Questions and answers
Find our answers to frequently asked questions here
Why is sustainability important for Schleich?
Sustainable play has always been firmly anchored in Schleich's DNA. For over 90 years, we have been producing high-quality and therefore very long-lasting toys with great attention to detail. Our figurines are timeless and have always been passed down from generation to generation. Children today play with the Schleich figurines of their parents or even grandparents. This longevity of our toys naturally reduces their ecological footprint. But we cannot be satisfied with that. We want to meet our responsibility for children and their future on a healthy planet. That's why we are transforming all areas of the company to make them even more sustainable and further minimize our footprint. For many years, we have been researching durable resource-saving materials, designing our packaging to be more ecological, and making our supply chains shorter.
What has Schleich achieved so far?
Our team of engineers, chemists, and sustainability experts is working at full speed at the development of new, sustainable materials for our toys. We have also made great progress in the area of paints: Since 2022, we start to paint our figurines with
water-based paint.
We have been significantly decreasing the plastic in our packaging and replacing components with recycled and recyclable materials. We are working on more regionalization of supply chains forward, to shorten transport distances.
What are our sustainability goals?
Our sustainability program includes all parts of the company:
We strive to use only sustainable materials in the future. Also, we are working hard at finding recycled or bio-based material for the future production of our toys. To ensure that resources are reused over and over again, we are optimizing our packaging.
To reduce our carbon footprint even further, we will regionalize our production in the coming years by increasingly manufacturing our toys where they are actually sold, so that transport distances are shortened.
Will our figurines change?
schleich® stands for long-lasting toys with high quality. Attention to detail, authenticity and high quality are and will remain our product values that set us apart. A Schleich lion will always be a Schleich lion and will continue to feel the way children around the world love it.
What is the role of social factors at Schleich?
Social aspects play a particularly important role for Schleich. We want to offer everyone a safe and fair workplace: our own employees and the people who work in the supply chain for our figurines and playsets.
We and many of our suppliers have been members of the "ICTI Ethical Toy Program" since 2019. Its aim is to improve ethical and sustainable standards in global supply chains in the toy industry. The program includes regular and independent audits of working conditions at production sites, supporting and reviewing improvement measures, and increasing transparency in our global supply chains. Schleich has been expanding its cooperation with the "ICTI Ethical Toy Program" even more strongly since 2022 in order to further improve social and ecological aspects in the supply chain together with our suppliers.
We have also developed numerous occupational health and safety measures for our own sites and have been able to significantly reduce the number of accidents as a result. These include training for employees and improvements in our health and safety management system.
Why are Schleich figurines made from plastic?
Currently, our figurines are made of different materials and plastics - depending on the requirements of the product. For the production of children's toys, plastic is superior to other materials because of its safety, quality, detail and durability. This is true not only for Schleich, but the entire toy industry. Our colors are also optimally adapted to plastic and have the highest mechanical and chemical resistance. They ensure the enormous longevity of our toys - and above all that all Schleich toys are bite-, scratch- and saliva-resistant.