To us, quality is much more than just а good product and the joy that our customers feel when they receive a gift from our product selection. For us it means also ensuring safe working conditions for the employees of the factories that manufacture our products. We would rather work with a long-term partner sharing our vision than just with someone who only delivers the end product. Just as with working on the relationship with our clients, we truly believe that more opportunities open up through a close collaboration.
Vinga is a member of Amfori network (former BSCI), a European business partnership for companies who want to improve working conditions in the global supply chain. Amfori unites over 1,300 companies around a common code of conduct and it utilizes a development-oriented system to help them achieve an ethical supply chain. The basis for the system is the common code of conduct that all members have undertaken to implement in their supply chain. The code of conduct is based on the UN Declaration of Human Rights, the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the core conventions of the International Labour Organisation (ILO). Together with our suppliers, we help them develop a more sustainable workplace.
Vinga's office in Guangzhou, China, keeps occupied our three employees - Flora, Michelle and Bella. On a daily basis they work with order and supplier follow-up and, thanks to them, we are able to create close cooperation with our local partners. We are able to organize quick visits to the factories for quality checks before shipping of the products, or to see a new factory with which we might construct a new cooperative relationship.
The quality management system ISO 9001 helps us to carry out efficient and well-structured quality work. With the help of the system, we can establish guidelines for our work, so that we can actively concentrate on continuous improvement and ensure the quality of our services and products.
For many years, Vinga has been supporting a school in Southern China (Lijing, Yunnan Province). For us, this was an opportunity to launch a supporting project directly on site, in the country where most of our production takes place. The project contributes to providing the school with educational materials and other items that facilitate and improve the children's education.
Through our sustainability initiatives we strive to minimize all the negative effects of our business and to maximize the positive ones, with our long-term vision being to create only positive impact on the environment and our social coexistence. All that we do affects the nature around us and all the people who live in it. We are convinced that it is possible to continue to do what we do today but in a much better way. We have an incredible amount of exciting opportunities, enormous challenges, and endless work ahead of us. Join us from in our initiatives from their very beginning, read about how we work today and how we think about the future.
Supplier training
In March 2018, Vinga organized a training event with our largest partners in China. We presented in detail our tool Chemicals and held a day's training on how we want to work with it, as well as on what it means for the factories manufacturing our products and the companies that supply us with raw materials. Thanks to this training, the suppliers could gain a better understanding of why this work is so important and learned more about how we can facilitate our communication regarding the chemical legislation and our products. This time around the training was destined most of all to the suppliers of textile products and a total of 8 suppliers participated in this event.
In order to communicate clearly on legal requirements with our factories and to be able to control our products, we work with a product tool that we call Chemicals in Focus. Thanks to this tool, we are able to break down the product at a component level in order to efficiently manage each part and its contents.
The certification ISO-14001 helps us to identify and continuously reduce our environmental impact. The standard provides support for various initiatives, for example, in reducing the use of energy and raw materials, waste and other emissions. Currently, the environmental goals of the system are linked to carbon dioxide emissions.
We believe that knowledge and interest in environmental issues are crucial for minimizing our environmental impact, that is why Vinga is one of the supporting companies belonging to the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation. In this way, we can support various projects in climate and environmental sphere. The Swedish Society for Nature Conservation is Sweden's largest and most influential environmental organization, and as one of its members, we can contribute to raising environmental issues high on the political agenda both in Sweden and in the EU. The information we get from the association also helps us to make decisions about what efforts we should make, how they should be carried out and what we can do in order to maximize their positive impact.
Vinga works with selected product certification systems in order to be able to control as much as possible the product’s origin and its content.
Oeko-tex standard 100
Oeko-tex standard 100 is a comprehensive testing and certification system for all stages of the textile production chain.
GOTS
GOTS stands for Global Organic Textile Standard and is an international environmental label for natural fiber, touching both on environmental and social responsibility. The standard regulates restrictions of harmful substances and emissions throughout the entire production chain. In Vinga's product selection, we currently have beach towels and carrying bags that are made of GOTS-certified cotton
EU Ecolabel
This is the official eco-label of the European Union, where the requirements concern the environment, function, health and quality from a product’s life-cycle perspective. Vinga's bed linen products are certified according to the EU Ecolabel.
The creation of Vinga products continues all year round and we are constantly looking for new, more environmentally friendly materials, ways to lower our energy consumption and achieving a lower emission level during the production phase. For us, product development is about striving for long-term solutions, that is why we are working on product development over a longer period. We believe that if we take our time to do a thorough job at this stage, we have more opportunities to create a more sustainable product that can live for a longer time. An important part and a major challenge in the product development phase is to compare the environmental impact of different materials from a life cycle perspective in order to ensure that our environmental footprint is minimal. Through the membership of the chemical group, we are constantly updated on the latest research in chemistry and environment-related issues, which serves as an important guide in our decision-making.