Makia’s 100% sustainable clothing collection: true or false?
CLIENT
SCOPE
Makia
Communications and media relations,
Events,
Influencers,
Sustainability communications
A 100% sustainable clothing collection: true or false? For one day, it was true when we created a sustainable collection for Makia that did not contain a single product. To illustrate the point, we emptied Makia’s store in the very heart of Helsinki and closed the online store.
The demand for sustainability is strong. At the same time, however, Finnish brands struggle when their production chains are global. In the clothing industry, for example, it is difficult to fully confirm the chain of sustainability up to and including the origin of the raw materials.
Makia found itself in this situation, especially when the demand for sustainability grew as Eetti ry (Pro Ethical Trade Finland) published its annual list of the most sustainable Finnish companies. Together with Makia, we began to analyse the chain of sustainability and decided to make it transparent. We opened a sustainability section on the website, where the different stages of the production chain and their environmental and social sustainability were reviewed item by item.
In addition to production, a big problem in the clothing industry is that more than 50 percent of clothes are disposed of less than a year after they are purchased. Some of the clothes are only used 7 to 10 times before they are discarded. The clothing industry produces more greenhouse emissions than all international shipping and air traffic combined. In Finland, it is estimated that more than 70 million kilos of textile waste is thrown away each year, i.e. 13 kilos for every Finn.
In order to make people think about their spending choices, Mellakka organised a publicity stunt in which we announced that Makia will release a 100% sustainable collection and make its online store and outlets fully sustainable for one day. There were no products in the collection, and both its outlets and online store were empty.
And this wasn’t Mellakka’s only stunt for Makia. We’ve been involved in launching different collections, handled influencer marketing and helped with communications in both good times and bad.