Our Working Policy
People
At ME & SMITH. the way that people are respected and valued is vital to us. This includes our customers, employees, and suppliers.
We work closely with manufacturers based in the UK and India. All our suppliers are small, independent companies who value the welfare of all their employees. They understand our vision, and we are supportive of each other's businesses. Our aim is to grow our businesses together so that we can have a successful and profitable partnership, providing our customers with the very best quality products.
We visit all our suppliers and their places of work to ensure that they meet our requirements. Our contracts ensure workers pay exceeds the minimum wage in their respective countries. We have the right to visit our manufacturers (without notice) in order to check that the standards of working conditions are being maintained.
How people are treated is vital to the success of our brand and we never compromise. We are about empowering people from all walks of life and this means that our employees - and those of our manufacturers - are always treated with care and respect.
Our products are FOR THE HOME, FOR THE PEOPLE in every sense.
Environment
Shopping online is inherently more environmentally friendly than traditional shopping. This is because is it is more efficient for a delivery van to visit several houses in turn, rather than many individual shoppers making separate round-trips by car or other forms of transport from their houses to a shopping area. This study discusses this in more depth.
Made To Last - Slow Living
Our products are of high quality and expected to last a long time. It is our intention that they have less impact on the environment and can be handed down to the next generation. Our products are intended to be heirlooms.
Art Printing
We print to order to limit our impact on the environment and limit any waste. This process does mean that unfortunately our prints cannot be returned once purchased. The paper we use is FSC certified. Our dedicated printers offset all carbon emissions that are part of their printing process. The materials we use to produce and ship your orders have been carefully selected to reduce the impact on the environment whilst still ensuring your orders get to you in perfect condition.
Textile Printing
There are no screens or plates to produced in our printing process and so needs less manufacturing of equipment. Printing direct to fabric means less wasted surplus ink (unlike dyeing) through precise applicaton of the artwork. The inks we do use are certificated as Azo dye free. Using the best quality inks through the print heads stops clogging and waste. There is less use of chemicals and water than traditional methods. Use of water is unavoidable however, our printers have invested in high tech equipment to reduce water consumption to the minimum. The disposal of waste water is treated through approved channels and vetted by the local authority as effluent friendly.
Reducing Waste
During manufacturing of our textiles and products, remnant material is sometimes produced. Rather than waste it, we've worked with manufacturers to turn the remnants into further items so that our waste is the absolute minimum. If unuseable and mindful not to clog our landfill sites all wasted fabric is sent for recycling. Our waste fabrics are collected by a recycling specialist who shreds them and uses the resulting fibre as bioenergy, incinerating it to create heat sources and electricity. Plain fabric offcuts are also donated to education and charity facilities. Linen is a key fabric we use and this is made from Flax. Flax is a natural product that does not require irrigation during growth, and needs little or no chemical treatment. All parts of the plant are used, so there is no waste. Linen fabric is 100% biodegradable and recyclable.
Packaging
We are committed to minimising the environmental impact of the packaging that our business uses. Our goal is that all of our packaging is either recyclable or biodegradable.
Website
Our website runs on carbon neutral infrastructure. It runs on Shopify's cloud e-commerce platform. We operate no servers or data centres of our own. Cloud computing is generally more environmentally friendly than owned and operated servers. Shopify uses Google Cloud as its infrastructure provider. Google Cloud matches 100% of the energy consumed by its global operations with renewable energy. Google aim to operate on carbon-free energy 24/7 by 2030.