The Making a Difference series shares brand stories and actions from the people in our community who are driving real change – offering inspiration and insights on the many routes there are to making a difference. Piper & Skye’s Sustainability and Business Development Manager, Sarah, shares insights into her personal journey towards embracing sustainability, the challenges facing the industry and the pride she feels in Piper & Skye’s achievements to date – creating responsibly produced products while prioritising people and planet. She also offers valuable advice for individuals seeking to contribute to their company’s sustainability goals.
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Hi Sarah! Can you tell us about your role at Piper & Skye and how it all began?
My role in Piper & Skye’s sustainability journey began from day one. Our Founder, Joanna MacDonald, knew the potential for Piper & Skye to help lead our industry by example and join the movement towards doing business for good and corporate responsibility. I was the first one on our team to work alongside Joanna as we developed a road map for sustainability. It’s been exciting to witness all the progress that we’ve made and to be a part of Piper & Skye’s story.
What qualifications do you have? Did they help in getting you where you are today?
My educational background and previous work experience is in fashion management and product development. After post-secondary school, I worked for several national and multi-national corporate retailers for almost 10 years. This gave me a lot of experience with product driven brands and their supply chains. When I met Joanna, it was clear to me right away that she was doing something unique and incredibly meaningful with Piper & Skye; the brand’s mission is to borrow from nature to create gorgeous and intentionally, responsibly-produced products. From the beginning, Piper & Skye’s handbags have always prioritised people and the planet. It’s been so fulfilling and inspiring for me personally to support a brand that I know is putting in the work every day to move towards a culture where business leaves a positive impact on everyone and everything around it. Since working with Piper & Skye, I’ve become more passionate about these causes and really dedicated to acting on the sustainability concerns within the fashion industry.
Have you always worked in sustainability? If not, what did you do before?
No, I had never worked in sustainability before. When I started my career in product development and design, it wasn’t an issue that was top of mind in the world of fashion. Sustainability is a revolution for many industries, and a new responsibility. It’s a subject matter that’s now a priority within more and more career sectors. I don’t believe that anyone should feel that they need to obtain a specific qualification to pursue the environmental, social and governance issues at hand. The learning opportunities for sustainability as a career speciality are abundant and should be available to all. In fact, I think it needs to be mandatory for the future.
What made you fall in love with sustainability?
I grew more and more passionate about sustainability as I gained more awareness of what we as citizens stand to lose to the climate crisis. As we know, this is largely due to GHG, fossil fuels and excessive waste, which the fast-fashion industry has only made worse. With this understanding, it caused me to feel the gravity of our situation, especially at a point in my life when I had started to explore more National Parks and their beautiful back countries. Rana Plaza brought a lot of existing issues to the surface for our industry, as well. Sustainable fashion gives my passion for our industry a greater purpose, protecting people and our planet. It’s an opportunity to make small positive changes in a world that needs immediate action across the board (not just the fashion industry).
What does your day-to-day look like?
Working with a close-knit team means my days are always different, which I enjoy! Typically, my day-to-day work is focused on implementing the baby steps needed for making progress towards Piper & Skye’s big picture goals. I also help other departments with aspects of sustainability that pertain to their roles. So, there’s a lot of cross-collaboration which we all thrive on!
What challenges have you faced?
There are several challenges I’ve come across that I feel most brands are probably familiar with:
A) There is still some resistance in our industry to change and to doing things in new, more sustainable ways. This can sometimes come up when working with external partners and supply chains.
B) A lot of research and development is still ongoing in our industry, to create more sustainable options. Which means that sometimes we need to pivot slightly to stay aligned with our company values (respect, responsibility, and community) and commitment to sustainability.
C) Unfortunately, there is a lot of greenwashing happening in different markets. So, consumers still require a lot of education to become more discerning. No one ever said that sustainability is the cheaper option, or the faster option, or even the more profitable option… but it is the only option for future generations. At Piper & Skye, we like to say “we do the hard work because the hard work is the right work”.
On the other hand, Piper & Skye does possess a huge advantage, which helps us overcome these challenges: we can pivot very quickly! This strengthens our business model, as we can react quickly to market changes by producing inventory locally and efficiently when needed, changing materials when new options are available that are more sustainable, etc.
What are you most proud of?
I am most proud of Piper & Skye being awarded the Butterfly Mark! I had the opportunity to go through the ESG+ assessment process with Positive Luxury’s guidance and witness the evolutionary changes that Piper & Skye implemented along the way. I’m also so proud of Joanna for resiliently pushing forward over the years on this journey. She’s a true changemaker and leader in our industry and I’m proud that Piper & Skye has been awarded recognition for those efforts. Our Butterfly Mark is truly a milestone of many small collective efforts that we’ve made over time, and we hope that we are raising the bar for responsible luxury.
What advice would you have for anyone looking to contribute to their company’s sustainability goals?
Start a conversation. Every small action counts and will have a larger ripple effect. I recommend first gaining a basic understanding of the SDG’s and ESG initiatives, as well as looking the baseline carbon footprint of your organisation. From there, analyse the business model to determine one or two areas in which the company can have the greatest impact (e.g., environmental, social or governance), and select a few actions to start. To take it one step further, look at how you can partner with others in your community and expand on that impact. Positive Luxury has some amazing resources available within their Member’s Zone too! There’s a lot of great tools to help get you started!
What’s next for you?
Piper & Skye’s work doesn’t stop at our Butterfly Mark certification. Joanna MacDonald is truly a leader in responsible luxury accessories, so we have a lot in the works for Piper & Skye. I can tell you that is starts with further establishing different company baselines, continuing to build circularity and diving deeper into our supply chain to further our sustainability progress (to say the least). I’m super excited to watch this journey unfold and to have the Positive Luxury community to support, collaborate and change the industry together.
LEARN MORE ABOUT BUTTERFLY MARK CERTIFIED PIPER & SKYE HERE
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