Supply chain.

All the factories used by Arrow are subjected to audits undertaken by Sedex and other internationally recognised organisations. Our production and sourcing staff also regularly visit the factories we use, undertaking rigorous inspections to ensure they met Arrow's exacting standards.

We rate and audit our suppliers on their ethical and environmental sustainability before determining if we should add them to our preferred supplier list. Factories are then required to be regularly audited by both Arrow staff and independent organisations to ensure they meet and exceed our requirements, as well as international laws and regulations.

Resources

Our factories utilise computerised cutting machines which has increased fabric yields by up to 15% and subsequently led to less waste.

We are supporting our clients to move to bio-degradable cotton based clothing to reduce the harmful environmental impacts of manufacturing and disposing of polyester and synthetics.

Fabric dyeing and finishing have historically required using a large amount of chemicals, water and energy.  We are now working closely with our suppliers to limit, where possible, the use of chemicals and reduce the amount of water and energy required to successfully dye our fabrics and are confident of further progress being made in this area to support our sustainability story.

Packaging and product sustainability

• We recently switched all our delivery satchels to 100% plant based bags, reducing our use of soft plastic bags by 40,000 plus units per year (that equates to having reduced plastic usage by nearly 5 tonnes)
• Uniform Recycle: Arrow’s unique ‘Uniform Recycle’ programme is a system we run to reduce our clients' usage and investment in new uniforms. Instead of purchasing new garments everytime a staff member requests them, we clean and store re-cycled uniforms on behalf of our clients and redistribute these from our distribution centres. This helps our clients reduce garments usage, as well as achieving cost savings.
• Where possible we avoid sending garments for disposal at landfill. Polyester and synthetics are commonly used in fabrics, but can take hundreds of years to break down naturally, so it’s important to try and repurpose these fibres, if at all possible.
• To that end we shred old uniforms to pack into boxing bags and are always looking for opportunities to re-purpose old garments.

People

• We are committed to the safety and well-being of everyone involved in developing our products, right from manufacturing through to delivery.
• At our factories, offices and for all of our employees we strongly promote health and safety in the workplace.
• We work to identify, manage and eliminate risks where possible to make Arrow Uniforms a safe and happy place to work.