CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
OVERVIEW OF THE YEAR 2023
“The year 2023 has brought growth to the company despite a societal recession with rising interest rates and global conflicts that have caused increased energy and commodity prices.
This situation will continue into 2024. Towards the end of 2023, we experienced challenges with the shipping route through the Suez Canal due to unrest, resulting in a diversion of our goods and longer transit times.
Despite this, we at BLS Hafnia have adopted a new mindset to navigate and turn the challenges to our advantage.
Especially in production, we have taken advantage of our economies of scale by buying larger quantities of certain materials, such as cotton, at better prices and building up stocks. We have also worked more closely with our key partners to achieve better and more competitive products.
All in all, the entire team has put in a great effort. In particular, our mantra of not just “doing business as usual”, but constantly challenging the status quo in true BLS spirit, has been decisive.”
- Burim Miftari, CEO, BLS Hafnia.
PRODUCTION DISTRIBUTED OVER SEVERAL COUNTRIES
In 2023, we moved some of our production to North Macedonia, both for historical and
economic reasons.
The two founders of BLS, Besnik and Burim Miftari, come from North Macedonia, and production has moved to a village that is an hour’s drive from their family’s hometown. It is a collaboration that has made sense in every way, both by supporting locally in the immediate area and the entire background of BLS and its
founders.
In addition, individual productions have been moved from Europe to China to achieve the best possible results in terms of products and finances.
MATERIAL SELECTION
In total, for 2023, our designs were distributed among 9 different materials, of which 92.56% are cotton, which isdistributed among organic cotton, recyclable cotton, and conventional cotton.
In the year 2022, we used recyclable polyester for the production of our Cosmetic Bag for the first time, which paved the way for further experimentation and has resulted in us using recyclable cotton for various products in 2023, forthe first time.
In addition to this, the suppliers we use are in the process of educating themselves about trimming and use Trimco /A-tex Group as a common supplier from which they order. Previously, the individual supplier was responsible for all trim production.
Read more about material selection in the full report from 2023.
WASTE
In 2023, BLS produced a total of 19.75 tonnes, which is very close to what we produced in 2022. As before, we have asked all our suppliers to inform us of how much material is wasted, with each production of our goods.What we have been able to map is that 5301 kg or 21.17% has been waste material for us in 2023.
This is just 19 kg less than in 2022 and thus, on that front, two very equal years. However, just like last year, we have experienced that some suppliers have most likely provided incorrect figures, as the waste percentage has been between 0-5%, which we consider to be unrealistic.
Thus, the 21.17% can potentially not be seen as being completely accurate, but some steps towards the right path and a focal point that we must try to create even more transparency in relation to our products.
STATUS ON THE GOALS SET IN 2022
Concerning our internal goal of reaching 75% production in organic cotton, we have been pushed back to the start of 2023 and are below the percentage in 2022.
We must recognize that this is a larger process than expected when taking into account pricing for customers and at the same time had to achieve internal margins.
Therefore, the choice has largely fallen on conventional cotton
COVID-19 ORDERS
When COVID-19 hit us all, we had various production orders going around the world with our suppliers. All countries each had their own guidelines and ways of dealing with the situation.
Despite this, we got most of the productions home, but from individual countries, such as Vietnam, where we had a supplier, had particularly strict rules, which meant that our current order was never completed and we were forced to order from another supplier.
In 2023, however, we chose, in cooperation with the original supplier, to complete this production, so that our business partner did not face a financial loss from these products.The above choices were also made with some of the UN’s Global Goals in mind, including the 8th World Goal which concerns the creation of decent jobs and economic growth, since we ultimately partnered with the original supplier so that their work and economy would not suffer a loss.
You can read more about this global goal when the global goals are reviewed further in the report from 2023.
You can read our thorough CSR reports below.
