Maria Maleta is a brand of bags, that are based in Portugal with local production and local suppliers. We believe the proximately between resources is a little step for a better and green world.

We work with the concept “made to order”. We do not largest stocks to prevent waste of production and raw materials.

Our Production is in São João da Madeira, North of Portugal, a city where is well known about  shoes and bags production. Maria Maleta is a brand that are proudly handmade in Portugal.

Maria Maleta has a close and friendly relationship with its suppliers, which has evolved over the years. Without them, the brand could not have grown and evolved.

Maria Maleta only work with suppliers that share the same thoughts about the future and share the same concerns about the environment. We careful choose our supplier chain in order to be local and with the best offer for the environment. Our leather suppliers are from Portugal and they are members of Leather Working Group. 

 

These companies have a high technical capacity of its human resources and participation in several projects of R&TD, as well the permanently updating of its manufacturing processes, allows them to remain at the frontline regarding to launching innovative products environmentally friendly and high value-added, highlighting ecological leather, metal-free (BIOLEATHER), waterproof articles, washable leather articles, etc.

Our Vegan Suppliers are mainly from Spain. All of them have rspect for environment and sustainable development, they are certified by:

 GLOBAL ORGANIC TEXTILE STANDARD:  The GOTS certificate guarantees that they comply with social, environmental, health and safety standards in ther company. They value certified fabrics destined for all our markets.

GLOBAL RECYCLED STANDARD (GRS): Guarantees the recycled content of the products, full respect for social and environmental requirements, and the use of less dangerous chemicals in the production processes.

 

CARBON FOOTPRINT Compliance with the carbon footprint reduction plan. Concrete actions to reduce CO2 emissions released into the atmosphere as a result of manufacturing.

 

SEAQUAL SEAQUAL fabrics are made of high quality polyester yarn made from recycled materials that include post-consumer plastic bottles and plastic captured from the sea. These tissues help preserve natural resources and keep the oceans cleaner.

Maria Maleta products have several raw materials, but they have one thing in common: to make our products sustainable. The brand preferably uses the genuine leather as raw material, in order to give the greatest possible durability to its products, so that they don't make part of the excessive consumption and the large amount of waste on our planet.

María Maleta believes in a circular economy and the timeless product, thus using leather as the main raw material, used for several decades due to its exclusive characteristics: resistance, durability and quality.

 

We have as a restricted policy the use only of leather coming from the residue of the largest world industry, the Food industry.  

We also believe that to be sustainable is to be informed an being curious about our consumption. Thus, we want to clarify the following concepts:

Leather: It is a raw material made from the skin of the animal, by tanning or other similar process. Maria Maleta only uses skins resulting from the surplus of the Food Industry.

Vegetable or vegetable tanning leather: Process of tanning in animal skin, process of transformation of it into leather, through impregnation of vegetable products.

Bio-leather: Bio-leather is the trade name given to a range of wet-white (free of metals) leather articles with a tanning process specially developed to improve its biodegradability.

Vegan Product: uses products that are not of animal origin. The following raw materials can be considered vegan: cotton, polyester, PET, PU, ​​pinatex, plastic, cork, etc. Vegan doesn't mean sustainable. 

In our products we use these types of leather and, in our Vegan products, all the synthetic materials are recycled or can be recyclable. ( Recycled PET from plastic bottles and recycled PET from polyester).

We also use a synthetic material that is 100% Biodegradable. All vegan materials used by Maria Maleta have to add value to the product.

5. TRANSPARENCY

It is not easy to determine what is more environmentally friendly, because we need to consider transport costs, labor, work ethic, production methods, etc. But there is something that we have been able to detect, that one of the best ways to be sustainable is to be curious about the origin of our products and to look for information about them.

That’s the reason why we add the “Symbols” to our Maria’s.  

"After all what do the symbols on my Maria Maleta mean?"

6. WARRANTY

Maria Maleta have an important commitment with the environment and with the customer.  We want your bag to last long as much it’s possible and because of that,  in our brand we give a lifetime warranty to all of our leather products.

Every day we work to improve our own policies to be more sustainable and more faire with the costumer. We want to be transparent with our audience and in our brand, we have the price transparency where the costumers can know exactly what they are paying for. We believe that our customers should know exactly what they are buying and what the impact of their purchase is.   

A lifetime product is the best way to be sustainable.

 7. OTHER SUSTAINABLE FACTS THAT WE HAD IMPLEMENT IN OUR BRAND 

Throughout the history of Maria Maleta, we have always had behaviors aimed at reusing materials and using dead stock. We have completely abandoned the use of plastic bags for packaging our products. Instead, we use fabric stopped at suppliers, dead stock, and we make the outer packing bags for our product. We did a capsule collection, Beach Bag collection, which had as its values and foundation the use of dead stock.  We also use all of our waste to do small products and all the inner pockets of our bags. 

We try to reuse all our waste in small details. We have the same mind set in packing. We don´t see any issue in reusing a box that was already used for something different. 

In our brand we have in mind that nothing is wasted, we believe in the circular economy. We are convinced that with a well-functioning circular economy, we will have a better future. 

The brand's mind set has always been based on sustainable, ethical  and transparent visions. Small steps can make big changes.  “Transparency is the new soul of the business", Maria Maleta