38 New sustainable materials Vitoria is an unfinished nappa leather, tanned with olive leaf extract to give it a fine waxy feel. The leaves that are used for tanning simply fall from the trees when they are shaken during the olive harvest and so using them to produce the extract gives them an eco-friendly purpose. Ecology This global organisation has set itself the goal of clearing marine litter from the oceans and coastlines. Link to the website: https://www.seaqual.org/ For many years now, we at Girsberger have been concerned about sustainable production and resource conservation. That’s why we have had an environmental management system in place ever since 2007. This enables us to ensure that our environmental performance constantly improves, because every two years we define and implement new and higher targets for sustainability. Since 2015 all our operations at our production sites have been CO2-neutral. That puts us well ahead of other companies that are striving to be sustainable because most of them have so far only set CO2-neutrality as one of their objectives. The next step for us must be that not only our production is as sustainable as possible but also the materials in the products themselves. Over the past two years, we have introduced various projects and measures to achieve this. As of 2022, we have added a particularly eco-friendly material to our range, called Poseidon. The yarn in this fabric is 100% made from recycled polyester, including plastic waste recovered from the sea. The plastic waste is collected and recycled by partners authorised by SEAQUAL INITIATIVE. This is turned into SEAQUAL YARN, which contains about 10% upcycled marine plastic (plastic waste from the sea) and 90% post-consumer PET from land-based sources. In this way we are showing our commitment to the circular economy and to overcoming one of the most urgent environmental problems of our time: pollution of the oceans by plastic waste. SEAQUAL INITIATIVE states that, for every kilogram of yarn that is produced, on average 0.6 to 1.0 kilogram of marine litter is removed from the oceans. When it comes to leather, since 2021 we have been offering Vitoria, an unfinished nappa leather. The leather is tanned in an eco-friendly way using olive leaf extract. Making leather using this extract is not harmful to the environment. The leaves that are used for tanning simply fall from the trees when they are shaken during the olive harvest and so using them to produce the extract gives them an eco-friendly purpose. In product development we have been working since 2021 on a range armchairs to be made almost exclusively from recycled materials. The frame, foam filling, non-woven materials and fabrics are 100% post-consumer recycled materials. We aim to produce a completely recyclable product that will be launched on the market during 2023. The biggest challenges in this product development project were to find suitable materials and ensure that they could be reliably procured for series production. Vitoria leather collection SEAQUAL INITIATIVE
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