Fashion firm receives Queen’s Award for helping ‘take carbon off the catwalk’
DERBYSHIRE-BASED fashion firm David Nieper Ltd has received the prestigious Queen’s Award for Enterprise and Sustainable Development.
The family business sustainably designs and manufactures high-end women’s clothing.
All its factories have solar power and zero waste to landfill, its fashion is made predominately in natural fibres and all 300 staff are local.
The firm is the only Derbyshire business to have ever been presented with the Sustainable Development Award, which it received from HM
Lord-Lieutenant Mrs Elizabeth Fothergill CBE.
Managing Director, Christopher Nieper OBE said: “Sustainability is at the heart of everything we do and we are hugely honoured to be recognised as the only Derbyshire business with an accolade in this category.
“We would like to the thank Queen’s Award for putting environmental sustainability on the national agenda for business. We are facing catastrophic climate change and the fashion industry is a major contributor and responsible for 1.2 billion tonnes of carbon and between 5-8% of global emissions every year.
“Sustainable fashion needs sustainable manufacturing at its heart, and this can’t occur while the fashion industry does nothing to reduce carbon in clothes or take fossil fuels out of the supply chain – it is time to take carbon off the catwalk.
“Manufacturing in Britain makes business accountable and allows control over each step of the production process. It also creates much-needed British jobs.
“We can manufacture sustainably in this country and it makes commercial sense to do so.”