Edward Mongzar Ethical Policy


Edward Mongzar has founded his label with a view to uphold a strong ethical code throughout the designing and manufacturing process. This ethics policy is something that we seek to implement throughout our entire supply chain.

• We believe in people being paid fairly for their work. We seek to enforce that everybody we work with pays at a minimum their country’s minimum wage and prefer to see that they pay their workforce their country’s living wage. There is no reason in today’s society that people should not be paid fairly for their hard work.

Edward is able to enforce this throughout our supply chain as he and his partner do all of the hand dyeing themselves, they source all fabric from responsible independent suppliers who have passed a work welfare test.

Edward also personally visits the premises of the suppliers we work with to ensure good work safety and ethical practices are enforced. He regularly visits his manufacturers in London and his fabric supplier, whom he has known for more than 10 years.

• We believe in all workers having the right to a safe working environment, one free of hazards and with strictly enforced safety practices. Again, this is enforced by regular visits from Edward and his partner and ensuring businesses we work with pass a work welfare test. 

As we grow as a company, we pledge to pay our workers a fair and living wage, to ensure we always provide them with a safe working environment and always comply with worker protection laws.

• We believe that all aspects of the design and manufacturing process should be as environmentally friendly as is possible and that where we are able, we can minimise the negative environmental impact of our processes.

We are able to make sure we are as sustainable as possible by using recycled water to dye our fabrics and we dry everything in the natural heat of the sun, therefore completely eradicating the need for any kind of electricity or potential harm to the environment.

• By using hand marble dyeing to dye our fabric, we are rejuvenating an age old artisanal practice and ensuring that it is fit for the future and will be able to stand the rest of time and not fade away. We will ensure that we are able to preserve and protect his age old artisanal craft.

• We also believe in working, where we can, with independent and female owner suppliers and manufacturers and we strive to ensure that as a business, we are able to empower women. Therefore, we are very proud to say that all of the other businesses we work with, from those whom we source our fabrics, those who dye some of our solid colour fabrics and those who produce our garments in London are all owned by women and employ almost exclusively women.

• As we only make very small production batches we do not contribute to the amount of clothing that goes to landfill each year; we produce clothing only when there is a need & demand.

• Wherever possible, we believe in using recycled products whenever we have to use paper and stationary and we are very careful to ensure that the vast majority of our office and design supplies are able to be recycled and disposed of in a safe, environmentally friendly way.

• We will seek where possible to make use of sustainably produced fabrics to reduce the environmental impact of our label. We want to do all we can to preserve our planet for the next generation.

• We will ensure that we always abide by the human rights laws, workers rights laws and tax laws of each and every country that Edward Mongzar has a presence in. We will ensure we pay our fair share of taxes so that we are giving back to each country that we operate in and we will always respect and protect workers.

• We work to create garments that stand the test of time and to encourage our customers to buy better but less and longer lasting, in order to reduce the negative environmental impacts of the fashion industry. We will work to raise awareness of the waste caused by the fashion industry and what we are doing to combat this within our own label.

• Edward Mongzar has a zero tolerance policy towards gender based violence or harassment and gender based discrimination in our supply chain. We believe in gender quality and do all we can to promote this, including working with women led companies and companies with a female majority workforce.

 

 

We also adhere to the Ethical Trading Initiative base code standards:

1. All employment with Edward Mongzar & our supply chain is freely chosen.

2. We respect the freedom to associate and for employees to engage in collective bargaining.

3. All working conditions at Edward Mongzar and those involved in our supply chain are clean & hygienic.

4. We DO NOT use child labour or forced labour of any kind.

5. We encourage all of the businesses in our supply chain to pay their workers a living wage and once we begin employing people at Edward Mongzar, we commit to paying them a living wage.

6. We commit to ensuring that employees of Edward Mongzar and those involved in our supply chain are not working excessive working hours.

7. We do not allow discrimination in any form to take place at Edward Mongzar or in our supply chain.

8. We ensure that regular employment is provided throughout our supply chain.

9. We do not allow any harsh or inhumane treatment of any worker in our supply chain.



UN's Sustainable Development Goals:

We are very proud, particularly as a small independent label, to currently be meeting 9 of the UN’s Sustainable Development goals and as we grow, we look forward to getting better and being able to do more to give back and lead by example.

Goal 1 No Poverty & Goal 8 Decent Work – we are extremely proud to work with a supply chain where everyone is paid a living wage.

Goal 3 Good Health & Goal 12 Safety & Responsible Production – we ensure that everyone in our supply chain works in safe and hygienic workplaces where they are protected from accidents.

Goal 4 Quality Education – We are committed to ensuring our customers learn more about how we can all create a better fashion industry together. Our hand weaver’s scheme also supported widows, some of whom used some of their living wages to send their children to school.

Goal 5 Gender Equality and Women Empowerment & Goal 10 Reduced Inequalities – We are committed to ensuring that women are paid equally for equal work in our supply chain. We also created a project we called ‘The Weaver’s Project’ where we employed Naga hand weavers from Edward’s home state of Nagaland who were all widows, we paid them a living wage and created a capsule collection with their work. We were very proud to support them and help them on their journeys whilst supporting their artisan-ship.

Goal 7 Affordable & Clean Energy & goal 13 Climate Action – We are very proud to have almost completely eliminated electricity from our production process, drying all of our hand marble dyed fabrics in the natural heat of the sun. We only use electricity for stitching. We also use AZO free dyes for our solid colour fabrics.

As we continue our journey, we hope we will meet every one of you on our way to achieve our common goal.