Kind in heart and in nature
Our Mission
We are a heart centred female led business created for the benefit of the many not the few. Our mission is to contribute to a meaningful culture change in the industry by; Slowing down the pace of what we produce and what our customers buy; Ensuring financial reward is fairly distributed among those involved in creating what we sell, while also benefiting our wider community, and; Becoming a fully regenerative business that gives back more than it takes.
Giving back
Through a regenerative mindset
As part of our heart-centered journey we are setting our compass towards a regenerative future. Through Cape Cove we want to play an active role in the movement of a rising awareness around the importance of reconnecting with nature. More broadly, when we talk about ‘regenerative’ we mean giving back more than we take through all the interactions with people and nature. This could mean jobs for people who have lost their mojo to help them rebuild their confidence, providing a support network that goes beyond transactional for our customers, finding ways to protect and conserve nature through donations or the gift of our time, and of course, in the fabrication choices we will increasingly make when designing our collections.
Through community
Nature, sisterhood, exploration - consider Cape Cove an extension of your own friend circle.
Our vision for Cape Cove is to build a community that is about shared experiences and support as much as clothing.
Life is not easy for anyone, however it may seem on the outside. Passionate we are stronger together, our greatest joy is in seeing others succeed and flourish. Big believers that positive change is a team sport, and we all have a role to play in helping each other. We intend to be a conduit for connection, collaboration and partnership.
- Connection through workshops alongside pop ups, wild swim meet ups and curated retreats.
- Collaboration - industry initiatives that further the progress of more fair and equitable future for people and planet
- Partnership with charities to support outdoor challenges in the UK, helping people connect to themselves, their environment and each other.
Through charitable initiatives
Through our company manifesto we are committed to donating 20% of profits to charity. In our first year, before reaching profitability, we instead donated 1.2% of turnover. Support in our first year was given to the Family Holiday Trust, Surfers Against Sewage and Smartworks.
While continuing to support Surfers Against Sewage in 2024 we also indend support the Wilderness Trust whose rewilding initiatives reflect our increasing intention to consider biodiversity in how we build the Cape Cove brand.
We donate unsold end of season stock to Smart Works, an incredible female focused charity supporting women seeking employment with training and the gift of wardrobe items that will help build their confidence. We will also be donating a proportion of our unsold stock to Traid, which can then be sold by them to generate funds to support their work.Traid fund projects that support and empower people who work in the fashion industry globally; from organic cotton farmers, to garment workers and their children. Their aim is to ensure people working in the industry have access to safer working conditions, higher incomes, worker’s rights, better health and education opportunities.
Finally we choose to give our time; as a team we actively encourage Cape Cove employees to support projects aligned with the brand’s values - each employee is encouraged to volunteer 20 hours of their Cape Cove time to community initiatives each year.
Environmental impact
Carbon emissions
Although carbon emissions are just one aspect of any company’s impact it is the most pressing to address. For this reason, as we embarked on the final stage of our journey towards B Corp certification we began to evaluate ours. We aim to have established our baseline for Scopes 1, 2 and the majority of Scope 3 by the end of March 2023. With this in place we will have a benchmark against which we are able to set our future reduction commitments.
Material choices
Once you are aware that roughly 80% of a garment’s environmental impact is decided in the design stage it’s impossible not to take your responsibility for making the best possible decisions seriously - for customers, and for the planet. At Cape Cove we are committed to making the most responsible choices we can and to pursuing continual improvement as we learn with each collection we produce. This means making garments with consideration for environmental and biodiversity impacts, that are well constructed from good quality raw materials to ensure longevity, and - less tangibly - feel so special that you will want to wear them for many years to come.
Natural fibers
In our current collection we prioritise natural fibers wherever possible, this is because they are biodegradable and, therefore, less harmful at the end of their useful life, whereas man-made fibers can take up to 200 years to break down. How natural fibers are farmed plays a big part in their environmental impact; currently our cotton is certified by either Better Cotton Initiative or is Organic, as we work on future collections we will be aiming to increase the percentage of Organic cotton and to introduce regeneratively farmed cotton, the latter being optimum for biodiversity and soil quality.
We also plan to introduce other natural fabrics such as linen, which is made from flax and hemp, both of which require less water or intervention than cotton. The wool we source is sourced in Europe to RWS standards (Responsible Wool Standard) and we prioritise using pure yarns, where possible, only using blends to improve longevity or performance in limited cases. We also limit trims and unnecessary details that affect the recyclability of a garment at the end of its useful life.
Man-made fabrics
With swimwear, coats and cover ups the mainstay of our collection it's inevitable that we need to use man-made performance fabrics that are best suited to this type of clothing. Where we use man-made fibers they are always certified as GRS (recycled) and they are PFC free. We encourage customers to be mindful in how and how often they wash garments but particularly in the case of garments made from man-made fibers. We encourage the use of Guppy bags and, if feasible, the installation of a washing machine filter that can prevent harmful microfibres entering the water system. Alongside this we are a signatory of the Microfibre 2030 Commitment, a collaborative industry initiative led by the Microfibre Consortium, who are working towards zero impact from fiber fragmentation from textiles into the natural environment.
Regenerative ambitions
We are passionate about nature and want our business output to align with this. In line with our vision to become a truly regenerative business we are committing to a continuous path of improvement. Where we prioritise natural fibers today with a minimum standard of Better Cotton Initiative we will seek to exchange good for better, better for best. Ultimately our aim is to increase the use of fibers and fabrics that are considered by the Textile Exchange to be ‘preferred’ meaning that their impact on the health of the planet is lower than traditional fabrics.
Deadstock
We mindfully minimise waste by using fabric left over from the garment cutting process to create small production runs of items like scarves and turbans. In this way every scrap is used. We also buy deadstock yarns to use for our accessories ensuring something that would not otherwise be used does not go to waste.
Packaging
We commit to removing all plastics from our packaging even if they are recycled, by 2025 switching all to fully biodegradable alternatives.
How we make our clothes
Manufacturing partners
Our ethos of creating hard working pieces is reflected in our incredibly focused supplier network. We work with just five independently owned factories to create Cape Cove collections, each of them small-scale family owned businesses with strong values that reflect our own, and all signed up to our supplier code of conduct.
When choosing our factory partners we consider quality of workmanship, their specialism within a category and whether their principles align with a more considered way of making clothes ensuring high quality finished garments made in a respectful working environment. Geographically we want to make as much of our collection in Europe as we can and we also try to make our garments in the same country the raw materials are grown or processed into fabric to limit the footprint between each process of a garments manufacture.
B Corp certified.
We knew from the outset we wanted to build an ethical and fair business placing equal emphasis on people, planet and profit, so we incorporated a commitment to donate 20% of profits to charity annually. We also want Cape Cove to be a great place to work and so have created a progressive ‘people’ policy ready for others who join our core team as we grow. A Modern Slavery Policy is also in place.
Cape Cove has officially achieved its certification as a B Corporation, joining a growing movement of companies that are reinventing business for the benefit of all people and our shared planet. Verified by B Lab, the not-for-profit behind the B Corp movement, the achievement demonstrates that Cape Cove meets high standards of social and environmental performance, transparency, and accountability alongside a commitment to goals beyond shareholder value.
B Corp Certification assesses the entirety of a business’ operations and currently covers five main impact areas: Governance, Workers, Community, Environment and Customers. The certification process is rigorous, with companies required to reach a score of 80 points in the B Impact Assessment. We are proud to have achieved a score of 112.6.
