WHEN YOU PURCHASE A SILVIYANA GOWN
You will be brought into a journey that builds on the narratives of our partner farmers, scrappers, knotters, weavers, embroiderers and independent designers that all weave and work together to curate a dress that shares your values, story and character.
Silviyana works directly with each stakeholder to ensure quality of products and ethical business practices are exercised.
At every step, you are impacting the lives of real people. They all play a crucial part of curating your one-of-a-kind eco wedding gown and accessories, and we count them as part of our big and global Silviyana family.
WHY GO ON AN ECO JOURNEY?
We believe that the only journey worth taking is one that ensures the well-being of our planet and all the people that live in it. Let's face it, without a healthy world and healthy people in every corner of the world, there is no way forward.
At Silviyana, we believe that every person is vital to the creation of the end product. We also believe that you have the right to know who that person is. Radical Transparency in the Supply Chain is born. We have been accustomed to not knowing much about our clothing, Silviyana is here to change that. We want you to know who made your attire or accessory, why they made it, where they made it and what materials were used.
When we started gathering all this information, we needed a system to measure our environmental impact. By creating a system, it allows us to benchmark how we can get better at creating eco and good products. This is when we created our Carbon Neutral Wedding Program.
WHAT IS THE CARBON NEUTRAL WEDDING PROGRAM?
Put it simply, the Carbon Neutral Wedding program shows you exactly how much carbon is being emitted at each point along the production of your gown and accessory.
UNDERSTANDING CARBON
UNDERSTANDING CARBON
"If I had an hour to solve a problem I'd spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and five minutes thinking about solutions."
- Albert Einstein
Einstein believed that the quality of the solution stems from one's ability to understand the problem. To evaluate how green/sustainable our products really are, we needed to set up a system in place. We implemented the Life Cycle Assessement (LCA) method internally. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is "a method used to evaluate the environmental impact of a product through its life cycle encompassing extraction and processing of the raw materials, manufacturing, distribution, use, recycling and final disposal".
Silviyana is committed to continual improvement and know that we are not going to get it right the first time. Our intention is:
1. To be tansparent to our brides on our process and impact,
2. To stimulate discussion on the collective impact of the wedding industry and strive to continually improve gaps and inaccuracies.
MEASURING CARBON
In each of the below 'life-cycle stages', we evaluate the environmental impact of your gown.
We measure the Carbon Dioxide - equivalent (CO2e) value at each 'life-cycle stage'. There are many greenhouse gases that contribute to Climate Change. Each greenhouse gas has a level of impact, some contribute more to Climate Change and some less so. Sustainability professionals have created the CO2e value so that one can evaluate an impact using the same language. The higher the CO2e value, the more negative impact it is contributing to Climate Change.
In every product we create here at Silviyana, we provide a scorecard, it associates CO2e value to each product produced. This CO2e value takes in all the greenhouse gas impact in each 'life-cycle stage' and provides a total. You will also see a percentage breakdown to show you which 'life-cycle stage' is producing the most greenhouse gas impact.
Our aim is to lower the overall emissions (CO2e value) of our products and in looking at each 'life-cycle stage,' we have a better understanding of how to create even better eco and good products.
MATERIAL EXTRACTION
Due to shortage of reliable data, we used both primary and secondary data to evaluate the extraction of the fibers used in the creation of each gown.
TRANSPORTATION
Silviyana is involved in the sourcing of pineapple and banana fibers from farmers to obtain by-product fibers, scrappers to extract fibers and weavers cooperative to weave our fabrics. Since, we are involved at every stage of the supply chain, we are consistently working hard to gather accurate data on how our products are transported.
CONSTRUCTION
Silviyana is a collective of independent designers. We work closely with our partner designers to gather data, such as how long they took to pattern, design and construct. We also take into consideration where our designers are located and the associated environmental impact of their electricity grid mix.
USE
Each bride has their own personal preference on what they would like to do to post-wedding. We did make the assumption that brides will have to dry clean their wedding gown once, and as such have included this in our calculations.
Neutral
NEAUTRALIZING CARBON
MEET OUR NATIVE TREES
We use by-product pineapple fibers and abaca (banana variety plant) fibers from the Philippines in most of our products. Since these raw materials originate from the Philippines, we found it fitting to contribute back to the ecosystem in the Philippines. The Philippines is also considered 'one of the 17 mega biodiverse countries, containing two-thirds of the Earth's biodiversity and 70 percent of world's plants and animal species due to its geographical isolation, diverse habitats and high rates of endemism.' (source: USAID).
By planting native trees to the Philippines, you are helping address issues of climate change and biodiversity loss.
Narra
Narra grows up to 3 meters high and 2 meters in diameter.
Dubbed as the National Tree of the Philippines as it is found all over the Philippines. The Narra tree is a well sought out for tree as the wood of the Narra is very strong. Locals use the wood of the Narra to build high-end furniture.
There are cases of illegal logging due to its popularity.
White Luan
Dubbed as the 'King among Forest Trees", the White Luan is a large tree and can grow as tall as 50 meters.
It belongs to the tree family called "Dipterocarps", which is internationally known for its premium quality timber. Due to its popularity, it led to over-logging.
The high canopy provides a safe shelter for forests animals, mostly birds. The Philippine Eagle, the Philippine National Bird is commonly found nesting on the top of the White Luan.
Planting more White Luan's ensures the safety of this beautiful, endangered and native bird.
Agoho
There are three types of Agoho found in the Philippines. The Beach Agoho, Benguet Pine and Mindoro Pine.
We are planting the Benguet Pine. The Benguet Pine is from the family Pinaceae. This particular tree has three needles per fascicle. The tree reaches a height of 40 meters and a diameter of 140 centimeters.
There is evidence that areas where you will find this beautiful pine was formerly occupied by broad-leaved trees and shrubs, but now the pine trees dominate and broad-leaved trees and shrubs are mostly found only in ravines. This is because the pines and grasses can withstand repeated fires, which broad-leaves trees and shrubs cannot.
