CWB delves into The Parently Group’s new integrated impact report.

 

Earlier this year, the David Luke Group – home to David Luke School Uniform, Juco activewear and children’s outerwear brand Grass & Air – was renamed The Parently Group, with the new title serving to encapsulate the brands’ sense of family, kindness and a focus on a healthy future.

Individually these brands have an integral role in family life, kitting children out for school, sport and play. Collectively they represent the Manchester-based Group’s journey for families, community, the environment and its people.

A member of both the Ethical Trading Initiative and Sedex, The Parently Group is a business founded on transparency – and not just in its supply chain. Recognising a shift in how sustainability has been integrated into the day-to-day operations of its brands, the company recently produced its first integrated impact report titled ‘Are We Nearly There Yet?’, which offers honest insight into what it means to be a sustainably minded business in a post-Covid world.

Commenting is Kathryn Shuttleworth, managing director of The Parently Group.

“Following what we have just been through as a society, and looking at the way business needs to demonstrate its worth beyond just financial performance, we wanted to produce something that would showcase all the great things we are doing that are having a positive impact.

“Integrated reports for financials and ESG are going to become a regulatory requirement for large PLCs. We wanted to lead the way with this approach for smaller businesses; showing how valuable it is for our people and stakeholders, and to feel proud about the contribution we are making to the wider community and environment. Impact has to be about the things you do, not the things you say. This report really shows the positive action we are taking in so many areas.”

The Parently Way is a term the Group uses to exemplify how its workforce lives and breathes its values.

Its people are the essence of the business, and as such, The Parently Group takes great care to nurture team members to support growth – both in life and work – through a culture of kindness. This includes health care; a family-friendly approach to hours and work locations; time for employees to volunteer and give back each year; wellness sessions; and gift vouchers every quarter for those who go above and beyond.

“The way we do things is important to us,” continues Shuttleworth. “When we made the change to The Parently Group, the values, behaviours and priorities that came through from all our feedback and forums highlighted our positive engagement, fairness and kindness. Additionally, as we continue with a progressive view on the future, we understand the importance of health and wellbeing to individuals along with the sustainability issues that we will face more widely. We are really committed to creating a business and an environment for all our people where we can thrive and enjoy what we do.”

Community

Social value is heavily interconnected in The Parently Group’s growth plan. In 2021, the business cemented its efforts with the launch of Kindness Currency, a group-wide effort to unify its fundraising work. The initiative sees the business support families and grassroot charities through a centralised funding hub, which all of its brands contribute towards via cash and product donations as well as team-led activities within the community.

Examples of how The Parently Group is making a difference include its work with The Hygiene Bank to help those struggling with hygiene poverty in schools. David Luke, meanwhile, is the official uniform partner for Wood Street Mission’s SmartStart initiative, which helps local families with the costs of sending a child to school. As part of a five-year partnership starting in 2017, David Luke has supported Wood Street Mission in providing 33,000 schoolwear garments to families across Manchester and Salford. Wider work with the charity includes fundraisers and annual volunteering. This includes 30 ‘helper elves’ from David Luke joining Wood Street Mission’s Christmas Shop to give gifts to families so their children could have new toys on Christmas Day.

For The Parently Group, supporting community also extends to its independent retailers. For example, training in areas such as digital marketing. And, most recently, helping schoolwear retailers to win tenders following The Education (Guidance about Costs of School Uniforms) Act 2021 via its new Tender Academy workshops.

“We have started Tender Academy by subsidising top-class training sessions and retailer feedback has been fantastic,” says Shuttleworth. “The sessions are oversubscribed, so we are planning more workshops in the New Year. We also intend to follow up with further support on tender content, design, presentations and school contracts that also form part of the guidance.”

 

 

Environment

The Parently Group’s work to reduce the negative impact it has on the environment is longstanding and far-reaching, ranging from its HQ to its products. Nevertheless, the company is very much of the mindset that there is always more it can do. It therefore continues to invest and research into circular business models and fabric technology.

In terms of its HQ, the Group has been reducing its carbon impact through energy, waste, recycling and procurement improvements since 2011, when it started its ISO14001 Environmental Management System. A pledge to make its Manchester HQ carbon negative will see the introduction of electric car charging points, bike sheds, recycling on-site and recycled furniture. The biggest impact, however, has been converting the site’s electricity to solar PV, with the Group becoming the first mid-sized company in the North to secure an HSBC Green Loan to fund the project.

Brands

When it comes to its brands, extending the life of products and incorporating circularity into design and manufacturing are paramount, with Grass & Air’s sustainable approach evolving to include new ‘wonky wellies,’ takeback schemes, clothing rental and an overhaul of its raw materials to ensure the products are as recyclable as possible. January also sees Grass & Air launch a new collection of playwear made from recycled polyester.

“We are so excited to be launching a gorgeous new collection starting with The Waffles, followed by new products over the next few months,” comments Shuttleworth. “This new range brings in clothing that is unisex and multi-purpose. It can be worn as cosy underlayers for outdoor play or as loungewear for fun times at home. Coming soon will be new wellies and more playwear, so look out for our Jogsters in the New Year.

“We’re also working with Re:Skinned for Grass & Air to incorporate recommerce into our end of life offering. Young children grow out of their clothes before they wear out, so we are also thrilled to be one of the first brands working with The Little Loop, supporting this great business with products that can be worn again and again.”

Launched in 2019, the Group’s newest brand, Juco, is on a mission to champion inclusivity and sustainability in the traditional PE Kit category, with 70% of the products classified as Eco-uniform.

Already advanced in its sustainable credentials thanks to the use of recycled fabrics, Juco will also be incorporated into the Parently Takeback scheme with Re:Skinned in 2022. For schools, the David Luke Re:Uniform campaign, which promotes ‘loving, fixing, and swapping’ to help garments last longer, is set to expand further in the coming year, with 2022 bringing the launch of a fixing workshop. The Group has also been working with the Ministry of Craft on upcycling innovations.

Elsewhere, on more strictly circular opportunities, the company has been collaborating with the Henry Royce Institute and its Sustainable Materials Innovation Hub. Here, it is working on various ways its products across the brands can be designed for circularity using mono fibres as well as innovations to reduce the requirement for disassembly before materials can go back in as a raw material.

And underpinning all of these product developments is a new quality assurance team. “As we develop new launches more frequently throughout the Group, we want to ensure the product excellence and ethics that have always been vital to us continue throughout the process,” confirms Shuttleworth. “We have been thrilled to boost the team and invest more heavily in this area, and Ryan Cooke’s arrival as head of QA, coming from luxury fashion, is a welcome enhancement. As circularity and extending the life of products becomes more important, we want to keep putting more into our products and not strip everything out to focus on low cost.”

 

 

The future

Are We Nearly There Yet? brings much to the table in terms of insight, but for The Parently Group, the big takeaway as a business is how much the report provides regarding accountability.

“Having to demonstrate and articulate the tangible things you are doing as a business force you to keep looking at ‘what next?’,” says Shuttleworth. “The name of the report aims to show that being in business and having a positive impact is not about a single destination that must be reached, it’s a constantly moving set of goals and the journey continues through aiming for more and better each year. This report ensures we have a constant stream of innovations, ideas and initiatives, which will keep leading the markets we are in and supporting our retailers with great assets to use within their campaigns too.”

Based on the report’s key findings, trends set to define sustainability in 2022 – and subsequently the Group’s focus areas for growth – are:

‘Transparency,’ the buzzword when it comes to supply chain, with the impact of Covid and Brexit demonstrating how vital it is to nurture sustainable, ethical relationships with manufacturing partners; ‘circularity’, more raw than ever before, with brands that rethink the design process and source raw materials that are recyclable taking the circularity process to new levels; ‘recommerce’, such as Grass & Air integrating the Re:Skinned model into its online presence; ‘recyclability’, kids’ clothing rental will go stellar as families get more understanding of how this model can be a convenient, cost-effective and most importantly, sustainable way to dress their children; and ‘engaging with kindness’, a currency businesses can use to engage employees while the continued trend for homeworking limits our IRL contact and we seek out authenticity as a means of connecting with our fellow workmates.

“The way business has been done is starting to change,” concludes Shuttleworth. “The profit focus and ‘winner takes all’ approach is not going to resonate with younger generations becoming the parents of tomorrow, nor the customers we and our retailer community want to focus on. We understand that the transition will not be immediate, but we’re on a journey – and we aren’t nearly there yet.”

To visit The Parently Group website, please click here.