How To Make A Difference By Buying Sustainably l James&Co

Consumers who make the choice to buy a James&Co sustainable jacket or coat make a personal contribution to making a difference to social and environmental world betterment.

In 2015 the United Nations released the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – the 17 point agenda for all countries to work together to make the world a better place environmentally and socially.

Following that release, a project team developed The Good Life Goals as the blue-print for implementation and achievement of the SDGs. There are 85 Good Life Goals – 5 for each of the 17 SDGs. They are a set of personal actions that people around the world can take to help support the SDGs.

Read more about the SDGs and Good Life Goals.

How can James&Co engage more effectively with the 88% of consumers who expect help in making a personal contribution to making the world a better place?

We must articulate for consumers who want to make sustainable personal difference how they will do so by choosing to buy a James&Co sustainable jacket or coat.

SDG 9 calls out for people to Make Smart Choices. The Good Life Goals articulate 5 ways in which individuals can make can smart choices including to welcome innovations that make the world a better place.

We see that James&Co can assist consumers in making such a contribution because our products are tailored in environmentally-friendly and cruelty-free fabrics that were innovatively developed to substitute for real leather and for synthetic leather known as PU or PVC made with chemicals. That is, eco leather and Pinatex pineapple leaf leather as referred to earlier. Read more about the environmental impacts of leather and PU/PVC.

From our researches, we are the only brand of womens outerwear tailored in leather look fabric that has embraced the new chemical-free fabrics. We are the only Peta-approved Vegan cruelty-free outerwear brand and the only Certified B Corp leather look outerwear brand.

Consumers may like the look and supposed-luxury of expensive real leather jackets or wearing a brand name of ‘vegan leather’ jackets (such as BB Dakota, BlankNYC, Free People). (It is worth noting that leading brands calling synthetic leather ‘vegan’ are not even vegan brands as they also do real leather). Or they may prefer to pay the lowest prices for faux leather jackets.

So James&Co can help consumers considering a leather or leather-look jacket purchase to make a smart choice to buy a James&Co product and hence make a sustainable difference by that personal action. The styling and quality of the products is no less than the brand names – but ours are truly cruelty-free and environmentally-friendly. Biodegradable, non-toxic, low water usage in production, low greenhouse gas emission in production. And they are priced to be affordable so that sustainable fashion buying is achievable.

Personal contribution through people power can also be a factor here. For every James&Co jacket or coat in sustainable fabric that is bought replaces similar style outerwear that is made in leather or in PU/PVC. The less demand for purchasing leather or PU/PVC outerwear from brands will ultimately persuade them to switch to cruelty-free and non-toxic leather look fabrics – and the world will be a better place.

James&Co has a Charities Commitment to donate 5% of annual revenues to charities in cash and in-kind donations. In keeping with Our Vision of raising awareness to reduce suicide rates of young people, donations are made to leading suicide prevention organisations in Australia, the UK and the US.

A consumer who chooses to purchase a James&Co product can feel they are making a personal contribution to the value of mental health and well-being.

The personal contributions to meeting this goal draw on James&Co’s essence and our continuing need to improve our social and environmental values in line with our Certified B Corp commitments. You can read our B Corp status here.

Consumers can call us out on the sufficiency or lack therefore in utilising recyclables and reusables and in disposing of our products once finished with. They can purchase other outerwear products because they do not see that we respect people or the planet enough and we will need to lift our game to meet consumers’ expectations.

Consumers can make an individual contribution to saving water by the purchase of a James&Co product in innovative eco-friendly fabrics.

We do not tailor in leather look chemicals-based PU or PVC. Our outerwear is tailored in what we call ‘eco leather’. Not only is this leather look fabric environmentally-friend because it creates very little carbon dioxide in the manufacturing process, uses no chemicals and is bio-degradable. It also uses 95% less water in manufacturing than the traditional PU fabric. Read more.We also tailor in Pinatex pineapple leaf leather which is sustainably sourced, bio-degradable and with low water usage. Read more.

One of the personal contributions to cleaning the seas is saying no to unnecessary plastic. At our organisational level, we said no to unnecessary plastic when we began operations in 2012 and packaged our products in bio-degradable non-woven bags. Well-intentioned but for warehousing and delivery we were required to place the product and its packaging in a plastic bag.

We have now addressed this issue by short-circuiting our supply chain.

Our manufacturer now acts as our warehouse and all products are sent directly to consumers without unnecessary plastic packaging. So we can assist consumers make a difference with unnecessary plastic packing.

Conclusion

James&Co works to assist consumers in knowing the facts about why the purchase of a James&Co jacket or coat helps them make a difference. What we’ve articulated in this blog is just the start.

We welcome comment and recommendations on working together at all levels.