Sustainability

Sustainability Report

Mert Ipek has for a long time implemented policy of improving its quality standards, enviromental protection and reducing environmental impacts as well as social and ethical standards of it’s own.

Since the very beginning, Mert Ipek uses only natural fibres, mainly: silk, linen and wool. Not only in terms of materials, but the way it’s produced is important to have sustainable production line. Mert Ipek is aware of that and built it’s whole business plan accordingly.

Plant and animal fibres are bio-degradable such as in a cold or hot compost, and synthetic or man-made fibres are not. The one’s that do not biodegrade will tend to end in landfills and the ocean, and will become broke down cubes such as microplastics.

When we say natural fibres, it has a lot of advantages compare to man-made fibres.

The lifecycle of synthetic or man-made fibres are different than the natural fibres because the natural fibre lifecycle is shaped like a loop. And the synthetic or man-made fibre lifecycle is basically a straight line with some looping via recycling.

And with this taken in its full implications comes around to one of the major issues of our time, global warming or climate change. The promotion of the use of natural fibres as CO2 neutral resource will contribute to a greener planet.

The Main Advantages of Natural Fibres

Easy Care:

Our basic collection made with silk, linen and wool are machine washable, extremely quick drying and the thin fibres bounce back into shape meaning that you don’t need to iron as the products won’t crease if it’s dry in nice shape.

Long Lasting:

All natural fibres are incredibly strong and can bend over 20,000 times without breaking. This allows your clothes to last for many seasons without losing shape or becoming holey.

Good for the environment:

Natural fibres are renewable and biodegradable fibre meaning that it is good for the environment.

Natural fibres split into animal fibres and plant fibres with the animal fibres composed of proteins and the plant fibres of cellulose.

Trans-seasonal / Seasonless

Animals are adapted to the nature in all seasons. Especially merino sheeps live in extreme conditions and their fleecy coats are built for extreme cold and heat of seasons. When using merino wool in our fabrics, that means customers will have a product to keep them warm in winter and cool/comfortable for summer. Especially linen has it’s own “Air-conditioning” to keep you very light and fresh in summer seasons.

Also the blends such as silk/wool, linen/wool will help you even for more. Luckily Mert Ipek has these blends in collection and always open for new developments!

Odor Resistant:

The wool has lanolin in the fibre and it’s basically has anti-bacterial properties which help prevent odor meaning that your clothes can be worn for weeks without being washed! As animal origin fibre, silk and linen have also similar properties and they have anti-bacterial properties that makes these products very suitable for sustainability because you need to wash them less than other fibres during using.

Non itch & Hypoallergenic:

Traditional wool is itchy because the coarse fibres irritate the skin, this isn’t the case with Merino wool because the fibres are so fine they don’t irritate your skin or hair follicles, in fact you’ll find Merino wool products to be extremely soft and comfortable against the skin.

Silk, Linen and wool are hypoallergenic, repels dust and does not contain harsh chemicals so it’s great for people with asthma and skin allergies. These fibres also control skin moisture and help to keep skin pH in natural level.

How Mert Ipek is sustainable?

Raw materials

We are using mainly silk, linen and wool in our collections. In our colleciton all cotton blend fabrics are made with organic cotton.

As a company policy, we only work with yarn suppliers who has Oeko-tex certificates.

Certificates

We can provide GOTs, OCS, Sedex, BCI certificates and reports for our production.

Organic cotton production has many advantages when compared to conventional cotton. When it’s organic it means :

Use of natural seeds. Organic cotton is soft, hypoallergenic, comfy, and derived 100 percent from plants.
Promotes healthy soil. With less dependence on harmful pesticides, it can reduce pollution significantly, which helps preserve soil integrity.
Defoliated naturally when harvested.
Water and harsh pesticide usage are minimized.
Uses nontoxic cornstarch for stabilizing warp fibers.
Uses natural dyes.
Uses water-based inks for printing.
Engages in fair trade using social criteria.

New developments to consume less water

We started to invest beam-dyeing machines to decrease our carbon footprint. This machines are more ecological than regular dyeing machines. It has high pressure and helps fabric to get dyed as a roll.

More for Less

This is what we suggest and offer customers when they seek for more sustainable production.

Our machines can produce minimum 100mts and maximum 2000mts at one time. In dyeing process, 100mts consumes more water per meter than 2000mts.

Production meter	50 mt	500 mt	1000 mt
Production kg	5 kg	50 kg	100 kg
Water need	800 lt	1200 lt	1200 lt
	160lt per kg	24 lt per kg	12 lt per kg

Reducing colors, combining styles, using same fabric over seaons will lead more sustainability. We can also quote better pricing due to reducing labor costs and fixed costs ratio when quantity is over 1000mts.

Rain drops

We have 7500sqm closed area in our production facility. During some seasons, there are harmfull rains on the area. To collect these raindrops, we invest a roof system on top of our factory. These excess rains which will eventually cause flood, we try to reduce the flood risk for our near environment by collecting them in our water tank and use this excess water in our production therefore it helps us to use less ground water.

Water treatment facility

We have built a well-functioning water treatment facility. The water comes out from our production can be used in agriculture. Our near environment has a very fertile lands and many people do agriculture as mainstay. Water used in our production, can be used secondly in fields and this way it helps us to support our social environment by keeping our water source still in use for second hand.

Responsibility / Transparency / Ethical Workplace

Our production facility’s door is always open for customers, audit companies for any kind of visit.

We care a lot about our workplace safety and provide for our workers necessary equipments and do frequent classes about this subject.

Work hours, hourly rates and wages of workers are all in balance with government policies and we support our workers for more to create a happy workplace.

We have our own Ethical Standards handbook and teach our workers about work ethics in regular basis.

NATURAL DYESTUFF

What “natural dye” means?

Natural dyes are colorants derived from plants, invertebrates, or minerals. The majority of natural dyes are vegetable dyes from plant sources—roots, berries, bark, leaves, and wood.

How to use it in industrial way?

New developments to use ancient wisdom in textiles…

Mert Ipek has for a long time implemented policy of improving it’s quality standards, enviromental protection and reducing environmental impacts as well as social and ethical standards of it’s own.

Not only with these, but also regarding dyeing process, we came up the idea to invest our production to be able to use 100% natural dyestuff on the purpose of zero impact to environment.

We can dye silk, linen, wool, cotton, and viscose blends with natural dyestuff.

The main advantages are natural dyestuff not only for environment but also for the end-customer. Colors are made with 100% natural sources, therefore it helps fabrics to function as anti-microbial, astringent/skin tightening and anti-bacterial product.