Production

TREE BY TREE

From every NIKIN sale, a portion goes to tree planting programs around the world. A single tree doesn't change the world overnight, but little by little, we and our community are making the earth a greener place. But the quest for greater sustainability doesn't stop there for us. We always act in an innovative, open-minded, sustainable and fair way. In production, the materials for our articles, external & internal sales processes, but also as an employer and as part of society. Transparency towards our community is important to us. That's why you can find information about our philosophy and its concrete implementation here.

Find out what values we live by

This is how we implement sustainability in our products

Our core values for sustainable production are the benchmark for all our decisions and our sustainability criteria:

Fair price for customers and producers : Our products should be affordable, but also reflect the value of manufacturing and craftsmanship.

Transparency & Honesty: We show where and under what conditions our products are made. Where there is still potential for improvement, we disclose, because we want an honest relationship with you.

Measurability: We want to be able to classify our ecological, economic and social criteria for materials and manufacturing. For this purpose, we have developed our own criteria catalog for the selection of materials and manufacturers, which you can find next at the bottom of the page.

Short distances: We produce, if possible, always in Europe and rely on short supply chains and environmentally friendly transports, both from the manufacturers* to us, as well as from our warehouse to you.

Partnership: We actively maintain relationships with our manufacturers, visit them personally and work together on possible environmental improvements. 

Sustainability is a process

For us, sustainability is a process that is never completely finished and that takes time. It is important to initiate this process, to question it again and again and to drive it forward. Because sustainability encompasses many different levels and perspectives. 

COOPERATION WITH ECOS

The consultancy ecos has been advising companies, public institutions, associations, municipalities, cantons, foundations and offices on sustainable development projects for over 30 years. We would like to improve our sustainability as well as the transparency and communication towards our community through their advice.  

Do you know our FactoryTracker?  

You can now discover who manufactures your NIKIN item and where with our FactoryTracker.

FACTORYTRACKER

How and why we have developed our own sustainability criteria

There are already many certificates that classify sustainability. We value these and are also happy to be certified. However, since not all certificates observe the same criteria, we have created our own catalog of criteria and compared it with standards. An example why this is useful: A family business in Europe does not have the human and monetary capacity to obtain a certificate, but we can visit the production site whenever we want and the delivery of the articles does not come from overseas. Is this "worse" than a certified organic producer in Asia, which we have never visited? A difficult question. In order to do justice to this, we also have our own set of criteria. Nevertheless, certificates ensure a standard and therefore we actively approach our producers about the possibility of purchasing them. 

We pay attention to these criteria

We have worked out our criteria together with our partner ecos.

We pay particular attention to the following aspects of our manufacturers:
- The environmental criteria of the company
- The working conditions in this company
- The transport from the manufacturer to us

In order to evaluate and measure these aspects a criteria catalog was designed. The criteria can be covered by valid certificates or by surveys. Which criteria are already covered by which certificates was researched for us by our external consulting partner ecos. The assessments of our manufacturers are not official or external certificates or controls. They are surveys and assessments by NIKIN itself. 

Criteria catalogue