2 - Where was it made?
The Sneakers that Don’t Tell Stories.
Our Sneakers have always been made exclusively in Western Europe, with the goal of creating a more equitable, inclusive, and ethical economy.
WHY?
In the fashion and footwear industry, one of the most negative aspects concerns the poor working conditions of employees in factories. Workers see their human rights, decent wages, health, and safety at work undermined. In thousands of factories around the world, workers (mostly women) work endless hours, under inhumane conditions, and are underpaid.
THERE IS NO SUSTAINABILITY
WITHOUT RESPECT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS.
This is why all Womsh production facilities are located in Western Europe, in Italy and Portugal, where the labor market respects strict legislation in terms of safety of production sites and protection of human rights. Unlike Southeast Asia, where 95% of the Sneakers worn by millions of people around the world are produced.
OUR RESULTS
Quality
The Italian and Portuguese manufacturing coincides with our definition of quality and ensures that every material selected for our Sneakers meets the highest European and global artisan standards.
Traceability
Our supply chain is traceable and transparent at all stages: from the sourcing of raw materials to the finished product. We personally visit the production sites of our Sneakers, know who made them, and the origin of every single component: 100% European. Only in this way can we guarantee the fairness and quality of every product and define our production model as sustainable.
Environmental Impact
Sneaker production has a significant impact on CO2 emissions: the transportation sector produces more than 7 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide per year and is ranked second globally after the energy industry. To generate a positive social impact, a company must manufacture its products in the same place where they will be used. A concrete example? Think about food: none of us would really want to eat food that has traveled around the world before arriving on our table. To be defined as healthy, food must be locally sourced, organically produced, and based on ethical principles. The same applies to our footwear, which should not cross oceans only to return to Europe to be worn.
Social Responsibility
We cannot think of producing responsibly without taking care of all the workers involved in our supply chain. Womsh are made exclusively in factories and workshops where international labor standards ILO are respected. There will never be an eco-sustainable Sneaker produced in that part of the world where exploitation is legitimized and work is nothing more than a form of modern slavery.
FROM VISION TO REALITY
We ensure that our Sneakers are made in safe, fair, and legal working conditions through a transparent and responsible supply chain
We collaborate only with factories that use clean and renewable energy, which share our same core values on human rights and responsible environmental practices. We do our best to ensure a safe, healthy, and discrimination-free work environment, guaranteeing that every employee is paid according to European standards and treated with dignity and fairness at every stage of the supply chain.
To ensure this happens at all levels of the supply chain, we have developed anethical codethat all our partners and collaborators must adhere to and respect. Our code is based on the fundamental labor standards described by the International Labour Organization (ILO) and aims to ensure that our suppliers and partners provide safe, healthy workplaces and take responsibility for the impact of their activities on employees, the entire community, and the environment.
Our Ethical Code
100% of our production facilities have signed and commit to respecting our ethical code at all levels of the supply chain. Important aspects included in our code concern our policies on the following topics:
• Guaranteed minimum wages according to European standards
• Freedom of association and employee membership in protective trade unions
• Flexible and sustainable working hours
• Prohibition of exploitation and child labor
• Absence of gender and racial discrimination
• Safe, healthy, and hygienic work environments
• Factories certified and powered by renewable energies
Audit for control and continuous improvement
To promote fair labor practices and ensure the best working conditions in our factories, we conduct recurring social and environmental audits, in addition to the initial ones during the selection of new companies. This allows us to ensure that our factories respect our values, meet our quality standards, and identify all possible areas for improvement.
Following the audit, a corrective action plan is presented to help factories identify and implement effective and timely improvement solutions, sharing best practices in a continuous improvement perspective.
"THINKING OF ETHICS BEFORE PROFIT "
From a divisive economy where value and wealth are in the hands of a few to a distributive economy that shares value and opportunities more fairly, addressing the needs and fundamental rights of the entire society. This is the economy of prosperity we want. Everything else is greenwashing.
Womsh was born ten years ago when no one took the climate crisis seriously nor talked about renewable energies. We were few who thought we could really change things. The choice to switch to organic cotton, eliminate plastic, chemicals, and recycle materials was our way of experimenting with
a different way of doing business, more responsible, taking a stance, and refusing to have to choose between fashion and ethics.
SUSTAINABILITY IS A SIMPLE CONCEPT.
IT MEANS ACTING WITHOUT HARMING ANYONE;
CREATING PRODUCTS THROUGH ETHICAL PROCESSES, RESPECTFUL OF HUMANS AND THE ENVIRONMENT.
Waste, social exploitation and natural resources, environmental impacts: everything is connected to the so-called ’overproduction’, to production rates no longer sustainable, and to an economy of wealth that is producing more inequalities than prosperity, more insecurity than progress. An economic model based on continuous growth that, despite capitalism’s promises, is not enriching the majority of us nor making us happier.
We must have the courage to rethink the concept of profit and ask ourselves some questions to reverse the trend: will we have enough energy in the future? Will we be able to manage all the pollution produced at this pace? What ecosystem will the new generations inherit?
In a market where sustainability and corporate responsibility are also marketing strategies, Womsh believes in a different way of producing Sneakers, with a human and cultural approach that takes into account the interest of all to create not only products but also sustainable lives.
