For the last 50 years Browns has been at the forefront of fashion, bringing you the newest names, the hottest launches from your favourite designers. Recently, it’s become clear that forward thinking means understanding the impact that our love of fashion has on both our planet and our community. We know it’s not an overnight process.These important first steps are the path to bigger things. 
 
In January 2019, alongside Farfetch, we partnered with Good On You, the world’s leading source for fashion brand sustainability ratings. Good On You assesses a brand’s policies and practices in three key areas: people, planet and animals. The ratings are based on publicly available information including industry standards, certifications and a brand’s own reporting.

The Conscious Edit

Our conscious edit is an ever-growing offering of brands and products that have been created with people, planet and animal welfare in mind. In order to be included in The Conscious Edit, a product must meet one or more of the below criteria:

• Conscious Materials And Processes: A product must be made with >50% conscious or certified materials that meet the below criteria:
  • A material or its production process is independently recognised as being better environmentally, socially or from an animal welfare perspective (e.g. Low impact cellulosic materials like linen, recycled and upcycled materials, ECONYL)
  • A material or its production process holds an independent certification relating to good environmental, social or animal welfare practice (e.g. GOTs certified cotton, FSC certified viscose, Responsible Wool Standard certified wool)
• Conscious Certifications: A finished product that holds an independent certification relating to good environmental, social or animal welfare practice (e.g. Fairtrade)
• Pre-Owned: A product that is pre-owned or vintage, reducing the demand for new resources
• Good On You Rated: A product that comes from a brand that has a positive rating, large brands need a minimum of four out of five, while smaller brands must score three out of five to qualify as Conscious

Our rating criteria is set deliberately high, so not all of our pieces will be eligible. If a brand does not qualify as Conscious, some of its individual products might still be able to.

For our smaller, new-to-world brands, we are working to nurture those who are taking tangible steps towards meeting our Conscious goals. In partnership with Farfetch and their in-house sustainability team, we’re offering brands guidance to help their products meet the above criteria.

We’re on a mission to keep offering you more ways to engage with fashion, both creatively and consciously. From spotlighting visionaries who create groundbreaking designs using upcycled and repurposed fabrications, to partnering with innovative marketplaces and rental businesses, we’re looking to continually evolve the future of our fashion and retail offering. 

We’re also taking a look at the elements that make up the Browns universe. Each year in partnership with Farfetch we measure our carbon footprint to help us to understand our impact. Here are some of the key projects helping us to reduce our climate impact:

• Our Head Office, Boutiques and all other Browns sites are 100% powered by renewable energy
• We carbon offset the deliveries and returns of all Browns orders with Conscious Delivery
• All of our luxury paper bags are made from mixed recycled and FSC sources  
• All of our online orders come in cardboard shipping boxes that are made from FSC certified sources and are fully recyclable
• We are introducing eco-envelopes made from FSC and recycled materials in order to reduce the carbon footprint of shipping further
• Conscious packaging is auto-selected at checkout where you receive items in RPET dust bags, a highly durable reusable bag made from recycled plastic bottles
• Suit carriers are made entirely from RPET recycled materials
• Fragile items come with biodegradable and recyclable packing chips

Our Conscious RPET dust and suit bags are fully recyclable in specialist facilities; if you would like our help with this, please return them to one of our Boutiques, or you can include them in your next online return. 

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