Our commitment to a regenerative approach means our environmental and social footprint is central to all our decision-making. We cultivate responsible stewardship and ensure our net impact is positive.
We are proud to have partnered with Italian-based company Aquafil, enabling us to craft UTILITY by Yu Mei pieces exclusively in ECONYL® regenerated nylon. For 50 years, Aquafil has been one of the leading players in the production of Polyamide 6, as well as a pioneer of the circular economy revolution in the textile sector, both in Italy and around the globe.
Through its four-step process, Aquafil has innovated the regeneration of waste nylon materials at a global level:
RESCUE
The ECONYL® Regeneration System starts with rescuing waste otherwise polluting the Earth, like fishing nets, fabric scraps, carpet flooring and industrial plastic all over the world. That waste is then sorted and cleaned to recover all of the nylon possible.
REGENERATE
Through a radical regeneration and purification process, the nylon waste is recycled right back to its original purity. That means ECONYL® regenerated nylon is the same as fossil-based nylon.
REMAKE
ECONYL® regenerated nylon is processed into yarns and polymers for the fashion and interior industries.
REIMAGINE
We use ECONYL® regenerated nylon to create brand-new products. And that nylon has the potential to be recycled infinitely without ever losing its quality. The goal is that once all products containing ECONYL® are no longer useful to customers, they can go back into one of the Regeneration Systems. For every 10,000 tonnes of ECONYL® raw material produced, 70,000 barrels of crude oil are saved, and 65,100 tonnes of CO2 emissions are avoided—reducing the global warming impact of nylon by up to 90% compared with new material made from oil.
Yu Mei offers our customers refurbishment through our New Zealand Studio. Club Yu Mei members can send their pieces to our in-house team to mend or refresh. Over the years, we have refurbished countless bags so they can continue to be loved by their owners, and our bags in circulation.
Born out of our commitment to circularity, the Carried Again initiative works to extend a product’s life through mending and refurbishing. We invite customers to return their preloved Yu Mei bags for credit towards their next purchase. The preloved bags are then refurbished in-house and given a second life, to be on-sold at our Archive Events at archive prices.
Yu Mei does not participate in traditional industry discount cycles, because we believe the value of our leather goods doesn’t diminish over time—the range of quality, preloved bags sold through our Buyback Initiative is a testament to this. Instead, we host an annual Archive Event, where we reuse, recycle, repurpose and reinvent all that would be waste from the previous year of production.
This includes repurposing leather offcuts, hardware overruns and odds and ends into archival styles, crafted at our Wellington design studio.
To repurpose the existing and unavoidable leather off cut waste, we will continue to host annual Archive Events with archival styles made in-house from scrap materials.
Yu Mei exists to simplify life’s complexities. We are devoted to considered systems of carrying for forward-thinking individuals seeking a new type of practical, understated luxury.
Through regenerative processes and utilitarian design, we champion a circular model of production and consumption, from minimising waste to maximising use at every stage of our products’ life cycle.
It is Yu Mei’s vision to cultivate responsible stewardship by creating products that can be returned to the land at the end of life. This begins with our leathers, which account for the majority of the material makeup of our bags. Leather is a material composed of organic collagen and protein structures that can degrade to integrate back into soil. The process of tanning changes the chemical structure of these compounds so they are not easily recognised by nature and therefore don’t decompose, resulting in a lasting, quality bag. Some tanned leathers decompose within 12 years, while others found by archaeologists are said to be over 2500 years old.
Yu Mei is looking to discover the biodegradable timeframe that it takes for our leathers to compost back into the soil, to innovate in tanning processes and speed up the degradation process to match the natural lifecycle of the product. Our goal is that our leathers can be recognised by nature again and that they improve the health of our soil for generations to come. We are just at the beginning of this journey toward a cradle-to-cradle product, and will keep you updated through the publication of our annual Regeneration Roadmap.
Outside of our design and manufacturing, we must look to how we interact with our community as a business. We have been exploring key ways to facilitate customer engagement with regenerative practices, both socially and as stewards of the products we create and consume. We are looking to develop work in the following areas:
The Future of Product Stewardship
Develop digital Product IDs and Authenticity Cards to track the product lifecycle, including enabling the traceability of materials; and record of refurbishment and repairs.
Work toward achieving a cradle-to-cradle lifecycle for our product.
Maintain Toitū Carbon Net-Zero status and actively work to reduce emissions. Improve on and publish our Regeneration Impact Measurement each year.
The Future of Brand And Community
Cultivating creative practice and collaboration with the creative industry by supporting the work of young artists, including partnering with the Aotearoa Art Fair and other creative events.
Commissioning written pieces for Club Yu Mei and continue to host our Lounge Series events in our Lounges, where customers are encouraged to learn and engage.
Develop Club Yu Mei to create space for customer engagement, feedback and ongoing learning about our Regenerative journey.
