Juniper’s Principles For Responsible Production
OUR 17 PRINCIPLES FOR RESPONSIBLE PRODUCTION
1. Juniper commits to a strictly vegan choice of raw materials
2. Juniper will strive to prevent and reduce the overall negative impact on biodiversity
3. Juniper will make selected financial contributions to promote biodiversity
4. Juniper will only contract tier-1 factories within the EU
5. Juniper will account for all tier 2 and 3 factories in its value chain
6. Juniper will strive to champion fair pay, inclusion, and diversity in its value chain
7. Juniper will never use air freight as part of its supply chain
8. Juniper will strive to minimize logistical distance in its value chain
9. Juniper will strive to cut out middlemen in its value chain
10. Juniper will not use conventional oil-based virgin plastics in its packaging
11. Juniper will not overdo packaging just for the sake of luxury
12. Juniper will strive to create the most durable product possible
13. Juniper will provide care and revamping instructions to extend product life
14. Juniper will strive to minimize carbon dioxide emissions as part of its supply chain
15. Juniper will make selected financial contributions to promote climate positive action
16. Juniper will strive to provide returned products with a new life
17. Juniper will provide customers with end of product life guidance for reusing & recycling
SOME EXAMPLES HOW OUR PRINCIPLES
IMPACT OUR PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT
ANIMAL WELFARE
Juniper is a home lifestyle brand and we always have our eyes on the next product in the pipeline to strengthen the boutique hotel experience at home.
Without using too much imagination, leather, down, and eggs are three raw materials that would normally be used for various products that we are likely to introduce at some point.
However, we have decided against this and will never use raw materials from the animal kingdom. Instead, we allow the product development process to take longer, we evaluate various alternative materials through desktop research, speaking with experts, and creating prototypes.
FACTORIES
Working with the right factory partners across our product range is absolutely crucial to
maintain the absolute highest quality and to ensure a sustainable value chain.
At the same time, Juniper is a small company, our ability to regularly check the working
conditions in our factories is limited so in 2020 we made a decision to have all our Tier-1 factories within the EU where worker protection is a lot stronger.
We ended up having to find a new factory for our bed linens and now produce in Porto, Portugal. In addition, we demand from any factory partner we work with to be transparent on which Tier-2 and Tier-3 factories are involved earlier on in the value chain and do our utmost to verify these are suitable partners as well.
SUPPLY CHAIN
Global supply chains are exceptionally difficult to change or circumvent. However, we can affect which partners we work with and make business decisions that make our supply chain more sustainable.
E.g. we are committed to never using air freight, even if we are out of inventory and quickly need new products we will simply state on our website when the inventory is back in and allow our customers to shop as normal (except for the longer shipping time of course).
This might not be optimal from a commercial perspective, but we think it is an important step to jointly bear the burden to reduce carbon emissions.
PACKAGING
Packaging is a necessity for a few reasons, one is to protect the goods from the factory to our warehouse in Jordbro, Sweden. The other is to protect goods in smaller batches when we send them out to our customers and to bring the products to light in the best way possible once they reach our customers.
Conventional plastics are a common and efficient way of packaging goods today, but at Juniper, we have decided to never use conventional oil-based virgin plastics. This led us to change all of our inner packagings during 2021 to a 100% biodegradable material. It costs a little more, but you can be sure that if you ever, god forbid, see a Juniper bag in nature, it will biodegrade over about 3 years.
DURABILITY
While rarely something anyone talks about, durability is actually one of the most important sustainability levers there is. If a product lasts for years rather than weeks or months (think of bedding vs. clothing in terms of hours of use) that makes a huge impact.
So when we design (or alter) our products we always strive to make them last as long as possible. Throughout the years we have made plenty of changes to make our products last longer e.g. in the first edition of our towels, we had a single seam on the outer border which is standard in the consumer space, but for our second edition of towels, we used a double- seam which is common in the hospitality industry.
Our factory thought this was nuts, we felt it was necessary to extend the product life cycle.
ANY QUESTIONS?
Don’t hesitate to write us at care@jun-per.com
