Set Yourself Apart
“We are a simple business. We want to provide our customers with high quality sportswear with great attention to detail. We want to incorporate as much sustainability into our product ranges as possible. We want to minimise our negative environmental impact as much as possible. We want to ensure that those people involved in bringing our products to you are treated fairly.”
How were we formed?
I’m Jo, the founder of Apexgray. I first had the idea for a sportswear business about 2 years ago. I was trying to get back into training after my second child and had very specific gym top goals. I’m 5’6 and at the time a 36F bust, everything I tried on either came up short on my waist, was too baggy and rode up during training, or gave me a ‘glamour model’ sort of cleavage.
So in short, I decided to look into making some of my own.
I am a passionate advocate of sustainable living, protecting the environment and being transparent. It was imperative that these principles ran through the business.
Our Sportswear
Our supply chain is aligned to our high standards and we have worked tirelessly to form supply partners able to consistently meet the levels we as a company demand.
We are fortunate enough to have secured supply agreements with the same partners that supply some of the world’s leading and most pioneering planet and people caring technical clothing brands.
Quality
When you feel our products it’s important that straight away you know your purchase is built to last. From a customer experience we want your purchase to have longevity and to look great. Poor quality means unhappy customers who will need premature replacements for their items. Replacements are bad for your pocket, bad for our reputation and also bad for the environment.
Standards
To ensure quality levels are maintained we stipulate globally recognised quality, safety and fabric traceability certification for our fabrics including OKEO-TEX® certification (Click to view) for our fabrics and GRS® (Global Recycle Standard – Click to view) certification for recycled textiles.
OEKO-TEX® complies with REACH (Annex XVII CMR Legislation. Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals is a European Union regulation dating from 18 December 2006.
We don’t take chances with our accessories either. For example all zips are provided by YKK® of Japan, the best zip manufacturer in the world.
Apexgray products including packaging contain no animal products, and neither the finished item nor its ingredients have been tested on animals.
Ethical Sourcing
We are an organisation passionate about the environment. The textile and the fashion industry in general have been guilty of causing great harm to the environment. We ensure that our supply chain have the systems in place to minimise their negative environmental impact. We also need to ensure our supply chain operate ethically in terms of how they treat their workforce. For example, our manufacturers have achieved the Intertek® Workplace Conditions Assessment (click to view) certification or have undergone a SMETA (Sedex Members Ethical Audit). These independent assessments audit a company in areas such as wages & hours, health & safety, environment and business ethics to ensure they meet accepted worldwide industry standards and practices. We are proud to be listed in The Good Shopping Guide’s Ethical Fashion Directory.
Ethical Sourcing
We are an organisation passionate about the environment. The textile and the fashion industry in general have been guilty of causing great harm to the environment. We ensure that our supply chain have the systems in place to minimise their negative environmental impact. We also need to ensure our supply chain operate ethically in terms of how they treat their workforce. For example, our manufacturers have achieved the Workplace Conditions Assessment (click to view) certification or have undergone a SMETA (Sedex Members Ethical Audit). These independent assessments audit a company in areas such as wages & hours, health & safety, environment and business ethics to ensure they meet accepted worldwide industry standards and practices. We are proud to be listed in The Good Shopping Guide’s Ethical Fashion Directory.
Our Environmental Mission
Every decision and choice we make will be assessed as to the impact it will have on the environment, this will always be the case. As the textile industry is a major contributor towards environmental damage a big part of of what we do is sourcing the most environmentally sensitive textiles we can from the right suppliers. Our textile supplier has achieved Green Leaf status meaning they have been independently verified in terms of environmental impact (Click to view certificate). As already mentioned they are also holders of the Global Recycle Standard. As well as evaluating and validating the final product, the GRS evaluates social and environmental practices and chemical restriction.
Fabrics
However, these fabrics must also excel in demanding conditions. We therefore use a variety of textiles all suited for action. We use fabric made using recycled plastic bottles and clothing in the majority of our sports leggings. Made using a patented closed-loop system this means water and chemicals are retained and used over and over again. This produces a super-soft, super-flattering and super-sustainable fabric. We use bamboo in the Tor vest tops. Bamboo absorbs carbon dioxide and releases over 30% more oxygen into the atmosphere compared to an equivalent mass of trees. This makes bamboo excellent for absorbing greenhouse gases and producing clean, fresh oxygen. We use Tencel™ Lyocell in the Cirrus drop arm vest top. Lyocell is a closed-loop system that means 99% of the water and chemicals remain in the system and can be used over and over again. This is then combined with recycled plastic to make an amazing fabric perfect for sportswear. The menswear range being launched in early 2021 will come with the same dedication to sustainability and include zips made from recycled plastic too!
Packaging
Between a quarter and a third of all domestic waste is down to packaging!
We are determined to reduce as many single-use items as possible from our chain, not just single-use plastic. The amount of resources needed to reprocess cardboard for example in terms of water and energy remains significant, and you cannot keep recycling it forever. We are continually reviewing what we do to limit throwaway items. Evidence of this is from April 2021 products will be arriving without swing tags and those little plastic tags.
The best option for us will always be to reuse.
We now give customers an incentive to return their product bags back to us (see Bag for Life for more details). If they send their bag back to us we’ll reimburse them up to 10% of their order value. Money in their pockets and fewer bags for us to reorder.
Currently our mailing bags are made from recycled plastic and can be recycled again. From November 2020 we will be moving to fully compostable bio versions that are certified to EN13432 (Click to view certificate).
This website is hosted on the Google Cloud platform which uses renewable energy and maintains a commitment to carbon neutrality
These are just a few ways in which we run the organisation in an environmental and ethical way, however there is always room for improvement!
Our aim is to offer something different from most sportswear brands, it’s important that we ‘set ourselves apart’.
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