Corey Mulligan wasn't ever what you'd call an eco-warrior. But the journey Deane Apparel is on has turned him from someone who understands environmental issues into a sustainability advocate, always looking over the horizon for the next opportunity to green the business.
Mulligan, Deane's General Manager, says the journey began at a workwear trade show in Birmingham in 2009. "What we saw there was that our counterparts in Europe were moving towards sustainable fabrics and towards the policies and documentation underpinning corporate social responsibility generally," he says. "They were streets ahead of the industry in New Zealand."
That was a bit of an epiphany. Back in Deane's New Zealand headquarters, Mulligan put the company on the road to a CSR strategy of its own. It began with initiatives like Workplace Codes of Conduct that Deane asked its suppliers to sign up to. Over time, the strategy gained momentum.
"We became aware of a push towards CSR values from both within the company and from customers," Mulligan explains. "A small group of staff became increasingly passionate about sustainability and promoted it internally. At the same time, our major customers started asking questions about the working conditions in our factories. Around 2017, slave labour was becoming a prominent issue; they had legitimate concerns about the risks to their brands."
Deane's response was a first for the sector in New Zealand. It worked back through the supply chain and required all of its manufacturers to be certified to Workplace Conditions Assessments (WCA).