Your Business: Sustainability with Steve Boyd, Deadly Ponies

Deadly Ponies is an Auckland-based company that produces leather handbags and small accessories.

Steve Boyd is managing director of Deadly Ponies, which produces leather handbags and small accessories, predominantly using ethically sourced New Zealand deer nappa. The Auckland-based company has six office staff and 10 to 15 people in production.

Why is sustainability important in your operation?

Our customers appreciate locally designed and ethically sourced materials. We felt that out of loyalty to them our product should reflect business practices that are environmentally sustainable.

What are some of the things you've done in your operation to make it more sustainable?

Our view is we shouldn't throw anything out, so our main focus has been continuously looking for new ways to reduce leather scrap. When we first began making bags we used scraps that were by-products of the local leather industry and patch-worked bags together.

But as the demand for our products grew we needed to source more raw product, which led us to start working with deer nappa, which is a by-product of the New Zealand meat industry. In particular, we've worked really closely with a Timaru-based company called New Zealand Light Leathers, which services some of the world's biggest luxury brands. They really supported us in doing this, and as we've grown we've now become one of their biggest customers.

A couple of years ago we also started exporting our larger leather scraps to China to be made into smaller goods that we can't make locally. And we give our smaller scrap pieces to schools to use in their crafts and that kind of thing.

What sort of commercial payback are you seeing from doing this?

I think our biggest return is having grown a reputation for long-lasting, quality products. This is really integral to our brand and has allowed us to build a base of loyal customers. Exporting those leather scraps has also allowed us to diversify into producing goods that we wouldn't otherwise have been able to, and to use leather that would have otherwise gone to landfill.

I think sustainability is a catchphrase and it can mean different things to different people. We've realised that our concept of sustainability doesn't prohibit growth, and it's also given us the freedom to make decisions that have increased the productivity of the business while still allowing consumers to make a 'moral' purchase.

What's are some key lessons you've learnt while making your operation more sustainable?

For us sustainability comes down to ethical consumerism. Customers are smart and should never be underestimated, because ethical consumers know what ingredients go into their purchases.

I think our success comes from using and promoting quality New Zealand leathers, but the challenge comes from being price competitive, especially in a local market where the alternatives are endless. We've chosen to hold steady on our local pricing while pushing up our international prices to offset the loss in margin locally, and we've continued to control this by managing our online stockists closely.

Coming up in Your Business: The end of the year is rolling in, and it's a time when businesses are saying thanks to their employees and supporters. So what are some of the ways small businesses say thank you customers and staff at the end of the year? If you've got a story to tell about what you do to say thanks and why, drop me a note: nzhsmallbusiness@gmail.com

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