investigating whether it is possible to produce eco-friendly hair ties without compromising on function, design, and price.
"The purpose of the Smart Textiles project was precisely to drive positive change in an industry characterized by throwaway culture," says Hanna von Schantz, co-founder and marketing director at ByBarb. The result of the project was that through chemical recycling, we produced hair ties from old car tires, which reduces the use of fossil resources and lowers CO2 emissions.
Consumption
High product quality and a good price-quality relationship are our highest priority. Environmentally sustainable hair accessories still constitute a very small part of all products manufactured each year. They are bought, used only a few times, often lost or broken. Poorly made, cheap, and non-biodegradable hair accessories contribute to creating large piles of waste around the world. There is simply a lot of wear and tear on these products. It is primarily the short lifespan of the products that contributes to the industry's negative impact on the environment. This is precisely why the quality of our products is crucial in our sustainability work, because the longer they last, the better it is for the environment. We do our best by letting our business be guided by the following principles:
Hair care capsule - everyday essentials
"Hair care capsule" is our definition of products that are not fast-fashion, but rather timeless in their design, so gentle that you can use them every day, and so good in their quality that they last as long as possible. This is what characterizes ByBarb's products.
End-of-life
To close the consumption cycle, we encourage our customers to recycle the products and thereby inspire slow and circular consumption. We are currently developing a recycling program for part of our products.
Extend lifespan
The longer a product lasts, the better. Both for the wallet and the planet. We encourage and inform our customers how to best care for their products to extend their lifespan and keep them fresh.
Address overproduction
We have a process for how we handle products that do not sell or have been phased out of the assortment. Here we collaborate with companies that buy surplus stock and also donate to Myrorna.
