Sustainability Report 2021

SUSTAINABILITY REPORT

Executive Summary G

reen is definitely the new black.

It seems there is no conversation in the industry today that doesn’t directly or indirectly touch on sustainability.

Whether that be new standards and processes, ESG, emissions, circularity or labor and worker rights, a brand’s mission has become just as important as its product.

The fashion industry’s contribution to the environmental problems causing global warming is well known. The roadmap for halting its negative impacts is less clear.

While there is some progress being made, many of the initiatives are either ineffective to some degree or offer far too little in the way of lasting impact.

In looking to identify the biggest resource drains, the largest causes of emissions and the biggest sources of wasted inputs in the production process, you will also find companies and organizations looking for solutions. There are innovations across the globe transforming manufacturing facilities, new fiber solutions and revolutionary ways to retool the standard processes for a safer environment.

Governmental actions, largely in Europe, are becoming more demanding of those at the top of the supply chain and studies have shown the disconnect between talk and action when it comes to the greenwashing and marketing speak from brands and manufacturers.

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This report takes a deeper look into problem areas that continue to hamper industry improvement, from a broad view of the uphill battle against climate change, to the miniscule and the microfibers that pervade the water supply. It will also take a closer look at the effectiveness of carbon offsets and who ultimately pays the price for greener products.

There are positive movements happening. Be it denim manufacturers looking to remake their image as the biggest culprits of water waste, to factories in Asia that are putting sustainability at the core of their businesses. These efforts, combined with new fuels for ocean transporters and the constant evolution of greener inputs mark the beginnings of true industry change.

The home sector, while late to adopt these strategies, has also risen to the challenge of consumer demand for more circular production and more sustainable offerings.

While the recent ICPP report on climate change served as a grim reminder of our possible futures, and a closer look at our industry leaves few without blame, there is hope on the horizon. The acknowledgment that change is needed is there, and the murky path forward with all its fits and starts lies ahead.

Peter Sadera Editor in Chief Sourcing Journal

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Contents 42

Home Joins Move Toward Sustainability

72

Shipping and Delivery Firms Taking the Green Route

06

Green Shoots

46

Room to Recycle

78

Leading Brands Join ForestSaving Pack4Good Pledge

08

The Reality of Carbon Offsets

50

UK Has a Roadmap for Building ‘Cleaner, Fairer’ Fashion Industry

80

Pulp Non-Fiction: Lenzing Links With Orange

54

French Law Will Apply ‘Carbon Labels’ to Garments

82

Prana Hits Plastic-Free Milestone

22

Trickle Down Effect: Who Pays for Sustainable Change?

56

Apparel Impact Institute Launches Sustainability Program in California

84

Could Rice Straw be the Future of Sustainable Fashion?

28

How Green Is the Rental Economy? It’s Hard to Say

58

Being Big AND Green

86

LVMH Takes Another Step Toward Circularity

32

Microfibers: A Major Problem

62

Sri Lanka’s Star Group: Built on Sustainability

88

Burberry Aims to Be ‘Climate Positive’ by 2040

38

Study Shines Light on Rampant Greenwashing

66

Denim Makers Take on Water Waste

02

Executive Summary

18

Asian Garment Hubs Facing Existential Threat: Climate Change

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One in a series of stories in our Three Pillars Sustainability Program

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The Lenzing Group, a global provider of woodbased specialty fibers for the textile and nonwoven industries, is investing 23.3 million euros ($27.50 million) to build a state-of-the-art wastewater treatment plant co-located with a site in the United Kingdom.

The investment at its site in Grimsby is part of the company’s plans to reduce wastewater emissions by 2022. Once it has implemented this project, Lenzing will have biological wastewater treatment plants that meet the best available techniques (BAT) quality standard at all its production sites. The plant design, which will employ a new technology developed as part of a research project, is fully aligned with U.K. regulations and supported by the local authorities.

“This is a huge step forward in delivering the overall Lenzing strategic goals and a milestone in our long-term plan to give the Grimsby site a solid platform for sustainable growth,” Phil Munson, director of operations for Lyocell Grimsby at Lenzing, said.

The site’s current wastewater processes fully comply with the EU Water Framework Directive, as well as all local laws and regulations.

The investment has been approved by the Supervisory Board, ensuring that construction can start this year. This will be the largest investment since opening this lyocell site, which manufactures premium products for technical and innovative market segments.

“Lenzing has set itself concrete sustainability targets for the most important challenges in every one of its strategic core areas, and we are pursuing them in a very disciplined fashion,” Stefan Doboczky, CEO of the Lenzing Group, added. “Lenzing has demonstrated quite impressively with this project that financial performance and corporate citizenship are not mutually exclusive but unlock synergies instead.” —Arthur Friedman

Polartec, a Milliken & Company brand and creator of innovative and sustainable textile solutions, last month announced the elimination of PFAS (per- and polyfluoralkyl substances) in its DWR (durable water repellent) treatments across its line of performance fabrics.

This non-PFAS treatment, which Polartec said offers zero loss of durability or water repellency, is the latest in the brand’s EcoEngineering initiative.

“Achieving non-PFAS treatments within our product line is an important milestone in our commitment to sustainably made performance fabrics,” Polartec president Steve Layton said. “It’s the latest step on our journey to an even more sustainable Polartec.”

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), PFAs are persistent in the environment and in the human body, meaning they don’t break down and they can accumulate over time. The EPA said there is evidence that exposure to PFAS can lead to adverse human health effects. The most consistent findings from human epidemiology studies are increased cholesterol levels among exposed populations, with more limited findings related to infant birth weights and effects on the immune system.

As part of its sustainability efforts, Polartec prioritized performance and longevity as it worked to eliminate PFAS in its DWR treatments. This new weather protection fabric treatment will be used in Hardface, Power Shield, Power Shield Pro, NeoShell and Windbloc products. The technology will also extend to fleece and insulation treatments for greater moisture management on products such as Thermal Pro and Alpha.

Polartec products with non-PFAS DWR treatments are available now for purchase. —Arthur Friedman

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The Reality of Carbon Offsets While a step in the right direction, experts warn emission reduction is the only true path to sustainable change.

KAT E N I S H I M U RA

T

he Covid 19 crisis has brought about a renewed focus on conscious consumption, prompting brands to reexamine the environmental impacts of their products and supply chains. Industry players have doubled down on their promises to shoppers, seeking to reassure them of their commitment to environmental stewardship as uncertainty continues to hang heavy over daily life.

In recent seasons, becoming “carbon neutral” has become the industry’s hottest benchmark for success in the sustainability arena. But brands that have pledged to shrink their carbon footprint aren’t always reducing or eliminating emissions throughout their supply chains, as consumers might be apt to think. In fact, many companies large and small are increasingly relying on carbon offsets—or the purchase of credits to fund carbon emission-reducing activities like reforestation or the production of clean energy—as a means of mitigating their output.

The idea behind offsets is that emissions generated throughout the supply chain will be effectively canceled out by initiatives that either capture greenhouse gases or replace the use of fossil fuels. Measured by the metric ton, each carbon credit is designed to effectively make up for a portion of a company’s total carbon productivity.

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When coupled with efforts to slash emissions across raw material cultivation, production processes, transport, and other links in the supply chain, offsets can help brands make definitive progress in reaching their goals, Jason Kibbey, CEO of sustainability insights platform Higg Co., told Sourcing Journal. “Carbon offsets have been around a long time, and they can serve a very beneficial purpose,” he said, citing their propensity to help secure investment in environmental projects that don’t always have a “clear market mechanism for improvement.”

But while effective sustainability strategies can be supplemented by the purchase of carbon credits, “that’s not actually the way they’re being used in the industry right now,” Kibbey argued. “They’re typically being used in place of emissions reductions, and that’s just not sufficient.”

One issue with brands using offsets as a stand-alone strategy is that they become disincentivized from truly understanding the adverse impact drivers in their supply chains, Kibbey opined. Most brands will find the biggest carbon cost tied up in their Scope 3 emissions, which the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) describes as “not owned or controlled by the reporting organization, but that the organization indirectly impacts in its value chain.”

Scope 1 emissions come from a company’s

own facilities and transportation, and Scope 2 emissions are generated by things like purchased electricity, heating and cooling to support those venues and operations. Meanwhile, Scope 3 emissions encompass a much broader range of activities and services.

Contracted factory operations, transport of goods, business travel, fuel and energy for production, and even end-of-life treatment for sold products fall under the third tier of carbon impacts, according to the EPA. In the apparel supply chain, the agricultural cultivation of raw materials like cotton or leather can come with a high carbon cost, Kibbey said, along with the creation of fibers like virgin polyester, which is made from polymers, or oils, that are pulled from the earth. The process of dyeing and finishing fabrics can be chemical intensive, while the heating of dyes and the water used in the washing process often relies on the use of non-renewable energy powered by coal or

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other fossil fuels. When it comes to transportation, air freighting goods across the globe is responsible for significant emissions.

“Those are just a few areas, but what we need to understand is that we should be looking across the whole value chain—from product design to materials to factory operations—to see how carbon is released.”

If a brand has familiarized itself with its Scope 3 impacts and has mechanisms in place to measure its carbon output, it may be justified in purchasing offsets as a means of supplementing that work, Kibbey said.

“If you’re reducing your emissions by 5 percent a year in line with the Paris Agreement, you’re probably a beneficial contributor,” he advised. “However, if you’re going to offsets first, that is not credible—and companies that are doing that as a strategy will likely find it hurting rather than helping their image in the next few years.”

When asked about why brands are in-

QUESTIONS ABOUT THE VIABILITY OF OFFSETS HAVE BEEN SWIRLING ACROSS THE CLIMATE SCIENCE COMMUNITY FOR SOME TIME.

creasingly turning to offsets even in the face of skepticism from industry eco-bellwethers like Higg, Kibbey said the answer is simple: finding solutions is hard. “There are a lot of well-meaning companies, designers and CEOs with values that support sustainability, and they’re saying, ‘I don’t know where to start, but at least I can offset.’”

The rise of offsets as a popular strategy for apparel and footwear brands has been a relatively recent development, according to Michael Sadowski, an independent sustainability consultant and advisor to the World Resources Institute (WRI). “I have been working in this field for about 20 years, and maybe 15 years ago, offsets were a bit of a hot topic,” he said, noting that carbon labeling became a trend for commercial goods around that time. “That kind of went away about a decade ago, and now it’s come back.”

While a pervasive strategy used by a wide swath of brands, Nike, Allbirds and Burberry are among the major players who include carbon offsetting as a prong in the efforts toward their sustainability goals.

Sadowski, who previously headed Nike’s sustainable business and innovation team, now advises some of the sector’s largest corporations on their sustainability strategies.

Many of these brands are invested in setting environmental goals through the Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi), he said, which provides companies with a pathway to reduce emissions in line with the Paris climate agreement.

More than 1,000 global businesses have bought into the group’s goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions with the intent of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, and have taken on the responsibility of tracking progress on their targets annually and disclosing results to stakeholders. Notably, carbon offsets are excluded from SBTi’s guidance for brands, and those that participate in the program’s goals cannot point to carbon credits as a part of their reduction strategies.

Questions about the viability of offsets have been swirling across the climate science community for some time, with experts questioning their permanence (reforestation efforts have been destroyed by fires, for example) or the ability to accurately gauge a

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carbon-capturing project’s ultimate impact.

Moreover, “You cannot offset your way to a science-based target,” Sadowski said. “Explicitly, reductions are what science is calling for.”

While smaller or less established brands may have limited pots for funding research, development and investment in new materials and processes, Sadowski believes that companies should do what they can to move the needle internally before turning to outside projects as a way to advance their sustainability goals.

“If you’re a company with limited resources and you have $100 to spend on reductions or offsets, ideally you’re spending that money on reductions,” he said. “If you’re going to your supplier and spending $100 to bring renewable energy to their factory, that’s a direct emission of fossil fuel you’re displacing, one-to-one.”

Conversely, spending that $100 on reforestation leaves questions about the carbon-capturing effects of that effort unanswered. “If you plant a tree to offset an emission, does the tree truly pull that amount of carbon from the atmosphere? And what happens if there’s some sort of ecological disturbance—is that really permanent progress?” Sadowski said. Meanwhile, brands are still burning fossil fuels at a tremendous rate each day, and efforts to convert to renewable energy have proven slow at best.

A forthcoming report from WRI will detail some of the emissions “hot spots” in the apparel supply chain, Sadowski said. “Textile mills, where they’re taking yarn and knitting and weaving fabric, and dyeing and finishing that fabric, accounts for roughly 50 percent of the total value chain impact for apparel,” he explained. Carbon output is generated through the use of fossil fuels, like the burning of coal to heat water for dyes and generate steam. Coal is a widely available resource for companies across developed and developing nations, and many facilities already possess the existing infrastructure to use it.

“The use of renewable energy and electricity is really shaped by an array of factors,” he added, from availability to governmental regulation. Brands that produce in Vietnam, like Nike and New Balance, for example, are currently working with manufacturers in the

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country to lobby for loosening regulations on renewables, the object being a large-scale power purchase agreement with energy providers. Increasingly prominent sourcing players like India and Cambodia also face hurdles when it comes to widespread adoption of renewable energy, due to a lack of energy service providers, which have become increasingly common in the U.S. “If you have a deregulated market, you can go out and buy renewable energy from any provider,” Sadowski said. “That doesn’t exist in India and some other places, so it’s complicated.”

Moving away from fossil fuels is a distinct area of focus for Sadowski and the brands he services, but he acknowledges that advancing renewable energy use across the globe will take buy-in from players across multiple sectors and geographies.

That shouldn’t discourage apparel brands from taking definitive steps to reduce their carbon impact, though. Improving material efficiency, or making a product with fewer inputs so it is easier to pull apart and recycle at its life’s end, as well as switching to materials like recycled polyester and organic cotton, can cut a brand’s carbon impact, Sadowski said. Process changes and technical innovations like solution dyeing or waterless dyeing can also reduce dependence on coal.

“Energy efficiency writ large is a really big opportunity,” he added.

Industry leaders aren’t just working to improve their own operations, but are sharing their best practices with the sector. Adidas has made public guidance for factory partners that includes detailed information on how to monitor energy use and implement energy-saving measures, including scaling the use of green power on site. In 2019, the company funded and provided technical expertise for studies of solar rooftop panels across 80 percent of its strategic supply chain, in countries like Vietnam, Cambodia, China, Indonesia and Myanmar.

This type of investment may have the potential to push the industry toward its ultimate goal. “We generally know what has to happen: we need to decarbonize the apparel supply chain,” Sadowski said. “We need to get all the tiers in the value chain, from raw

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materials to finished goods, to shift away from coal and gas-based electricity to renewable energy.”

While experts like Sadowski are adamant that brands should be focused on reductions rather than the purchase of offsets, other groups believe carbon credits will factor into any successful sustainability strategy. In fact, Austin Whitman, CEO of carbon reduction certification non-profit Climate Neutral, believes that it is “impossible to become carbon neutral” without them.

The organization, which counts brands like Allbirds, Boyish Jeans, Reformation, Nicholas Kirkwood, Nisolo, Vuori and Ministry of Supply among its recently certified members, helps brands develop strategies to mitigate supply chain impacts while devising plans for reducing future emissions.

“One important thing that is often left out of the conversation about offsetting is that you don’t just offset your emissions once this year, and then say that your climate work is done forever,” Whitman said. “It’s not a oneand-done effort—it’s an annual process, and our goal is to accelerate companies’ investments into decarbonization immediately.”

The only way to make a rapid advancement is to take advantage existing market

BRANDS THAT PRODUCE IN VIETNAM, LIKE NIKE AND NEW BALANCE, ARE CURRENTLY WORKING WITH MANUFACTURERS IN THE COUNTRY TO LOBBY FOR LOOSENING REGULATIONS ON RENEWABLE ENERGY.

initiatives, Whitman opined. “Because if a company had its own projects that were already reducing or capturing emissions, their emissions wouldn’t be where they are.”

Whitman also draws a distinction between carbon neutrality and net-zero emissions.

“I think a net-zero world is the point that we’re all trying to get to by 2050,” he said, while “carbon neutrality is a temporary state that continues to be defined and redefined as we march on, hopefully, toward a net-zero world.”

If every company on the market were to achieve carbon neutrality through the use of both reductions and credits in 2022, Whitman believes the world of climate finance would look “entirely different than it does today.” Climate Neutral members tend to spend an average of 0.5 percent of revenues on carbon credits, he said. “If you multiplied that up to every company in the world, you’d have hundreds of billions of dollars of finance going into projects that isn’t happening now.”

Currently, the non-profit works with about 330 global companies, including more than 40 fashion brands, and Climate Neutral hopes to see another 100 entities shoot for certification in 2022. The process begins with an audit to measure carbon impact, and is followed by the purchase of credits from organization-approved partners. After all of their emissions have been effectively credited, brands work with Climate Neutral to develop 12-24-month roadmaps tackle reductions to their carbon output. Larger companies are required to set science-based targets for 2030, Whitman said.

“At the end of that process, there’s the marketing and labeling, which gets companies excited and tells consumers that there’s a connection between the things they buy and climate action,” he said. Climate Neutral’s certification appears as a logo on the product’s packaging, and is tied to a mobile-accessible profile in the group’s brand directory where shoppers can learn more about the company and the program.

When it comes to selecting ventures to fund, “Companies tend to look for projects that they are going to be able to bring to life for their consumers,” Whitman said, “because they like to tell stories about what they’re supporting to compensate for the im-

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pacts that they’re having the climate.”

More than half of credits being purchased

by Climate Neutral members are tied to the avoidance of emissions through the replacement of fossil fuels with renewable energy, while two-fifths or more are dedicated to capturing carbon through natural climate solutions like reforestation and regenerative agriculture, he added. Companies often opt into initiatives that are geographically aligned with the markets in which they manufacture.

Despite Climate Neutral’s stance on the use of offsets—namely, that they are a necessary part of climate strategy across industries—Whitman conceded that the threat of greenwashing could undercut consumer perception of these efforts if brand’s aren’t stringent about choosing partners.

Reforestation projects in particular can be optically appealing and can make for an interesting consumer-facing story, but “the problem with a lot of tree planting programs is there’s no long-term monitoring and verification of the health of that tree,” he said. “No one is actually independently saying what the order of magnitude of the carbon impact is, versus the benefit that the tree is having.”

Brands with the desire to engage with reforestation efforts must do so “in a quantitative way, where they’re actually looking at both sides of the ledger: emissions, and benefits,” he added. Instead of simply planting a tree for every shopper’s purchase, ideally brands would measure their carbon footprint “from cradle to customer” and develop a program that will be continually monitored and verified to deliver the exact amount of carbon reduction claimed.

“I think the where we see the most spurious claims around this is when companies just do something that’s really limited in scope, and claim a halo benefit to the overall organization without actually matching up numbers,” he added.

Part of Climate Neutral’s goal is to vet the groups from which its members buy carbon credits. “We make sure that companies only purchase from projects that have a verification process that ties the issuance of credits to actual planetary benefit,” Whitman said.

A generic tree-planting project is running on the hope that the seedlings it plants will one

“If you’re going to offsets first, that is not credible—and companies that are doing that as a strategy will likely find it hurting rather than helping their image in the next few years.” —Jason Kibbey, Higg Co.

day grow up to become adult trees, while a vetted carbon offset project provides an accounting of benefits based on past performance. “It isn’t about buying the promise of future benefit, it’s about buying the benefit that has been delivered,” he said.

One reason for Climate Neutral’s underscoring of offsets is that they give small companies a chance to contribute to important projects despite the fact that they “don’t have the power and influence over the supply chain” that their larger counterparts, a la Adidas, might. But the organization advises these groups to take definitive steps toward reductions where they can, both in the product design process (like choosing certain materials over others) or choosing suppliers based on their own commitments to efficiency and renewables. “They could choose a factory that’s based in Vietnam that has solar panels on its roof over one that doesn’t,” he said by way of example.

While shoppers and industry insiders alike are right to examine brands’ sustainability claims with clear eyes, Whitman cautions against “calling an investment in carbon credits a cop-out, or a get-out-ofjail-free card, when the alternative is that a

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company might not do anything.” Brands that commit to offsetting their emissions are incentivized by the self-imposed tax to find solutions and address the pain points in their supply chains, he offered.

“The requirement that we have is that you offset your emissions immediately,” he added, “and the reason is that when companies promise to reduce emissions by 2030 or 2040, there’s far too much risk in that strategy.”

“Who’s policing that, or ensuring that companies actually investing money in decarbonization today? Nobody.”

According to Cindy J. Lin, founder and CEO of Hey Social Good, a platform designed to verify brands’ sustainability and ethics claims, the move toward carbon offsets is largely being driven by public interest.

“It’s not just fashion brands—companies of all sizes are seeing a clear push from consumers” toward more sustainable practices and transparency. Offsets have emerged as an attractive way for brands address the toll their operations take on the planet, without necessarily “changing something systemic within their operations.”

Over the course of the past decade, a multitude of carbon credit programs have

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cropped up, giving way, naturally, to questions about their implementation and impact, Lin said. “There have been carbon offset scams and what they call ‘leakages,’” she explained, wherein a company might invest in saving a portion of a rainforest, for example, just to see another area of that forest razed to the ground later on. There are also disagreements among groups about how to calculate how much carbon these efforts are actually capturing and offsetting.

Lin, who spent close to two decades at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), said that regulatory bodies like the United Nations are attempting to push for standardization guidelines that could help verify the efficacy of offset programs and create a process for global standardization. This would lend legitimacy to initiatives truly reducing emissions, and ease the burden on brands and groups like Hey Social Good, which are currently slogging through claims and data to provide brands and consumers with peace of mind.

In the U.S., both scientists and economists have also raised the issue of implementing a carbon tax on corporations, and using the revenue to fund carbon capturing solutions and renewable energy. According to Lin, the issue of standardization stands in the way. The U.S. has seen success with measuring air pollution and offering credits to companies that voluntarily reduce their polluting emissions below EPA-dictated levels, but carbon offsets are so varied and wide-ranging in their objectives and applications that government entities have yet to find a through line that would make vetting and comparison doable.

Despite the general issues with measuring their impact, Lin believes that offsets as part of an overall strategy can work for brands “if we focus on the net benefit.” Investment in environmental initiatives is always worth the effort, but brands should be willing to do the leg work to ensure that they’re buying credits from a reputable source that will actually monitor and assess its impacts over time.

“The thing that’s hard for businesses is that they’re not experts, and they shouldn’t be expected to be,” Lin said. But those that are larger or well-established should be going well beyond buying offsets, especially if

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they have “the funds and the wherewithal” to engage with consultants or advisors to support their efforts.

“Brands walking a fine line to ensure that their best intentions are rewarded,” she said, “because the whole point of doing this is either a personal mission or commitment, or it’s because it’s linked to their reputation.”

While public interest has helped push a sustainable agenda—and even helped renew brand interest in offsets—Lin predicted that the perception of carbon credits could plummet if consumers begin to finger them as a marketing tool.

“If you’re a brand, go do the hard work first—then tell the story,” she advised, noting that consumers are wise to the concept of greenwashing and are likely to start to wonder “if offsets actually work or not” as brands continue to tout their use. “The first thing a brand should do is look at their supply chain—if they’re going to spend $50,000, or $100,000, or $1 million, I bet they could put that money toward making some aspect of it better, rather than investing in offsets.”

Still, Lin said that pushing the fashion industry toward a more sustainable, carbon-neutral future will take work on the part of both brands and consumers. “There’s a sense that [a business] is supposed to be perfect,” she said, even if it is just taking the first steps toward becoming more efficient and conscious. When a brand highlights an undertaking—a leather goods company moving to a chromium-free tannery, for example—shoppers are often quick to point out other inadequacies in its operations that are harmful to people or the environment. The effort to hold a whole industry to account for its ills is a relatively recent undertaking, she said. “It’s a journey, and there might be 100 steps. That’s okay.”

Ultimately, Lin advised that truth will set brands free—even amid some growing pains. “I think the No. 1 thing that consumers really care about is transparency, over a climate offset logo or certification,” she said. “‘Tell me your story, tell me about your challenges and the things that have been really hard’—when a brand is really vulnerable in that way, you develop more loyalty from your customer.”

“If you’re a company with limited resources and you have $100 to spend on reductions or offsets, ideally you’re spending that money on reductions.” —Michael Sadowski, World Resources Institute

Asian Garment Hubs Facing Existential Threat: Climate Change RISING SEA LEVELS OVER THE NEXT DECADE COULD LEAVE SOME GARMENTPRODUCING REGIONS IN ASIA UNDERWATER, LITERALLY. JASMIN MALIK CHUA

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riven by climate change, rising sea levels over the next decade could submerge vast garment-producing regions in Asia, forcing thousands of suppliers to relocate or sink, a study commissioned by the International Labour Organisation has found.

Despite the potential catastrophe, the scenario is one that has received scant attention, wrote Cornell University’s Jason Judd and J. Lowell Jackson in a report published in July. While larger, transnational suppliers might be able to safeguard production in high-risk areas by moving facilities to higher altitudes or further inland, smaller suppliers have no such flexibility. Bangladesh, the world’s second-largest clothing exporter after China, “appears particularly vulnerable.”

“It appears some of apparel’s production centers representing a significant percentage of current output will not escape the projected acceleration of the climate crisis,” they said.

The analysis, which arrived as deadly floods tore through Belgium, Germany and Luxembourg—another symptom of worsening global warming, experts warn—looked

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at several Asian cities, including Dhaka in Bangladesh, Jakarta in Indonesia and Phnom Penh in Cambodia. Judd and Jackson took a map of factory locations from open-source factory database the Open Apparel Registry and overlaid it with climate models predicting where elevations will fall below the level of a coastal flood at least once a year by 2030.

The most critical areas, Judd and Jackson found, were in Guangzhou in China and Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam, where roughly 50 to 60 percent of factories are poised to be underwater by the end of the decade.

In interviews conducted in conjunction with the study, buyers—that is, brands—expressed no plans to mitigate possible largescale losses of jobs and income due to changing sea levels.

“For buyers, the relative lack of attention to sea level impacts on suppliers and their workers underlines the nature of the relationships,” the authors wrote. “Buyers with very few exceptions do not own factories and risks such as catastrophic flooding belong to their suppliers.”

But flooding isn’t all the apparel industry will have to contend with as temperatures continue to inch hotter. Extreme heat, too, is also wors-

ening in major Asian apparel nerve centers.

“Sea-level rise and government efforts to mitigate the job and investment losses from sea-level rise are, naturally, not focused on the apparel industry but economic life more generally,” they wrote. “Apparel buyers can focus on its likely impacts, whether out of narrow concern for loss of production capacity or, more broadly, the dictates of sustainable fashion, the plight of its workforce and the demands of partnership. But it appears that some of apparel’s production centers representing a significant percentage of current output will not escape the projected acceleration of the climate crisis.”

High heat, Judd and Jackson said, brings serious long-term health risks from dehydration, heatstroke and a greater risk of poisoning from the evaporation of workplace chemicals. It could also increase absenteeism and loss of income from illness, lower productivity and longer hours.

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A 2017 United Nations Development Program report found that that climate change has “already altered thermal conditions in the workplace, and additional warming is a serious challenge for any worker or employer reliant on outdoor or non-air-conditioned work.” The world’s warmest regions, the tropics and sub-tropics, are worst affected because of pre-existing heat extremes and the high concentrations of exposed sectors such as agriculture and manufacturing.

“Sea-level rise and government efforts to mitigate the job and investment losses from sea-level rise are, naturally, not focused on the apparel industry but economic life more generally,” they wrote. “Apparel buyers can focus on its likely impacts, whether out of narrow concern for loss of production capacity or, more broadly, the dictates of sustainable fashion, the plight of its workforce and the demands of partnership. But it appears that some of apparel’s production cen-

PUSHED UP BY CLIMATE CHANGE, RISING SEA LEVELS OVER THE NEXT DECADE COULD SUBMERGE VAST GARMENT-PRODUCING REGIONS IN ASIA, EXPERTS SAY.

ters representing a significant percentage of current output will not escape the projected acceleration of the climate crisis.”

Climate change could also damage one of the industry’s most important crops at the source, creating a domino effect that upends the rest of the supply chain and potentially reshaping the geographies of sourcing.

According to the world’s first global analysis of climate risks to global cotton production, published last month, climate change could leave half of the planet’s cotton-growing hubs highly vulnerable to temperature increases, changes to rainfall patterns and extreme weather events by 2040.

All six of the top cotton-producing countries—Brazil, China, India, Pakistan, Turkey and the United States—will face increased climate peril from wildfire, drought and extreme rainfall, according to climate-risk firm Acclimatise, which is part of Willis Towers Watson’s Climate and Resilience Hub. Cotton exposure to heat stress, defined as temperatures above 40 degrees Celsius, will be an increased risk across 75 percent of cotton-growing regions, with the prospect being high or very high across just under 5 percent of regions. Some 40 percent of cotton-growing regions are projected to experience a decrease in growing season as

temperatures spiral beyond the optimum temperature range for raising the fiber. Onefifth of those regions could face an uptick in fluvial flooding by 2040, and 30 percent of them could see a higher degree of landslides.

More than half (60 percent) will be exposed to extreme wind speeds, and up to 10 percent will have to weather worsening storms.

Under a “worst-case scenario,” all cotton-growing regions will be exposed to increased danger from at least one climate hazard over the next two decades, though some areas could see high or very high exposure to up to seven climate hazards, the analysis found. The worst-affected regions, it added, are likely to be northwestern Africa, including northern Sudan and Egypt, and western and southern Asia.

“This analysis is a wake-up call for the cotton industry, on which much of the apparel sector is currently hugely reliant,” Sally Uren, CEO of Forum for the Future, the sustainability think tank that commissioned the study, said in a statement. “In order to build resilience for a highly disrupted and uncertain future, the widespread shifts to sustainable forms of cotton production must be bolstered by ambitious and aligned action to reduce carbon emissions while also preparing the industry to operate in a very different world.”

“It appears some of apparel’s production centers representing a significant percentage of current output will not escape the projected acceleration of the climate crisis.” — ­ Jason Judd and J. Lowell Jackson

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Trickle Down Effect: Who Pays for Sustainable Change?

COSTS ASSOCIATED WITH GOING GREEN AFFECT ALL ASPECTS OF THE SUPPLYDEMAND EQUATION. V I C K I M. YO U N G

F

ashion firms and retailers are putting greater effort and investments into becoming more sustainable, but the answer to who ultimately pays for this change isn’t always clear.

ESG—environmental, social and corporate governance—is now a regular checkpoint for investors as companies are plotting a greener path ahead, while still managing day-to-day operations and weighing supply chain options to keep margins intact.

“A percentage of the costs to be sustainable will be passed on to consumers because companies have to make that money somewhere to continue investing in sustainability efforts,” Gabriella Santaniello, a retail consultant and founder of the research firm A Line Partners.

She believes that the post-Covid retail ecosystem where inventories are leaner due to fewer over-production runs amid a less promotional environment is creating better margins and greater profitability for companies. Carrying less inventory is in and of itself more sustainable, Santaniello said. She noted that greater profitability also gives fashion firms the ability to plow back some of those

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profits to new initiatives. Santaniello also believes that at some point a portion of those costs will be passed along to consumers, but how much remains to be seen. It could be an incremental uptick in prices, such as a denim item that sells for $44.50 instead of $39.50, or it could come from not offering as many promotions, she said.

“Many companies are looking at low-hanging fruit at this stage,” Santaniello noted, citing easy options that include partnerships with resale firm ThreadUp and office initiatives such as LED lighting and recycling. As denim manufacturers have been focused on reducing ecological footprints via newer dye processes that use less water, retailers are also taking a closer look at their store network to adjust their the overall footprint, she said.

“We’ve been tracking the sustainability push for awhile. We saw it in the early days when people were just talking about it, and now we’re seeing a bit more action. In time, it will give the retail industry the ability to reinvent themselves in various ways,” Jessica Ramirez, retail analyst at Jane Hali Associates, said, adding that companies are still in

“We talk a lot about ESG, and there’s a demand for it, but we’re still in the early stages of determining what really matters.” —Marie Driscoll, Coresight Research

the early days of figuring out what to do and how to apportion the sustainability costs across their operations. She believes that at this point in time, most companies are still bearing the burden of increased costs connected to their sustainability efforts.

While sustainability costs are affecting every part of a fashion firm’s business, Ramirez said many brands are starting to include newer fabrications, such as leathers made from mushrooms or making items out of bamboo. She also cited Levi Strauss & Co., VF Corp.’s North Face brand and Tapestry Inc.’s Coach as examples of firms doing “good jobs” with their circularity efforts through upcycling and vintage.

Some fashion firms are also paying close attention on the traceability front—and it’s certainly one way to support their claims regarding sustainable products.

According to Brian Ehrig, a partner in the consumer practice of global strategy and management consulting firm Kearney, those

24 / 2021 SUSTAINABILITY REPORT

efforts range from Everlane’s disclosure of product content from material and factory sourcing and cost information to VF’s materials source maps on its website detailing supply-chain transparency.

Ehrig believes there’s a “dissonance” based on consumer surveys where shoppers say sustainability is important, but then acknowledge that they’re willing to pay only a slight increase in price. That disconnect isn’t limited to how much one is willing to pay for something that’s more sustainable. In a research project Ehrig is working on for a textiles firm, the Kearney consultant said “over 80 percent of people surveyed said they are not willing to pay more than 10 percent more for something Made in the U.S.A.,” even though the same respondents said that American-made goods are important to them. That means for many firms, they’re going to need to figure out how to pay for most of the upfront costs if they want to become more sustainable.

INVESTMENTS IN SUSTAINABILITY ARE MOSTLY BORNE BY COMPANIES, BUT CONSUMERS AND INVESTORS CAN BECOME PART OF THAT EQUATION, TOO.

“We’re seeing a mix of things. One example is VF, which earlier this year raised a 500 million euro ($586.8 million) green bond, basically asking investors to pay for innovations and materials with others,” Ehrig said.

He believes one stumbling block for fashion firms is that many executives have aspirations for what they want to do that are more robust than what they’ve been able to execute. Cost pressure is one reason, given the spike in freight rates. “Let’s face it, the apparel business hasn’t been a very good place to be in the last year,” the Kearney consultant said, noting that many firms end up needing to pull back on plans “because there’s only so much money to go around.”

As for whether sustainability investments ultimately get passed on to consumers, Ehrig said he believes that “in some cases, the costs do show up in increased prices.” He compared it to when firms need to upgrade technology, machinery and other processes.

Those costs get amortized into the cost of the product in order to meet certain margin expectations needed to run their businesses, he explained.

Emily Halperin, a sustainability expert and director in the consumer products practice at AlixPartners, pointed out that bringing sustainable products to the marketplace isn’t just about the item itself, but could include different packaging options so there’s less waste.

“Does it cost more to have a more environmental product? In our experience, it doesn’t always cost more and can actually have some cost benefits,” she said. One example involves alternative packaging, such as having multiple languages on a package so that the same carton or wrap can be used for items being sent to different countries.

Halperin said consumers are becoming more aware and savvier because they visually see waste in the products they are buying.

And because consumers are starting to make decisions based on sustainability concerns, the onus is on companies to transform their supply chains, or—at the very least—recalibrating the incentives to make organizations work in a different way. Reconceiving the way companies think and operate together can help with sustainability, and it’s a good way of creating market share and sharehold-

25 / 2021 SUSTAINABILITY REPORT

er value, she noted.

For U.S. public firms, the Securities and Exchange Commission is requiring greater transparency to protect investors, including ESG-related disclosures. That’s an added cost for companies that now need to hire someone to collect and analyze data to make sure reporting requirements are met, Marie Driscoll, a former credit analyst and now managing director, luxury and fashion, at retail and technology advisory firm Coresight Research, said.

But she said companies can offset that expense because “there are different ways to remove costs in an organization.” Driscoll explained that by improving efficiencies, firms don’t necessarily need to sacrifice or

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see a change in their margins. Because waste is a cost, brands that learn to make less and sell more at higher prices end up winning because the business is now more profitable.

“They can then take that profit increase and use it for investment without having to pass it on to consumers,” Driscoll said.

Complicating the sustainability conversation is that what is important for one company isn’t necessarily the same for another firm. “We talk a lot about ESG, and there’s a demand for it, but we’re still in the early stages of determining what really matters.

What is material for Levi Strauss is different from what is material for Walmart,” the former credit analyst said. “Walmart can use solar heating. If there are big solar panels in their big stores, they can really save energy in that way, but Levi doesn’t have the option to do it.”

“The biggest challenge for retailers and apparel manufacturers is how to be sustainable and still keep price points down,” Natalie Kotlyar, partner and retail and consumer practice leader at BDO, said. She noted that “75 percent of millennials and 87 percent of Gen Z” cohorts—the two demographic groups leading the charge for circularity and climate change—said that they are willing to pay up for for sustainable practices and goods.

“They expect that sustainability will cost more [and] as millennials and Gen Z have more purchasing power, [the higher costs] will have less and less impact on the con-

26 / 2021 SUSTAINABILITY REPORT

sumer,” Kotlyer said.

One company that’s ahead of the game when it comes to checking for carbon emissions is the Earth-first apparel brand Tentree, which plants 10 trees for every item sold. The company has planted 58 million trees to date.

Derrick Emsley, Tentree’s CEO and founder, explained that although his firm sells clothing, it was actually founded as a tree planting company that also sells apparel. The company sources fabrics with the lowest carbon footprint and it measures its entire supply chain for carbon emissions.

“All of our costs for tree planting are baked into the cost structure. So, our retail price points have to support the creation of our product,” the CEO said.

Emsley said that businesses are starting to recognize that they have to fundamentally change their supply chain and their business model to ensure that every step of it is sustainable. The thinking now is that “I need to run my business with a different cost structure, and that cost structure is not just about creating a product. It’s also about supporting that plan,” Tentree’s CEO said.

With all the talk going on about sustainability, Emlsey notes that at the end of the day, the environmental cost is ultimately borne by some entity, be it the environment due to poor manufacturing or environmental standards, people getting paid low wages, the brand itself due to lower profitability, or ultimately, the end consumer.

“The biggest challenge for retailers and apparel manufacturers is how to be sustainable and still keep price points down.” —Natalie Kotlyar, BDO

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F-AY-13324 6/21

How Green Is the Rental Economy? It’s Hard to Say WITH DIFFERENT METRICS DEPENDING ON THE GARMENT AND CLEANING PROCESSES USED, THE ANSWER IS NOT A SIMPLE ONE. JASMIN MALIK CHUA

T

he headlines quickly went viral.

“Renting Clothes is Worse for the Planet Than Just Throwing It Away,” one declared. “Renting the Runway Is No Cure for ‘Fast Fashion,’” touted another. “Throwing Your Clothes Away is More Eco-Friendly Than Renting Them,” said a third.

The stories, based on a study published

by Finnish scientists in the journal Environmental Research Letters earlier this summer, sparked consternation from a large swathe of the clothing-rental industry—and no less of a scramble.

The timing proved to be particularly inopportune. After a grueling year of shuttered offices and canceled social events, people were finally ready to doff their sweatpants in favor of dressier looks. As Covid-19 cases began to ease, not only were rental platforms like Rent the Runway and Nuuly seeing a thawing of long-dormant accounts but they were also fielding accelerated demand from consumers seeking a more sustainable way to consume fashion in a post-pandemic world. In quick succession, marquee names such as Eddie Bauer, Harrods, Ralph Lauren, Rebecca Minkoff and Selfridges were

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announcing their desire to wade into rental as part of broader sustainability initiatives.

“And now there’s a study coming out saying, ‘Oh my God, it’s not sustainable,” said one industry insider, who requested anonymity.

But the writers of the articles, their critics say, have misread, misinterpreted or overly simplified the conclusions of the study, which compared different ways of consuming a pair of cotton-based jeans, including resale, recycling, renting and simply buying less. While the researchers found that leasing or sharing denim generated the greatest global warming potential—mostly through additional environmental costs such as transportation and packaging—rental advocates say they’re based on a number of inferences or generalizations that do not reflect the reality of many rental models, especially those that specialize in occasionwear or babywear with little rewear value.

“I believe it is unfair to frame the entire rental industry as less green,” said Lauren Gregor, founder and CEO of Rent-a-Romper, a Los Angeles-based rental service for babies and children. “In the study, they are talking about a pair of adult jeans, which is very different from children’s clothing when

“Things are not black-and-white, and therefore too far-reaching headlines and simplistic conclusions should be avoided.” —Jarkko Levänen, Lahti University of Technology

kids are going through rapid growth stages.

For children’s clothing, we know they outgrow quickly and items are only used for a short period of time. It makes sense for your wallet and our planet to keep using those resources as long as we possibly can.”

The study, for instance, assumed that consumers would drive 2 kilometers to return and pick up a new pair of jeans, though it also suggests that low-carbon vehicles, such as bicycles, could alleviate some of that environmental burden. But most companies use postal couriers that are already delivering mail, Gregor said. Others might consolidate shipments by tapping into existing brick-and-mortar networks or services with multiple drop-off locations such as Happy Returns, which operates “return bars” at malls across the country.

Another shortfall the researchers admitted to was the fact that they didn’t account for impacts such as land use or water pollution that happen during the production phase. Nor did they look at clothing made from synthetic fibers, which might have produced a divergent outcome due to the greater energy demand from processing petrochemicals. They also supposed, as a “base case,” that people wear their clothes an average of 200 times before throwing them

29 / 2021 SUSTAINABILITY REPORT

away—true, perhaps, for jeans, but closer to 10 for most other items, according to a Global Fashion Agenda and Boston Consulting Group report from 2018.

Indeed, Christine Hunsicker, CEO of CaaStle, whose clothing-as-a-service technology and reverse logistics underpins the rental services of Banana Republic, Express, Vince and others, said that the results of the study might have looked very different if it hadn’t homed in on a highly worn item such as jeans instead of one-offs such as a prom dress or gala outfit.

“Both from an economic perspective as well as an environmental perspective, it is better to own utility items, core items, things you’re going to wear repeatedly,” Hunsicker said. “Where we think rental has a leg up on sustainability, which was not looked at in the study, is for that 50 percent to 80 percent of your closet that never gets that kind of utilization. That is where a rental is a better environmental option, because the rental will be worn maximally, but by many people.”

Most experts agree that making new clothing is more expensive, ecologically speaking, than keeping it in circulation. McKinsey & Co. estimates that more than 70 percent of the fashion industry’s greenhouse-gas emissions stem from upstream activities, such as

JEANS MAKE UP A SMALL PERCENTAGE OF THE APPAREL RENTAL MARKET.

energy-intensive raw material production, preparation and processing. Extending the life of clothes by an extra nine months reduces its carbon, water and waste footprints by roughly 20 percent and 30 percent apiece, according to the Waste and Resources Action Programme, a British nonprofit.

Though the study didn’t focus on the impacts of dry cleaning, rental’s detractors have described its reliance on chemicals to keep clothing looking new as a major shortcoming. But even here there are nuances. Rent the Runway’s dry-cleaning warehouse, the world’s largest, uses biodegradable detergents that are free from added fragrances and zeolites. The company says it doesn’t use halogenated cleaning solvents such as perchloroethylene but passes most pieces through a steam tunnel at a balmy temperature of between 248 and 302 degrees Fahrenheit. CaaStle, which handles laundering for its clients, uses a technique called “wet cleaning” using hydrocarbon-based solutions that are gentler on the environment compared with regular dry cleaning.

Jarkko Levänen, a professor at Lahti University of Technology and co-author of the study, acknowledged that there are “numerous uncertainties” in these types of business models. He said that the paper’s scenarios are theoretical because they do not describe the practices of any individual company but rather “commonly applied activities that follow the ideas of the circular economy.”

Many of the headlines that emerged from the study, however, inaccurately represented the research. “Things are not black-andwhite, and therefore too far-reaching headlines and simplistic conclusions should be avoided,” he said. “That’s why more research is needed to better understand the impacts of different types of business models associated with the circular and sharing economy.”

Because of the myriad variables involved, life-cycle assessments about clothing rental have so far been few and far between. The biggest one to date was recently released by Rent the Runway, which commissioned its own study of 12 different product categories, specifically looking at carbon emissions, energy, water, human health and aquatic ecosystem quality, from third-party consultants

30 / 2021 SUSTAINABILITY REPORT

GreenStory and SgT in 2020.

Customers who rent a garment from Rent the Runway instead of buying one save an average of 24 percent in water usage, 5 percent in kilowatt-hours of energy usage and 3 percent in pounds of carbon emissions.

Rental cocktail dresses, skirts and sweaters, it added, yield “significant” environmental savings compared with rental jeans or pants, which aren’t worn as often as their purchased counterparts. Jeans and pants, the company said, made up only 7 percent of its inventory in 2019 and 6 percent of total Rent the Runway wears since 2010. With roughly 27.1 million wears across 12 categories since 2019, the company estimates to have saved 54.7 million gallons of water, 33 kilowatt-hours of energy and 13.3 million pounds of carbon dioxide emissions.

“Our rental platform helps reduce the fashion industry’s environmental impact by encouraging women to buy less clothing, ultimately displacing overall production,” said Anushka Salinas, president and COO of Rent the Runway. “This is very important considering the majority of the fashion industry’s negative environmental impact occurs during the process of producing clothing.”

Still, rental in and of itself isn’t enough to shift the industry in a more environmentally friendly direction, said Caroline Priebe, founder of the Center for the Advancement of Garment Making, a New York-based sustainability consultancy. Clothing can only be kept in circulation longer if they’re made to last in the first place. How circular the model is also depends on the garment and its location. “There’s no need to rent a white T-shirt,” she said. “So I think it makes sense in specific garment types, and use cases and then only locally.” Priebe raised the example of MUD Jeans, an Amsterdam label that doesn’t so much as “rent” jeans as leases them. Customers pay a monthly fee for a year, after which they’re free to keep the jeans till they fall apart. “[MUD] also provides repair services to extend use, and then at the end of the life cycle or the end of the use, if the garment can’t be repaired or resold, [it] recycles that cotton into denim again,” Priebe said. “It’s that combination, I think, that can give the most benefit.”

“The majority of the fashion industry’s negative environmental impact occurs during the process of producing clothing.” —Anushka Salinas, Rent the Runway

Zero Water

No Chemical Waste

Microfibers: A Major Problem FROM GARMENT CREATION TO UPKEEP THE ISSUE OF MICROFIBER “SHEDDING” IS ONE TOO BIG TO IGNORE. JASMIN MALIK CHUA

D

on’t look now. They’re everywhere.

By now it’s clear that microfibers from synthetic clothing are some of the most pernicious forms of plastic pollution. Less than 0.2 inches long, these tiny strands are in the water we drink, the fish we eat and the air we breathe. Their size, or rather lack thereof, makes it easy for them to spread across vast distances. Every time someone takes a jog in a sweat-wicking tank top or throws a fleece jacket into the wash, thousands of strands of polyester, nylon or acrylic pull loose from their surface, ready to be whisked off to parts unknown. One University of California, Santa Barbara study estimates that 4,000 metric tons—the equivalent of 13.3 quadrillion fibers—inundated California’s natural environment in 2019.

But while clothing is the “second-most discarded item of plastic after food packaging,” according to Lisa Erdle, manager of research and innovation at the 5 Gyres Institute, a California-based research nonprofit, there remain gaps in our knowledge because research is “still relatively young on this issue in general.” Most of the science around microfibers has involved the consumer end of the equation. Shedding during the production of textiles, on the other hand, has remained largely a “black box,” she said.

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This past June, on World Oceans Day, scientists from the Nature Conservancy and Bain & Co. published what they say is the first estimate of microfiber emissions from textile manufacturing and materials processing. The results weren’t comforting. Roughly 0.12 million metric tons of synthetic fibers are released at this pre-consumer stage into the environment every year, a similar order of magnitude to the post-consumer one. In more measurable terms, for every 500 shirts manufactured, one vanishes as microfiber pollution.

“So the scale of this is really significant,” said Tom Dempsey, oceans program director at the Nature Conservancy in California. “It’s part of this problem to really merit and urgently require action.” Textile manufacturers, he said, aren’t usually aware of this issue and rarely test for microfibers in their waste streams, yet the dyeing, printing, finishing and prewashing stages are all abrasive “wet” processes that can cause yarns to shed at high rates and foul waterways if left untreated. Proper containment, too, is a concern.

Microfibers can get stuck at wastewater treatment plants, where they’re incorporated into sewage sludge that is used to fertilize cropland. From there, they can contaminate crops or be buffeted by wind and rain into the nearest water body.

The situation is bound to get worse. Syn-

“We need one agenda, one vision and one set of targets that everybody can work toward.”

—Sophie Mather, The Microfibre Consortium

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thetic fibers comprise over two-thirds (69 percent) of all materials used in textiles today, according to petrochemical analytics company Tecnon OrbiChem. By 2030, they will make up more than 75 percent. With little to no intervention, the study predicts that pre-consumer emissions could increase by 54 percent by 2030.

The good news is there is already an array of off-the-shelf solutions that can stem the flow of microfibers at this juncture; suppliers just need to be made aware of them.

“In many conservation challenges that we’ve worked on, we’re thinking about new technologies and innovations,” Dempsey said.

“In this case, the solutions exist. We know how to filter water.” Even better, advanced filtration techniques can help textile manufacturers save water, making them at least cost effective if not a smart investment that can improve their bottom lines.

The fashion industry has dawdled long enough, in Dempsey’s opinion. For years, brands and retailers have struggled to develop standardized and internationally aligned test methods for evaluating microfiber release. The pieces have only started to click in place. The Microfibre Consortium (TMC), a multistakeholder initiative whose roster in-

34 / 2021 SUSTAINABILITY REPORT

cludes Adidas, Gap Inc., Patagonia, and Zara owner Inditex, was the first to offer a version to its members in late 2019 before opening it to the public. The American Association of Textile Chemists and Colorists made its test method available for sale in August.

“It’s important to have information and understanding as you try to tackle any problem and certainly a problem that’s as complicated and sweeping as is,” Dempsey said. “And yet gathering information is not enough. I would [also] argue that we have enough information in hand right now to take meaningful ambitious action to try to stem the flow of microfibers.”

While TMC wasn’t involved in the Nature Conservancy study, the group is poised to release a roadmap-slash-commitment that will form an “aligned agenda” for the fashion sector with “clear accountable outputs” for signatories to take coordinated action, according to Sophie Mather, its executive director.

One of the areas of focus is industrial microfiber emissions. “What is great about the roadmap is we’re making sure that we’ve got industry commitment behind it, and people are held accountable to keep the targets that are outlined,” she said.

Still, there are a lot of complexities with

A UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SANTA BARBARA STUDY ESTIMATES THAT 4,000 METRIC TONS OF MICROFIBERS INUNDATED CALIFORNIA’S NATURAL ENVIRONMENT IN 2019.

the issue, Mather said. Dealing with microfiber emissions isn’t as easy as shutting off some imaginary spigot. Creating clothing that sheds less, or doesn’t shed at all, is even more challenging. Everything from the twist of the yarn to the type of machinery being used can affect the integrity of the fiber. “No two textiles are exactly the same,” she said.

“There are so many different variables as to why [shedding] is happening, and to understand all of those and make changes without affecting the performance of the material is really quite difficult.”

All of which is to say, partnership—among brands, textile manufacturers, researchers and third-party labs—is key. “We need one agenda, one vision and one set of targets that everybody can work toward,” Mather said. “I believe that we can get there, but it’s too big a challenge for one organization to do on its own. It has to be done in a collaborative way.”

To help move things along, the ZDHC (Zero Discharge of Hazardous Chemicals) Foundation, a multi-stakeholder initiative whose goal is reducing the garment industry’s use of toxic substances, joined TMC in June as a research partner. An update of its guidelines, set to launch in November, will include microfibers, along with testing methods and limit values. Ahead of that, ZDHC and TMC plan to publish a white paper to further the sector’s understanding of the subject.

“ZDHC, in collaboration with TMC, is conducting research to understand the sizes and numbers of microfibers formed during textile wet processing and intends to introduce stringent limit values into the wastewater guidelines, together with advice on how those stringent limits can be met,” said Phil Patterson, chair of the ZDHC MRSL Council.

“This will be the first time any organization takes definitive, large-scale action to mitigate releases into the environment.”

Patterson said that ZDHC isn’t interested in “debating the relative harms of sub-sections of the industry” or villanizing polyester as the “main culprit.” In his opinion, all fibers from textiles and industrial sources should be managed.

Indeed, despite the obvious target posed by synthetic textiles, natural fibers aren’t off

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the hook, either, said Krystle Moody Wood, founder and principal at Materevolve, a technical-textile consulting firm from California. When scientists at the University of Cape Town in South Africa analyzed 2,000 microfibers gathered from oceans around the world in 2019, for instance, they found that only 8 percent were plastic fibers. The rest were plant- or animal-based materials such as cotton, wool, hemp and linen.

“Anything that has been processed, dyed, treated, didn’t come from a cotton boll or off a sheep’s back has the potential to be an environmental pollutant and contribute to this issue,” she said. “There are things like PFAS, the water-repellent class of chemicals that we’re still using to treat natural and synthetic fibers even though they’re regulated in other parts of the world. So there are a lot of impacts, whether [the fiber is] natural or synthetic, because it’s really about persistent toxicity.”

Diana Rosenberg, senior manager of product sustainability at Gap Inc., one of the brands that contributed to the Nature Conservancy study, agreed companies should be approaching the question of microfibers from a holistic point of view. “All fibers shed in the normal wear and tear of life,” she said. “We can’t keep trying to chase the one material that we should be blaming for this problem. Each fabric needs to have a way of examining how to bring that load down and eventually eliminate it.”

Just as important, Rosenberg said, is moving from “learning into action.” “The next step is really to start figuring out how do we actually implement the test standards that have been developed,” she said. “How do we contribute toward the development of the next level of understanding in terms of what is it that contributes to higher levels of microfiber shed? What types of fibers tend to fragment at a higher rate? What’s happening in knits? What’s happening in wovens?”

When testing a piece of fabric for colorfastness and abrasion resistance, for instance, Gap might start checking for shed rates. Or it might ask its textile mills to start measuring microfibers in effluent. Having those elements integrated into ZDHC standards would be invaluable, Rosenberg said.

“We are collecting so much information

“The next step is really to start figuring out how do we actually implement the test standards that have been developed.” —Diana Rosenberg, Gap Inc.

69% Share of synthetic fibers of all materials used in textiles today.

there and we already have samples happening,” she added. “We don’t have to re-create a system and increase the collection burden at facilities.”

Patagonia is one brand that has been paying attention to the growing microfiber emergency since it made itself known. The outdoor-wear purveyor funded the pioneering 2016 study that found that a single fleece jacket can slough up to 250,000 microfibers during a single wash. Since then, Patagonia has kept microfibers among its “top five” priority issues, according to Elissa Foster, its head of product environmental impact.

Foster said she thinks the company is making progress, but that the path hasn’t been as straightforward as it thought it would be. “It’s been very hard to identify those key switches or changes that you can make to the twist of the yarn or the way the fabric is knit or woven to reduce shedding,” she said. “We’ve had some hypotheses on [different] fabric constructions, but then when we did the testing we found exceptions with everything.”

Amid the uncertainty, Patagonia is going to keep plugging away. Having a stan-

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dardized testing method will certainly spur efforts, Foster said. So will work by Nature Conservancy, TMC, ZDHC and others to identify leakage hot spots that brands and suppliers can tackle together. “There are a lot more points in the fabric-creation life cycle that we aren’t necessarily directly involved in,” she added. “That seems to be where the holes in the knowledge are now.”

Foster said it’s unlikely we’ll arrive at a solution that will halt microfiber generation entirely, neither will synthetic fabrics fade into obscurity any time soon. The crux of the matter is manufacturing textiles that shed less and capturing any wayward bits before they escape into the environment. Getting it right will have to involve everyone, including those in the halls of government.

“There are a lot of places along the life cycle of a fiber getting into the environment that we all need to just acknowledge,” Foster said. “Brands are absolutely a piece of the solution, suppliers have a role, the washing machine industry has a role, there’s a place for aftermarket filters. There’s the wastewater treatment space. And then policy can come in to support those different areas.”

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Study Shines Light on Rampant Greenwashing FASHION IS “DRAGGING ITS FEET” ON SAYING SAYONARA TO VIRGIN PLASTICS WHILE MISLEADING CONSUMERS WITH NEBULOUS CLAIMS, ACCORDING TO RECENT DATA. JASMIN MALIK CHUA

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espite parading commitments meant to protect people and the planet, the fashion industry just can’t quit its addiction to fossil fuels, new research has found.

Not only are the world’s biggest brands “dragging their feet” on reducing their reliance on virgin plastics such as polyester, acrylic and nylon, according to a study by the Changing Markets Foundation, but they’re also misleading consumers with nebulous claims and a lack of transparency about the amount and source of petrochemical-based synthetics in their collections. Microplastics, too, remain a “blind spot,” the London-based think tank noted in a report titled “Synthetics Anonymous.”

This was the case even with so-called “ethical” brands that rated highly in grassroots group Fashion Revolution’s latest Transparency Index. Changing Markets Foundation—along with Clean Clothes Campaign, Ethical Consumer, Fashion Revolution, No Plastic in My Sea, Plastic Soup Foundation, Stand.earth, WeMove Europe and Zero Waste Alliance Ukraine—reached out to 46 firms with a questionnaire and

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eight companies—Gap, Gildan, Nike, Patagonia, Target, The North Face, Timberland and Walmart—failed to respond.

But even companies that engaged fell short of the planet-friendly image many seek to project, the Changing Markets Foundation said. While three-quarters (34 out of 46) of the brands provided some degree of transparency about their use of synthetics, either by percentage or weight, this was not always broken down fiber by fiber. No company made a clear commitment to phase out the use of synthetic fibers from their collections, and only six brands—Dressmann, Esprit, Hugo Boss, Puma, Reformation and United Colors of Benetton—expressed a desire to avoid or reduce synthetics to a certain extent.

Most sportswear brands, including Adidas, Asics, Nike and Reebok, said that their collections were largely based on synthetics and indicated no plans to change this. Only Puma reported that synthetics made up “just” half of its total fabric use and that it’s working to reduce the proportion of polyester. Some companies, such as Asos, said the amount of synthetics they’ve used had increased.

“The reality is that there is no silver bul-

let to this challenge, and a wholesale switch from synthetic to natural fibers can create other impacts—for example, water use or land degradation—so it’s important we work together as an industry to get this right,” a spokesperson for Asos, which reported a 16-percent increase since 2019 in its use of synthetic fibers—a result of its growing business rather than a conscious shift to using them, it said—told Sourcing Journal. “As a Textiles 2030 signatory, we’re committed to collaborating with industry colleagues to find and develop system-wide solutions to build a more sustainable product mix and tackle the use of virgin synthetics.”

No one brand emerged as a “frontrunner” for its use of synthetics or commitment to weed them out. Balenciaga, Bottega Veneta,

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Esprit, G-Star Raw, Hugo Boss, Kering, Reformation, Saint Laurent, Levi Strauss and United Colors of Benetton, the organization said, all “could do better,” while Asos, Asics, Calvin Klein, C&A, H&M, Zara owner Inditex, Marks & Spencer, Next, Puma, PVH Corp. and Tommy Hilfiger were “trailing behind.”

Adidas, Burberry, Gap, Gildan, Lululemon, Nike, Patagonia, Primark, Target, Timberland, Uniqlo, VF Corp. and Walmart fared the worst, falling into the “red zone.”

Most of them did not respond to a request for comment.

“Patagonia is in business to save our home planet and a huge part of that is measuring and reducing the impact of our products,” Matt Dwyer, vice president of product and innovation, told Sourcing Journal, noting that

SYNTHETICS ANONYMOUS CLAIMS FASHION IS SHOWING LIT TLE INTEREST IN WEANING OFF PETROCHEMICAL-BASED MATERIALS.

all of its apparel products will be made from 100 percent recycled, reclaimed or renewable resources by 2025. “We are prioritizing preferred materials, working with our supply chain partners to implement energy efficiency and renewable energy projects and growing our Worn Wear repair and resale business. We are very transparent in these efforts, which are clearly stated on our website.”

Adidas said that sustainability has been an “integral” part of the company’s business model for the past two decades and that it is increasing its use of sustainable materials in all areas of its product range, including replacing all virgin polyester with 100 percent recycled polyester.

“Already today, six out of 10 Adidas articles are made with sustainable materials,” a spokesperson told Sourcing Journal. “By 2025, nine out of 10 Adidas articles will feature a sustainable technology, material, design or manufacturing method. As part of our commitment to transparency we disclose the names and addresses of our suppliers publicly.”

FRACKED FASHION The problem of “fossil fashion” is a ubiquitous one that plagues high street and luxury brands alike, the Changing Markets Foundation said. Synthetic fibers, which are produced and sold cheaply, make up more than two-thirds (69 percent) of all materials used in textiles today, according to petrochemical analytics firm Tecnon OrbiChem. By 2030, they will comprise more than 75 percent, further drawing out the fashion industry’s dependence on continued fossil-fuel extraction amid a climate crisis. Polyester, the organization added, is derived from fracked gas. Coupled with forthcoming investments to produce it using coal, the industry is moving in the “exact opposite direction from where it should be heading.”

Indeed, some “sustainable” or “responsible” assortments incorporate an equal or greater percentage of synthetics than their main-collection counterparts, the organization found. H&M’s Conscious Collection, for instance, contained 72 percent synthetics versus 61 percent in its standard lineup. Of

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the items marked as “sustainable” by Zalando, which declined to comment for this story, 68 percent contained synthetics, compared with 75 percent in its main assortment.

Brands might be flouting legislation as well. Of the 39 percent of products accompanied by a sustainability claim, for example, a “shocking” 59 percent fell short of the U.K. Competition and Markets Authority’s new guidelines on green claims in some fashion, the organization said.

“Many brands still make misleading claims about how they are making their products more ‘recyclable,’ despite having neither a takeback scheme nor fiber-to-fiber recycling technology in place,” the Changing Markets Foundation wrote. “Greenwashing was rampant across the targets the brands disclosed to us, including claims of using ‘sustainable,’ ‘preferred,’ ‘sustainably sourced’ or ‘sustainably made’ materials, the criteria for which were often ill-defined.”

Recycled polyester made from downcycled plastic bottles, in particular, is a “false solution” and a “one-way street” to the landfill or incinerator because it cannot be re-recycled at scale at present, the think tank said.

H&M defended its use of recycled polyester, citing the Fashion Industry Charter for Climate Action’s contention that it has “great potential” to be a fiber with less environmental impact than virgin fossil-based polyester.

“Having said that, we agree with the report that recycled polyester from single-use plastic bottles shouldn’t be the longterm solution for the industry,” a spokesperson told Sourcing Journal, pointing to the retailer’s investments in recycling technologies such as Renewcell and Worn Again.

Even so, better laws—preferably ones with teeth—are needed, the Changing Markets Foundation said.

“Our report clearly demonstrates that the fashion industry’s addiction to synthetics is glaring—and will inevitably worsen, as no brand has made a clear commitment to changing course,” it said. “Instead of addressing the root of the problem—curtailing plastic-fiber overproduction at source‚ fashion companies continue to rely on delaying and distraction tactics, including greenwashing their questionable products to consumers.”

“Many brands still make misleading claims about how they are making their products more ‘recyclable,’ despite having neither a takeback scheme nor fiber-to-fiber recycling technology in place.” —Changing Markets Foundation

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Home Joins Move Toward Sustainability WHETHER IT’S USING RECYCLED FIBERS OR FAUX INPUTS, ENVIRONMENTALLY FRIENDLY SOLUTIONS ARE GAINING TRACTION. JENNIFER BRINGLE

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ome goods, like any other sector, has seen sustainability become a greater priority. The use of recycled and reclaimed materials is now commonplace. That shift is being driven, at least in part, by increased consumer demand for natural and environmentally friendly products.

According to a recent consumer study from the Sustainable Furnishings Council, 97 percent of respondents said they would prefer to buy environmentally friendly furnishings if the price and style were the same as less sustainable products.

“Consumers understand recycling— we’ve been recycling at home for years,” said Susan Inglis, executive director, Sustainable Furnishings Council. “When a piece of furniture or fabric is made with recycled content, consumers get it and understand it’s made with a smaller environmental footprint.”

While the use of recycled plastics and reclaimed wood has grown in popularity, home textile companies have made some of the greatest strides in producing recycled and sustainable materials.

Glen Raven, parent company of performance fabric producer Sunbrella, was an early adaptor to the sustainability movement. The company introduced its Sunbrella Renaissance line of recycled fabric in 2008 to

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repurpose fiber, yarn and fabric scraps that might otherwise end up in a landfill.

“We recognized that the typical fabric manufacturing process creates waste and were inspired to find a solution to transform that waste into a sustainable new fabric that still met our performance standards,” said Leib Oehmig, CEO, Glen Raven.

To make Renaissance, fabric waste is divided into color groups, reduced back to its fiber state and then mixed with virgin fiber before making its way back through the manufacturing process. The fiber blend helps ensure that the product meets stringent performance standards while also giving the fabric a natural color variant effect.

“When the program started, our Sunbrella Renaissance yarns averaged more than 45 percent recycled fibers from our Anderson plant,” Oehmig said. “Our Renaissance yarns now contain up to 93 percent recycled content with about half the carbon footprint and half of the energy density of virgin fiber-based yarns.”

The company expanded its sustainable fabric offering last fall with the Retweed collection, designed by renowned designer Richard Frinier and using 93 percent recycled content. “Since our Renaissance program was introduced, our custom fabrics division has created over 2.7 million pounds of new

yarns through 1.5 million pounds of collected acrylic waste,” Oehmig said. “The broader environmental benefit has been a reduction of 2.8 million pounds of greenhouse gas each year. These numbers ladder back to our overarching goal to implement zero-wasteto-landfill practices in all facilities by 2022.”

Fellow North Carolina textile mill Valdese Weavers launched its own recycled fabric product earlier this year, partnering with the Seaqual Initiative to produce textiles made from up-cycled marine plastics. Seaqual Initiative takes marine plastics collected during ocean cleanups—many of which would end up in a landfill or incinerator otherwise—and partners with companies and organizations to repurpose the plastic into new materials.

The Seaqual Initiative Valdese Weavers collection launched earlier this year with 16 ocean-inspired shades and patterns. The initial offering was picked up by Arhaus furnishings for upholstering their sofas, sectionals, and chairs.

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And while Valdese Weavers has long incorporated recycled plastics in their fabric production, this latest venture allows them to make a far greater impact, particularly on reducing ocean plastic waste.

“When you look at the data and the impact that the Seaqual Initiative is already making, it really is remarkable,” said Blake Millinor, president, Valdese Weavers. “It was a no-brainer for us to become a licensed partner of Seaqual Initiative, and we are proud to be able to offer our customers the option to be a part of this huge initiative to eliminate plastic pollution.”

Eco-conscious alternatives to traditional materials like leather, fur, and even conventional cotton are on the rise, as well.

According to a recent sustainability report from Edited, more-responsible alternatives to conventional cotton, such as organic or BCI-certified fibers, increased 167 percent year-over-year in 2021. And the number of faux fur options stocked has increased 351

THE SEAQUAL INITIATIVE TAKES MARINE PLASTICS COLLECTED DURING OCEAN CLEANUPS AND PARTNERS WITH COMPANIES AND ORGANIZATIONS TO REPURPOSE THE PLASTIC INTO NEW MATERIALS.

percent year-over-year, while the number of products made of 100 percent leather has declined 44 percent over that same period.

That shift in leather use—with many opting for faux versions to avoid contributing to the amount of leather waste going to landfills—inspired Sustainable Concepts to launch their recycled leather product, Enspire Leather, in 2019.

“We started to look at various things we could recycle, and we started to look at leather,” said Frank Fox, founder, Sustainable Composites. “We saw no one had created a product that looked and felt like leather and knew there was an opportunity there.”

Sustainable concepts takes leather scraps and separates the fibers into a cotton-like fluff that they then process into a new material that looks and feels like natural leather.

“We’re building a product from fiber, not dust,” he said. “A lot of faux leathers will take very good used material and grind it up. And

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it serves a purpose, but it’s not dependent on leather fibers—we have the only product that’s built from fibers.”

Enspire Leather has been adopted by both fashion and furniture companies, and for the latter in particular, the material makes it easier to reduce waste since the material comes in cut-to-order sizes, rather than the often non-uniform shapes of hides.

For the manufacturers creating these sustainable textiles and leathers, as well as the home goods companies that adopt them for use on their products, the benefits are twofold. Not only are they helping preserve the planet and create a cleaner environment, they’re also creating a new selling angle that can improve their business.

“When they are conscientious in doing these things, it gives them more of a story to tell,” Inglis said. “And consumers will respond to an eco-friendly story if they believe it’s credible.”

ENSPIRE LEATHER TAKES LEATHER SCRAPS AND SEPARATES THE FIBERS INTO COT TON-LIKE PUFFS.

R.W.: Digitalization is an essential step. It’s not just about saving paper, although that’s part of it! Using cloud-based digital services that synchronize information for all users in real time reduces errors in manual data entry and version control. This means less wastage of materials, time and resources due to costly rework.

By adopting 3D, brands can significantly reduce the amount of material and product samples they use. Adopting collaborative tools can cut the amount of travel required, reducing carbon emissions. PLM also provides greater visibility and transparency across the product development process, enabling companies to streamline inefficient processes and cut out wasteful or unsustainable products, materials and/ or ingredients.

Product lifecycle management (PLM) platforms are often associated with the development, design, manufacturing and marketing of products before ending up in the consumer’s hands, but they play a pivotal role in ensuring that sustainability initiatives have a real impact. For example, PLM systems can be used to track factors such as carbon footprint, packaging waste and materials that are suitable for circular economy recycling. And with more visibility comes leaner product assortments—therefore mitigating potential for apparel waste.

With this in mind, PLM software serves as an ideal hub for innovating, driving and maintaining initiatives that make products more sustainable, according to Ron Watson, vice president of product management, Centric Software.

What role does Centric and other players in the PLM space fill in improving sustainability?

Ron Watson: By centralizing all product data into one single platform, brands and retailers can improve their sustainability footprint by better managing supplier audits, setting resource and waste management standards, providing traceability for raw materials and labor standards and decreasing the number of prototypes. Everything from product design to sourcing to supplier audits is handled efficiently and transparently within the central digital space of PLM. What are some relatively easy measures brands can take to ensure they reduce waste in the product lifecycle?

How can companies leverage their PLM systems to ensure they’re adhering to all environmental and social standards?

R.W.: Centric PLM can be easily configured to associate elements like carbon footprint and packaging waste with materials at the bill of materials (BOM) level and calculate product scores and details. This enables companies to rapidly generate custom labeling that accurately represents the environmental impact of each finished product and is tailored to the different regulatory requirements of each country.

Centric also provides a central hub for digitally streamlining the complex task of supply chain certification, while the Factory Review module and mobile app are powerful tools for completing factory audits on the move. Companies can set audit criteria to compare suppliers’ compliance with desired standards of labor, carbon footprint, waste management, social responsibility and ethical production.

The pandemic prompted more brands to adopt 3D design to boost efficiency but it also reduces waste through sampling.

How does Centric’s PLM integrate with and facilitate 3D tools?

R.W.: Centric pursues a 3D-agnostic strategy and has pioneered integrations with major 3D software platforms in the apparel and consumer goods industries such as Browzwear, Optitex, CLO 3D, Vizoo, SOLIDWORKS and more. Information flows seamlessly between 3D applications and PLM so that 3D product designers can work in their native software environments while connected with PLM, and Centric becomes a central digital space to manage 3D material samples and leverage 3D assets with suppliers.

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Room to Recycle HOW IS THE HOME INDUSTRY TAKING ON THE USE OF REUSABLE MATERIALS AND IMPROVING ITS APPROACH TO CIRCULARITY? JENNIFER BRINGLE

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s environmental concerns continue to grow—the recent United Nations climate report painted a dire outlook for the planet’s future—the home sector has begun to make a more concerted effort to reduce its impact on the environment.

And while using sustainable materials and practices plays a major role in that shift, for an industry that can produce a great deal of waste, recycling and circularity have become even more critical.

Over the past couple of years, several home furnishings retailers have launched programs to reuse the products they sell.

Made.com partnered with giving platform Geev to enable consumers to find new homes for used furnishings and homeware.

And even IKEA has transformed its Bargain Corners into Circular Hubs in UK stores, where customers can shop recovered or secondhand IKEA furnishings. The initiative is part of IKEA’s goal to become fully circular by 2030.

In home textiles, Glen Raven, parent company of Sunbrella performance fabric, expanded its recycling program to retailers and consumers in 2010. The Recycle My Sunbrella initiative encourages dealers and end users to send used fabric back to the company to be repurposed into products such as felt, insulation and filtration material.

“Our Recycle My Sunbrella program, which reclaims pre- and post-consumer Sunbrella waste for use in a variety of industrial products, is seeing record participation

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from customers and consumers alike,” said Leib Oehmig, CEO, Glen Raven. “We’ve also invested in a strong network of local and regional recyclers to ensure we adhere to proper methods and maintain progress through new and innovative technologies.”

Reusing or recycling existing products is just one part of creating a circular production model. Incorporating recycled or reclaimed materials also plays an important role. In addition to using sustainably sourced wood, Room & Board receives reclaimed wood from factories, old barns and demolished dwellings throughout the United States.

“We use a lot of recycled wood,” said Steve Freeman, vendor resource manager, Room & Board. “We source some reclaimed wood out of row houses that are being torn down in Baltimore—taking the wood from those houses to make furniture.”

That sourcing in Baltimore put the company in contact with the U.S. Forest Service, which manages urban canopies in cities as well as those in the wilderness. The connection led to another source of wood for Room & Board’s furniture production.

“We learned about this huge problem called urban wood,” Freeman said. “It’s the reclaimed wood that comes out of cities, but it’s also the material that comes down in cities— trees get old and may become a danger or are taken out because of storms or disease.”

Much of that wood ends up in landfills, or in the best case, as mulch. But a movement has begun to grow to repurpose that urban wood into new products, like furniture.

“Nobody is perfect at this yet, but what’s worse is doing nothing.” —Steve Freeman, Room & Board

“This whole urban wood movement is becoming bigger and bigger,” Freeman said. “And we’re trying to get a supply chain in place to help larger retail and larger users to get more dimensional lumber for case goods. Our first project with that is launching in 2022.”

Outdoor furniture manufacturer MamaGreen also sources the bulk of its wood through reclaiming teak used in structures in Indonesia, where the company’s factory is based.

“Indonesia is one of the major teak producers in the world—teak wood has been used in construction there for centuries,” said Michael Toutloff, showroom manager, MamaGreen. “And MamaGreen has reclamation teams that source abandoned buildings across Indonesia, deconstruct them, and ship that timber back to the factory for use in its furniture. This accounts for 95 percent of the wood that we use in our manufacturing and is SVLK-certified.”

MamaGreen also recycles much of their

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own teak waste—in addition to leftover steel and textiles—to further reduce their environmental impact.

“Off-cuts of teak are upcycled into our recycled laminated teak—a process where we match off-cuts by grain and then are finger joined together,” Toutloff said. “This accounts for 35 percent of our wood waste, an additional 30 percent is sold to other manufacturers for recycling into teak panels, and the remaining 35 percent is sold for energy processing.”

While home goods companies are making bigger strides toward increasing circularity and reducing their environmental impact, Susan Inglis, executive director, Sustainable Furnishings Council, said the sector has a way to go before it reaches majority participation. “(Recycling) is becoming more popular, but we have huge challenges,” she said. “We do not have the recycling infrastructure here in North America that we need to handle all of our waste, and that’s a huge opportunity

A MOVEMENT HAS BEGUN TO REPURPOSE DECAYING URBAN TREES INTO NEW PRODUCTS, LIKE FURNITURE.

for those who want to move us forward. We have significant efforts being made now to recycle textiles and increase circularity— some of those companies are doing great things.”

“Bringing things more local and beginning to think more about circularity is a fairly new concept for us in residential furnishings. Circularity is an extension of production, but more and more retailers are beginning to think about, ‘Could I sell used furniture? Could I offer repair services?”

Freeman said Room & Board hopes their efforts to create a supply chain for reclaimed wood will grow and become more widely used in the home furnishings industry.

“We’re one of the first bigger users at furniture retail,” he said. “We’ll do the work to get the supply chain coming.”

Freeman said that while completely rethinking your production model can be an intimidating prospect, it’s not necessary to make an impact—even small changes can make a difference.

“Nobody is perfect at this yet, but what’s worse is doing nothing,” he said. “If they don’t know where to start, that’s OK. Even if you can do little things like looking at what you’re doing with waste and looking at your footprint, that can help you find places where you can do something to improve, and most of those things will not cost a lot.”

MAMAGREEN HAS RECLAMATION TEAMS THAT SOURCE ABANDONED BUILDINGS ACROSS INDONESIA AND SHIP THAT TIMBER BACK TO THE FACTORY FOR USE IN ITS FURNITURE.

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Wool has always had a powerful environmental story, from farm to consumer. The fiber is natural, renewable and biodegradable, and growing it can sequester carbon, increase biodiversity and strengthen climate resilience.

“Our efforts to minimize wool’s environmental impact span the entire supply chain,” said Angus Ireland, program manager, fibre advocacy and eco credentials, at The Woolmark Company, who discusses wool’s many advantages.

potential—for example washing less often, air drying and consequently wearing it more often—individuals can reduce environmental impacts by up to a staggering 75 percent, compared with current practices. The design of a garment is crucial to enabling consumers to wear it often. This is where wool as a material choice provides a significant advantage. Wool has been shown to have an active first life of up to 20 to 30 years and is highly valued in the reuse, resale and recycling markets.

What are some of Woolmark’s latest sustainability initiatives in recent years?

Angus Ireland: At the farm level, we’ve collaborated with the industry to improve ecological auditing—a process called Natural Capital Accounting—that helps wool growers track the health of their environment over time. This holistic methodology assesses 12 environmental criteria including biodiversity, carbon sequestration and groundcover. At the processing stage, we’ve assessed the environmental footprint of each stage to identify hotspots. We’ve also partnered with Jeanologica on a shrink-proofing technology for machine-washable wool garments that significantly reduces chemicals, water and energy.

How do you keep your partners up to date on your R&D around sustainable materials and practices?

A.I.: The Woolmark Company is at the forefront of research and development. Our on-farm research team focuses on the production and profitability of growing wool in Australia and collaborates with industry to research and commercialize new environmental stewardship and animal husbandry practices. Meanwhile, our textile technical team is a world leader in both wool product and process innovation. Collaborating with like-minded pioneers through strategic industry partnerships, we work to commercialize new practices, processes and products that advance sustainable development within the textile industry.

When assessing sustainability, do brands and retailers properly examine the full lifecycle of a garment?

A.I.: Not often, as it’s a long and complex supply chain. A 2021 study found that by caring for a wool garment to its

Consumers often group products into “naturals” and “synthetics,” but all naturals are not created equal. What are the environmental benefits of wool versus other natural products like cotton when it comes to carbon and greenhouse gases?

A.I.: Many textiles and fibers are made from carbon-based products, but only some, such as wool, are made from atmospheric carbon. Wool is made of 50 percent atmospheric carbon, which, if disposed of in soil, will return the carbon and other nutrients such as sulphur and nitrogen back into the soil for the microbiome and plant life to recycle and use. By comparison, the carbon in the major synthetic apparel fibers, such as polyester, is extracted from fossil fuels, de-sequestering carbon safely stored under the earth millions of years ago and producing a product that cannot biodegrade.

Wool uses approximately 18 percent less energy than polyester and nearly 70 percent less water than cotton to produce 100 sweaters. Wool is 100 percent biodegradable, and research confirms that wool does not contribute to microplastic pollution in both marine and terrestrial environments.

Australian woolgrowers have been leaders in regenerative agriculture practice. It has been shown that livestock, such as sheep, are integral to a regenerative agriculture system, being natural recyclers and fertilizers that support the regeneration of plant and soil life.

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UK Has a Roadmap for Building ‘Cleaner, Fairer’ Fashion Industry A NEW INDUSTRY REPORT HIGHLIGHTS THE CHANGES THAT NEED TO BE IMPLEMENTED FOR TRUE, SUSTAINABILE PROGRESS. JASMIN MALIK CHUA

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s the British government endeavors to “build back better” in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, it must do so with a cleaner, fairer fashion industry in mind, a new report says.

The past year and a half has only seen an escalation of concerns and issues endemic to the garment supply chain, such as the non-payment of Bangladeshi workers, allegations of forced labor of Turkic Muslim minorities in China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, and, “closer to home,” reports of illegally low wages and unsafe working conditions in the English city of Leicester, the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Ethics and Sustainability in Fashion said last month.

Drawing input from a host of manufacturers, brands, nonprofits and academics, “Cleaning Up Fashion” examines how the government and other stakeholders can help “amplify sustainability in action” by creating “joined-up approaches” to decarbonize the economy, eliminate waste, end worker exploitation and bolster U.K. manufacturing and skills development.

Collective action, for instance, is necessary to create the systemic change neces-

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sary to achieve net-zero emissions, though this might require a “civil service shakeup.”

Instead of the hodgepodge of departments that the sector must currently engage with, a single contact across government for the fashion industry could provide “coherence in understanding the complexities and generating solutions to meet the government’s leveling-up agenda,” the report said.

Tackling the problem of waste could benefit from a similar rethink. There is a need to focus on significantly reducing fashion waste at the source, rather than at the end of life, where much of the existing attention and funding is centered, it noted. This includes the issue of overconsumption. The United Kingdom purchases more clothes per capita than any other country in Europe, or an estimated 1.1 million metric tons in 2016 alone, according to the Waste & Resources Action Programme. Compounding the problem is the fact that recycling is “much to be desired,” with an estimated 140 million pounds ($193.6 million) worth of clothing entering British landfills every year.

“There is a clear need to make extending the life of clothes more economically viable,” the report said. “This could be stimulated

through changes in taxation policy incentives for U.K. brands demonstrating sustainability through resourceful design, manufacture and service models. Through identifying these businesses around the U.K., a leveling up could be achieved alongside environmental sustainability.”

When it comes to safeguarding workers and the planet, the government should expedite proposed changes to the 2015 Modern Slavery Act, including a “failure to prevent” law that imposes legal liability on businesses that fail to prohibit human rights and environmental exploitation from occurring throughout their supply chains. An opportunity also exists to appoint a U.K.-wide garment trade adjudicator, which would ensure a “robust response” to calls for transparency and accountability in the sector, especially in the wake of the Leicester scandal, which has proven that voluntary codes of conduct fall woefully short.

“This could restore confidence in the U.K. garment manufacturing sector,” the report added. “A trusted U.K. fashion system is required for the country to be a destination for fashion product design, manufacturing, services and sales, and is an opportunity to grow

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U.K. ethical manufacturing and production.”

Similarly, with the economic fallout from the pandemic creating unprecedented challenges for suppliers and their workers, the government should explore binding legislation and other mechanisms that can encourage brands to pay those within their supply chains a living wage, conduct a greater level of due diligence and increase transparency and accountability around their operations.

“The state of economic precarity that abusive purchasing practices, work insecurity, a focus on individual corporate social responsibility, rather than union representation for its workforce, combined with a runaway train, ever speeding ‘fast fashion’ economic model, creates a broken system, where those who make our clothes are all too often exploited, undervalued and poorly paid,” the report said. “Should garment workers be offered a living wage, and brands take greater responsibility for those who rely on them for basic workers’ rights, the impacts of the pandemic would have been far less severe.”

With the government looking to “level up,” the need for good jobs and the skills required in a decarbonized, post-Covid-19 economy is critical. Revising educational curriculums to

AS THE U.K. GOVERNMENT “BUILDS BACK BETTER” POST-COVID, IT MUST DO SO WITH A CLEANER, FAIRER FASHION INDUSTRY IN MIND, SAYS A NEW REPORT.

promote STEAM rather than STEM education is one route it can take. Promoting research and development to support skills development for vocational students is another.

“There is a real opportunity for sustainable, well paid and meaningful work within the sector across the U.K.’s four nations, if a coherent policy approach is coordinated, where education is aligned with business needs and regional development,” the report added.

Doing so could also boost the onshoring of fashion manufacturing, although as the Leicester imbroglio showed, transparency is necessary to prevent modern slavery from flourishing in the shadows. The rewards of growing the “made in the U.K.” label would be innumerable, however, the report said.

Such a stamp offers prestige and reputation to both heritage and newly launched brands while supporting local jobs and communities.

Funding similar to that received by film and television production that is partly or wholly made in the United Kingdom, should be made available to domestic fashion production that “demonstrates transparency and accountability, providing localized jobs and supporting domicile talent into sustainable and fulfilling work,” the report said.

Finally, transitioning to a “wellbeing economy” involves introducing “holistic” measures of business success beyond those solely based on economic indicators, the All-Parlia-

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mentary Group said.

“In order to recognize the benefits of a wellbeing economy, there is a need to diversify support: offering incentives that favor companies with a focus on reuse, repair and extended responsibility, recognition of businesses who support their workers joining trade unions, as well as those who show how green jobs can be created, while also meeting high standards of working conditions,” the report said.

While these recommendations will require enforcement, increased resources and innovative policies, along with a “rigorous overhaul” of fashion business models and operations, they provide an “exciting opportunity” for the United Kingdom to be a world leader in aligning sustainability and ethical commitments, it added.

“While it is unlikely that we will see U.K. manufacturing numbers ever return to those of the 1980s, with 1 million in the fashion production workforce, there is no reason to imagine that without the right R&D investment and nationwide commitment, the government could not seize the consumer’s increasing desire to buy more sustainably and brands’ growing ambitions to source more locally,” the report said.

“This is an opportunity for businesses to really thrive once again within the U.K. market and among our global partners and competitors,” it added.

There is a clear need to make extending the life of clothes more economically viable.

As part of a fourth-generation family-owned company with a 70-year history in textile recycling, material science firm Recover™ was an early adopter when it came to transforming the fashion industry via recycling fibers, and it has a full, holistic view.

“The future cyclability of products is not often considered in the design process, but circular design strategies are essential to keep these products/materials in the loop as long as possible,” said Helene Smits, Recover’s chief of sustainability. “This is why Recover™ provides our brand partners with circular design guides to help them design garments in a way so we can recycle them again.”

Here, Smits discusses how Recover’s technology meets the industry’s growing demand for recycled textiles, including cotton, and why companies must not erode trust with “greenwashing.”

What are some common misconceptions the industry has about assessing sustainability in product components?

Helene Smits: Historically, the potential of recycled cotton fiber has not been fully recognized by the industry, due to lack of and conflicting information regarding its quality and impact.

While this is rapidly changing, there is still a lot of educating to do and we are happy that platforms like Higg MSI and Textile Exchange preferred fibers and materials matrix provide essential information about the impact of recycled cotton.

We now see recycled cotton as part of the sustainable cotton strategy of many large brands and retailers, which is great.

How can the industry do a better job communicating about recycled products?

H.S.: While Europe is planning regulations regarding green claims, in the U.S., a company’s responsibility—while important—is mainly ethical. And it’s challenging to be fully transparent and captivating when communicating a product’s sustainability, especially with scant space to include the wealth of information we want to convey. Luckily, scannable QR codes on hangtags direct consumers to learn about Recover’s sustainability performance and uncover the data, while our infographics and videos explain the production process and benefits of recycled products.

And we don’t just substantiate our claims with third-party verified data, but we translate it into understandable concepts (i.e., displaying water savings in terms of number of showers).

Explain how Recover’s RColorBlend system reduces toxicity to the environment?

H.S.: A lot of the textile waste we recycle already has a color, so our proprietary RColorBlend system uses color that currently exists to create recycled fiber blends. We blend recycled fibers (that already contain color) with other carriers’ fibers (i.e., rPET that has been low-impact dyed). After several blending processes, a perfect combination of performance and color-matching accuracy is achieved. We develop the RColorBlend recipe in the lab and then reproduce it on an industrial scale. The RColorBlend fibers are ready to use by spinners and don’t require any additional dyeing, thus saving additional water and chemical usage.

What are the relative advantages of chemical and mechanical recycling and should the industry focus on one over the other?

H.S.: We are all united in our aim to create a circular fashion industry and both technologies do achieve this goal. Mechanical can keep cotton in the system longer for a few rounds of recycling. When the cotton fibers become too degraded, we can regenerate all these fibers with chemical recycling into reusable, man-made cellulosic (MMC) fibers. There is great potential synergy between the two and in hybrid products.

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GROWING A SUSTAINABLE COTTON STRATEGY WITH RECYCLED FIBERS

French Law Will Apply ‘Carbon Labels’ To Garments THE COUNTRY’S PARLIAMENT APPROVED A CLIMATE BILL THAT WILL INTRODUCE MANDATORY “CARBON LABELS” FOR GOODS AND SERVICES, INCLUDING CLOTHING. JASMIN MALIK CHUA

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rance’s parliament approved in July an expansive climate bill that will introduce mandatory “carbon labels” for goods and services, including clothing and textiles, as part of an effort to inform consumers about the environmental impact of their purchasing decisions.

The legislation came to a vote after extreme floods ripped through parts of Europe, submerging entire towns, killing nearly 200 people and intensifying concerns about the effects of global warming.

But while the wide-ranging series of carrots and sticks on housing, construction and transportation are meant to help the country slash its greenhouse-gas emissions by 40 percent by 2030, environmental activists say the measures are too modest. The European Union, for instance, has proposed a more ambitious 55 percent cut in its “Green New Deal,” though this has yet to be approved by member nations.

France has dabbled in environmental scoring for clothing before. In 2018, the French Agency for Environment and Energy Management (ADEME) rolled out a labeling system that grades garments from A to

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E, with A being the most sustainable and E the least. According to a timeline from the Ministry of Ecological Transition, a similar scheme is poised to become mandatory by 2023.

Home to luxury nameplates like Chanel, Hermès and Louis Vuitton, France has long been a trailblazer when it comes to fashion legislation.

Last year, France banned brands from destroying leftover stock under a groundbreaking “anti-waste” law that the French government claimed was the world’s first. Instead, clothing and shoes must be redistributed, reused or recycled. Already, the country has a decade-old extended producer responsibility law, under which businesses are required to provide or manage the recycling of their clothing, textiles and footwear products at the end of their lives. The ADEME estimates that 624,000 metric tons of textiles—equivalent to 2.6 billion pieces of clothing, household linens and shoes—are placed on the market in France every year.

“Fashion must impose its standards,” Brune Poirson, then-secretary of state to the minister for the ecological and inclusive transition, tweeted last year in support of

“For too long, many brands have focused on marketing sustainability rather than actually implementing holistic, high-impact solutions.” —Joey Zwillinger, Allbirds

both the labeling scheme and the European Green New Deal, which aims to make Europe climate neutral by 2050.

Faced with the existential crisis of climate change on both their businesses and the planet, a handful of brands have begun applying carbon “nutritional” labels to their products, including France’s own Veja, a shoemaker beloved of stylish young royals.

Veja has so far tallied the carbon burdens of some of its popular styles, ranging from 5.63 kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalent for the Nova High Canvas to 21.5 kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalent for the Esplar Leather. By the end of the year, the brand plans to release numbers for all its models and potentially sizes, Sébastien Kopp, the company’s co-founder and creative director, previously told Sourcing Journal.

The idea behind the carbon-tagging concept, its proponents say, is to help customers visualize the environmental costs of what they buy while holding themselves ac-

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countable for the environmental claims they make. But crunching those numbers can be a fraught process, since most brands have limited visibility into their supply chain and they tend to zero in on Scopes 1 and 2 emissions within their direct control, which are only part of the picture.

But supplying a “key, universal identifier” like a carbon number is critical for “drowning out the noise” and evaluating sustainability, Joey Zwillinger, co-founder and co-CEO of Allbirds, said in April, when the cult-favorite sneaker label rolled out an opensource version of its proprietary Carbon Footprint calculator.

“For too long, many brands have focused on marketing sustainability rather than actually implementing holistic, high-impact solutions—and to an extent, it’s worked,” he added. “If we want to continue pushing fashion toward a more sustainable future, we need brands to take responsibility for what they share with consumers.”

CLIMATE ACTIVISTS HOLD A SIGN THAT READS “A FIVE-YEAR TERM LOST FOR THE CLIMATE” DURING A DEMONSTRATION IN PARIS.

Apparel Impact Institute Launches Sustainability Program In California WITH A STARTING GRANT FROM BANK OF THE WEST A FEASIBILITY STUDY IS UNDERWAY. A RT H U R F R I E D M A N

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ith existing facility efficiency programs in seven regions throughout Europe and Asia, the Apparel Impact Institute (Aii), which drives scalable solutions for the apparel and footwear industry, is bringing sustainability home.

This summer, the San Francisco-headquartered organization has started feasibility research for implementing its Clean by Design program in apparel manufacturing facilities in California. The goal is to create a tailored version of the program to increase efficiencies and renewables in the state and explore additional innovative solutions.

To fund the feasibility study, Aii turned to Bank of the West, a sustainable bank and another San Francisco based-institution. A subsidiary of BNP Paribas, Bank of the West has committed a $100,000 grant to launch the project.

Developed in 2010 by the Natural Re-

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sources Defense Council (NRDC) and focused on energy, water and chemical management, Clean by Design has experience and results in scaling efficiencies in the apparel supply chain in places such as China, Vietnam and India. Aii said the project will begin with assessing the current state of production and identifying apparel industry brand and retail partners, shared suppliers and opportunities for involvement.

“The Clean by Design program works because it can be tailored to meet the needs of individual manufacturing facilities,” Lewis Perkins, president of Aii, said. “We look forward to exploring how it can help manufacturers in this state, where protecting the environment is top of mind for many citizens.”

Aii said it makes sense to pilot in a state where philanthropic and other forms of capital are available to transform the local apparel supply chain and take a leadership position, particularly considering that Los Angeles has been a fashion hub for decades.

“The Clean by Design program works because it can be tailored to meet the needs of individual manufacturing facilities.” —Lewis Perkins, Apparel Impact Institute

“With the sustainability strategy ‘Passion for Denim, Passion for Life,’ Calik Denim focuses on three pillars for sustainable change: leading innovative products, creating a positive impact for stakeholders, and reducing impact on the environment,” Tolga Ozkurt, deputy general manager of sales and marketing, and the sustainability committee chairman at Calik Denim, explained to Sourcing Journal.

“We are proud to announce our participation in the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s Jeans Redesign Project as part of our commitment to create jeans fit for a circular economy,” he said.

Calik also received “first runner up” by CRRA ‘21 [Corporate Register Reporting Awards] for “Innovation in Reporting,” with its latest sustainability report prepared in compliance with GRI Standards (143,325 reports from 21,605 companies across 150 countries applied so far.)

How can the industry or consumers trace your developments?

Tolga Ozkurt: After our partnership with AWARE to make fabrics from fully traceable recycled materials, we started new partnerships with our customers such as Bestseller, using Aware technology.

We also recently launched our QR Code Integrated System, whereby customers can see on the demin: a fiber’s origin, lifecycle assessment (LCA) scores, certifications, environmental impact in eight different parameters (climate change, photochemical oxidation, energy demand, acidification, land use, water consumption, eutrophication and ozone layer depletion) and more.

We share our products’ LCA scores, which assess environmental impacts across a product’s life from cradle to grave (i.e., from raw material extraction through materials processing, manufacture, distribution, use, repair and maintenance, and disposal or recycling) according to the principles of the

ISO 14040 series. Calik applies cradle-to-gate LCA studies to our products—240 in total; 90 of them in 2021 alone.

We also reinforce eco consciousness with our brand-new denim concept RE/J, a 100-percent recycled concept that consists of post- and pre-consumer waste. Unlike 100 percent recycled fabrics in the industry, RE/J attracts attention with its vintage, authentic denim looks and production method with desired elasticities. RE/J also uses value-added recycled fibers such as ECOLycra and Reprieve PES during production.

Thanks to our conscious Dyepro technology, no water is used, and no chemical waste is generated during the dyeing stage. And our E-Denim, launched last season, wraps core yarn with recycled content in a patented method, with added Tencel to up the maximum amount of recycled content that can be technically made in ring spinning. E-Denim has an incomparable structure, as our patented sustainable yarn remains in the center forever.

What are some of Calik’s latest sustainability and CSR initiatives?

T.O.: As a UNGC participant company, we made certain commitments to the realization of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and within the scope of our “Passion for Denim, Passion for Life” strategy, we determined the Calik Denim 2025 Sustainability Targets and formed our Sustainability Committee to work toward achieving them. At our Transformation Lab, we carry out research projects and collaborations on sustainable denim with partnerships at Parsons School of Fashion, Mimar Sinan University, Istanbul Technical University and so on.

Since 2018, we have organized the annual Ever Evolving Talks by Calik Denim event in Amsterdam, ranging from sustainability business topics to what awaits our planet from NASA Astronaut Leland Devon Melvin.

And with a focus on Corporate Social Responsibility, since 2019, we have been planting 11,111 saplings by participating in the planting program of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry of Turkey at 11.11 every year.

Finally, although it’s a production focus, Calik continues to reduce the use of chemicals, with 95 percent of the chemicals we use being GOTS certified, while 100 percent are ZDHC MRSL certified.

What actions are in place at Calik to reduce denim washings?

T.O.: Our Washpro technology features anti-microbial and self-cleaning properties, promises long-lasting freshness, form and increased comfort for denim garments with DUalFx technology—durable up to 50 household washings. Besides, Washpro technology helps to reduce microfiber pollution in the oceans since it reduces home laundering. The freshness feature offered by Washpro is long-lasting even after industrial laundry treatments. We explain Washpro in detail so our customers can use it in their own campaigns to raise awareness among end consumers about resource consumption.

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CALIK FLEXES ITS PASSION FOR DENIM AND PASSION FOR LIFE

Being Big AND Green ONE OF INDIA’S LARGEST MANUFACTURERS, THE SHAHI GROUP, MAINTAINS A STRONG COMMITMENT TO ITS WORKERS AND THE ENVIRONMENT. M AY U S A I N I

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ittle more than a half-hour drive from India’s capital of New Delhi to the neighboring suburb of Faridabad, you’ll find one of the older factories of the Shahi Group.

In the 46 years since the company was started by Sarla Ahuja, Shahi Exports has grown to be the biggest player in India, with more than 50 factories across the country and more than 100,000 workers, manufacturing for a long list of global brands, including Gap, Walmart and Ralph Lauren. Her son, managing director, Harish Ahuja, and grandson Anant Ahuja, head organizational development work from the first floor of the Faridabad building, where the corporate offices for the group are located. The four floors also house the factory which employs more than 4,400 workers.

The group’s factories across the country each follow the mandate set from this head office, as well as adapt to the local conditions of the state and location they are in. With more than eight sustainability certificates collected by the group, including the Higgs Index, Sedex, Oeko-Tex and WRAP (Worldwide Responsible Accredited Production), it is easy to see how sustainability is setting the tone at the company, despite the difficulties of manufacturing in the Covid era.

According to industry estimates, Shahi has annual sales of nearly a billion dol-

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lars, and is growing at 10 to 15 percent a year. The company is approximately 70 percent focused on wovens and 30 percent on knitwear.

The senior Ahuja’s quiet composure is complemented by his son’s enthusiasm when the concept of sustainability becomes a talking point. “It’s not just environmental sustainability, although many people refer to it as such. To me, it’s also about social sustainability, that is everything to do with the welfare of the workforce and conditions that enable and empower them as well,” said Anant Ahuja.

But managing a workforce of more than 100,000 sustainably?

“We realized that a better way than having migrant workers move towards the cities is to have factories in smaller towns, and closer to where the workers themselves can be in a comfortable environment,” Harish Ahuja explained. “In the last 15 years we have been building factories in this way, no longer near cities.” Many of these are in the Southern state of Karnataka, one of the Indian states that was badly hit by the pandemic and subsequent lockdowns.

The family-owned business has called on a vast network of professionals to ensure both technological and sustainable progress. Experts like Rajneesh Rai, general manager, environmental sustainability, who

“To me, it’s also about social sustainability, that is everything to do with the welfare of the workforce and conditions that enable and empower them as well.”

—Anant Ahuja, Shahi Group

keep a grip on important parameters.

“It’s a process of constant upgrades and change. Water recycling has been a top priority, with about 70 percent of effluents being treated, recycled and reused,” Rai said. “This unit is involved in many of the initiatives of zero discharge of hazardous chemicals. A big focus is optimizing energy sometimes with simple things like LED lights, and others like changing clutch motors in sewing machines which has saved 80 percent on energy. In the conventional motor, energy is used whether the sewing operator is pushing the pedal or not. Energy and water efficient washing machines have also changed the process, as have solar panels to preheat the boilers.”

“The Higg [score] for the Faridabad factory is 86 percent, whereas the global average in the industry across the world is less than 50 percent,” explained Anant Ahuja, showing the testing lab which has been vetted by many of the buyers. Shahi was a pioneer on the Higg index soon after it started, in 2013, and long before it became a somewhat mandatory benchmark.

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Also displayed on a noticeboard is a giga guru badge, a recognition by Walmart for the reduction in carbon footprint, in step with its mandate to reduce its carbon footprint by 1 gigaton by 2030.

Two solar power plants of 52 megawatts and 32 megawatts in Karnataka, and an 8.57 megawatt wind energy plant in Maharashtra have helped the group’s progress. In 2019-20, 77 percent of electrical energy consumption across Shahi was carbon neutral, Ahuja said, while at others, like the textile mill and factory in Shimoga, Karnataka, the water treatment and recycling has made proved a big step toward becoming more sustainable. Six of the group’s factories and its Shimoga mills are zero liquid discharge facilities.

The Shimoga unit, with its strong sustainability appraisal, brings out what Harish Ahuja pointed to as a key strength of the company: “We have a strong vertical integration at Shahi, with more than 80 percent of raw material used being made within the company itself. It is another reason why our buyers have so much confidence.”

SHAHI GROUP HEADQUARTERS IN FARIDABAD.

An example of the efficacy of this approach is the Arth collection, made for European brand C&A, which won Shahi the Cradle to Cradle gold award in July. The fabric, using Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS) certified organic cotton and the garments were both made at Shahi. “Eightysix percent of the water used in fabric processing was recycled at our mill having zero liquid discharge. The finished products are 100 percent carbon neutral. The products are made keeping the principles of circularity in mind and are 100 percent recyclable,” said Ruchi Asija, vice president of marketing.

“The Arth collection is a powerful example of how suppliers and brands can work together to design and create materials and

products that meet shared objectives for circularity and sustainability,” said Christina Raab, vice president of strategy and development for the Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute. “By achieving one of the highest levels of Cradle to Cradle certification for the collection, Shahi Exports is not only demonstrating the scope of opportunity for supplier-brand partnerships but also the vast innovation and leadership potential of India’s textile mills.”

“Every year the targets keep changing.

But we’ve been working with many of our customers for more than 25 years, they have faith in our business and the way we’ve grown,” said Harish Ahuja. ‘We’re here for the journey.”

ONE OF THE GROUP’S TWO SOLAR POWER PLANTS.

As Eastman looks to achieve its goal to make sustainable fashion accessible to all, it has turned to its consumers to help lead the conversation. According to the company’s U.S. Sustainable Leader Consumer Community, seven out of 10 sustainably minded Americans say materials define the sustainability of an item.

With this sentiment, Eastman has pulled its weight in developing Naia™ Renew cellulosic staple fiber, a material designed to be fit for a sustainability-driven world while appropriate for the comfort-seeking consumer.

Ruth Farrell, global marketing director for textiles at Eastman, explains how Naia™ Renew fits into today’s apparel buying trends, and how the fiber helps the company continue the sustainability conversation.

There’s a lot of focus in the industry on recyclability, but why is biodegradability also an important part of the conversation?

R.F.: At Eastman, we take a holistic approach to sustainability, which means robust policies on sustainable sourcing, increased use of recycled materials (creating value from waste), safe and environmentally sound use of chemicals, as well as low-impact manufacturing processes, biodegradability and compostability. Circularity in the textiles industry is more than only using recycled materials, it is about what we produce, how we produce it and (after extending the life through better-quality products) what happens at the end of life. Recyclability is relevant when talking about giving materials a next life and lowering the use of virgin feedstocks. Biodegradability is important in the context of micro-shedding and persistence in the environment.

The comfort of casual and loungewear has been a big draw during the pandemic. How does Eastman’s Naia™ Renew cellulosic staple fiber address consumers needs in these categories?

Ruth Farrell: Naia™ Renew staple fiber is exceptionally versatile, blending extremely well with other eco-friendly materials such as lyocell, modal and recycled polyester. In combination with other yarns, Naia™ Renew is very versatile with almost limitless possibilities to create different fabric textures and designs. Naia™ Renew staple fiber is perfect for T-shirts, comfy pants, jumpsuits, sweaters and loungewear.

Our customers appreciate what this innovative and sustainable material brings to fashion, whether it’s its inherent and irresistible softness, quick-drying properties, reduced pilling or overall low environmental impact.

How have demands from apparel brands changed over the past year, and how has this impacted your products and operations?

R.F.: In womenswear, we have witnessed a growing demand for Naia™ sustainable solutions for loungewear and comfortable everyday wear. We have also seen increased demand in home textiles. In the last 12 months, we have seen a crystallization of intent around sustainability, with brands and retailers committing to ambitious targets around sustainable fibers in their sourcing policies. This search for sustainable solutions has seen increasing numbers of brands launching womenswear collections with garments made with Naia™. Such brands include (among others) H&M, NAKD, and Numi.

When it comes to sustainability, it really does take a village. How are you engaging your downstream partners to join your efforts to be more sustainable, both at their own level and in any consumer-facing efforts?

R.F.: Our strategy is to build a Naia™ portfolio based on a dual platform of innovation and sustainability. Our Naia™ team is committed to understand and collaborate with our partners, and empower them to collectively build a more sustainable textiles industry. As part of our sustainability goals, we also plan to establish agreements with customers to deliver measurable environmental impacts by 2025. Additionally, Eastman is working with industry partners like Quantis, and nonprofits like Canopy and Textile Exchange to share information and collaborate, and to catalyze systemic change in the awareness and use of sustainable fibers.

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SUSTAINABILITY AND COMFORT INTERSECT WITH NAIA™ RENEW FIBERS

Sri Lanka’s Star Group: Built on Sustainability INITIATIVES INCLUDE A BESPOKE PASSIVE HOUSE MANUFACTURING FACILITY AND LEED CERTIFICATION ACROSS ALL FACTORIES. M AY U S A I N I

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hen Sri Lankan prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe inaugurated the passive house industrial building in Katunayake in October of 2017 it was seen as a model for the entire garment industry.

At the time, the Star Innovation Center, only a short drive from the Bandaranaike International airport in Colombo, was only the second factory passive house in the world, following the strict processes for sustainability, energy efficiency and worker comfort outlined by the Passivhaus-institute in Germany to lower the ecological footprint.

The center, which has its production level on the first floor, has a large, open lobby area, big meeting rooms and a library with natural light. There is a controlled temperature which cuts down dehumidification energy by 90 percent using cutting edge sustainable technologies.

“It was the first time passive house technology was inverted,” A. Sukumaran, managing director at Sri Lanka’s Star Garment Group told Sourcing Journal. “Usually, these are built for a cold climate and meant to retain the heating. Here, with the humidity

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and hot weather year-round, the challenge was to keep it cool, to make sure there is filtered fresh air and the abundant natural light is used well. We had to rework all the concepts, and the building materials were brought in from more than12 countries to make this happen,” he said.

The road to sustainability has been a focus for the group, which has 10 factories across the country. The Star Garment Group has been manufacturing apparel for more than four decades, and was acquired by the United States’ Komar in 2016.

“Some five years back, we realized we were a step or two behind the leading manufacturers in Sri Lanka,” Sukumaran explained. “We realized we could never compete in terms of size and decided we needed to differentiate ourselves.”

“If you see it as a country, when Sri Lanka became known for manufacturing, it moved to more value-added options, from sourcing management to supply chain management and it is now just as known for its ethical manufacturing,” he said, referring to the fact that Sri Lanka’s approximately $5 billion garment manufacturing industry is renowned for its high compliance, high labor standards

“What is special about Star is that they are the first group who have been certified as carbon neutral across all of their factories.”

—Sanith de Silva Wijeyeratne, The Carbon Consulting Company

and ethical integrity.

“We saw that along with being ethical, what consumers were looking for was sustainability, and that would be an increasing need in the future. I wanted the Star group to come up whenever sustainability was mentioned, to be ready when the market changed,” he added.

The targets were intense.

“A passive house is a technological innovation that the Star Group invested in, which when implemented at the design stage of a building uses minimum energy,” Sanith de Silva Wijeyeratne, CEO, The Carbon Consulting Company, told Sourcing Journal.

“This also works to reduce the greenhouse emissions related with the use of the building and so it has a minimal carbon footprint. For those unavoidable emissions, they chose to offset this minimal carbon footprint as well.”

In 2020, well ahead of their planned target, the group achieved what was a landmark environmental certification, to become a carbon neutral company.

“What is special about Star is that they are the first group who have been certified as carbon neutral across all of their factories. It

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only comes about with a high level of commitment from the senior management to environmental sustainability,” Wijeyeratne said.

When asked about the costs involved for factories needed to make this happen, Wijeyeratne observed that in general, many factories still tend to view this as an unnecessary expense. “Large factories don’t think twice about bringing down foreign representatives or buyers and paying for a business class ticket, but [they] give expenditure related to the environment step-motherly treatment.

This has to change,” he said.

That process of change is always a challenge. According to Sukumaran, initially there was much discussion. “I put the idea to the managers, to make sure the buy-in is there. After we explained what we were doing, there was excitement. But carbon neutral isn’t easy. I had a dedicated team of five people working full time for one year going to the factories, overseeing implementation. It was a learning experience for each of us,” he said.

During that time, Sukumaran, who has been managing director of the group since 1997, also lent his ear to the next generation, incorporating their ideas. “They bring new-

SOLAR PANELS WERE ADDED TO THE ROOF OF THE BUILDING.

ness, this generation, the process of thinking adds-in to our experience,” he observed.

Senior manager Jeevith Senaratne talked about a tangential focus for the group which has won it kudos: LEED certification. Three of the 10 factories are already LEED certified, Star Garments Koggala, Star Garments Innovation Center, and Star Fashion Clothing Galle, with three more expected to make the grade within the year.

“Our goal is to get all the factories LEED certified and these are all in the process,” said Senaratne. He described the work that went into the certification for the factory in Galle, which was added to the Star group in 2019.

“We renovated the building thoroughly, with solar panels on the roof, special water taps, electricity and lighting all created carefully for the most energy efficient results, and got a gold LEED certification,” he said, adding that the investment in sustainability hardly ever translated into direct financial gain.

“We didn’t think of it as an investment to get better prices–but we did get new cus-

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tomers. People trust you more. It’s about expanding our top line as opposed to gaining by cost cutting,” he said.

The numbers have shown that a factory level sustainability focus isn’t just a theoretical, paper advantage–but rather quickly finds traction in practice.

“Our business has expanded,” said Sukumaran. “From 2018 to 2021, our business has grown by 30 percent; I am expecting 15 to 20 percent growth in 2022. Eventually, whatever improvements we have made do make us more competitive, because we consume less energy, less waste.”

He believes that the decisive moves made in the past were really with an eye toward the future.

“In the short term, it may not go anywhere, but in the long run it is essential. Somewhere down the line sustainability measures will become mandatory, because the consumers care about it now. Having invested in it early, we are in a strong position–because at the end of the day–we are prepared.”

THE FACTORY FLOOR INSIDE THE PASSIVE HOUSE.

World Textile Sourcing (WTS), the largest apparel trading company in Peru, partners with U.S. and European brands in a vertical supply chain, and prides itself on catering to client needs. With 15 partner factories that range in size capabilities, WTS is strategically positioned to support brands with sustainable solutions.

Luis Antonio Aspillaga, CEO and founder of WTS, said that when it comes to building out a sustainable operation, it’s all about constant communication with clients, keeping production in house and operating under strict materials standards.

How does your company’s vertical structure help promote sustainability?

Luis Antonio Aspillaga: WTS’s end-to-end supply chain is invested in sustainability through 5,000 years of textile history.

Our verticality enables us to measure knowledge and train to bridge gaps, and with our entire supply chain located within a three-hour drive, we can cut speed to market. WTS is able to offer transparency, traceability and support from fiber to finished product throughout the supply model.

How have your partnerships with non-profit organizations like the Better Cotton Initiative (BCI), Textile Exchange and more helped WTS evolve its own design and production processes?

L.A.: Our partnerships with BCI, U.S. Cotton Trust Protocol, Textile Exchange and several others such as Bergman Rivera’s Cotton in Conversion and Regenerative Cotton Certification (ROC) project have allowed us to accelerate our path to sustainable design and production processes. These relationships have also enabled us to bring alternatives to our brands while solely focused on U.S. and Peruvian cotton. Our differentiating asset has been securing fiber on hand to provide solutions for sustainable initiatives.

Has the sustainability conversation at WTS changed at all since the start of the pandemic, particularly as product demand, and therefore material demand, fluctuated?

L.A.: The pandemic changed the behavior of the end consumer as they recognized their responsibility for the future of the planet, as they started demanding raw materials with a lesser environmental impact. Through our heritage, WTS has always been invested in sustainability. Legally, no GMO’s are allowed within Peru. The pandemic reinforced our dedication to enhance our initiatives and position sustainable fibers before the market demand accelerated.

What has the demand for sustainable materials been like from your brand partners? Are there any features that have stood out?

L.A.: We have seen an increase in interest for sustainable materials throughout the pandemic, whether it’s Lenzing fibers, organic cotton or cotton certified by BCI, Cotton Trust Protocol, Cotton in Conversion and ROC. Additionally, we’ve seen more uptake for sustainable dyes and washes. Our ability to position ourselves with these fibers has ensured we can deliver preferred fibers to our client in a timely manner. Brands can access recycled fibers in an effort to achieve circularity and a closed-loop production cycle.

What are some common misconceptions your brand and retail partners have about assessing the sustainability of the components in their products?

L.A.: Sustainability is more than fiber and production processes: it is the ability to endure into the long-term future without interruption or failing through all processes and levels of the supply chain. In that sense, we are committed to providing our brand partners the impact comparatively for sustainable initiatives—for price, lead time and commitment—to manage expectations and understanding at the start of the product development process. Brands are also interested in receiving any marketing support or data to support their messaging.

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WTS EMPOWERS BRAND SUSTAINABILITY GOALS THROUGH VERTICALITY

Denim Makers Take On Water Waste FASHION’S BELOVED JEANS ARE AMONG THE BIGGEST CULPRITS OF ENVIRONMENTAL RESOURCE DRAIN AND POLLUTION. KAT E N I S H I M U RA

T

he apparel industry at large is facing a reckoning for its ecological output, with tons of material waste hitting landfills annually.

But the sector’s supply chain is also responsible for draining natural resources before products even hit the store shelves.

This is especially true when it comes to denim. Considered one of apparel’s most water-intensive products to produce, the average pair of jeans is said to carry an H2O price tag of up to 3,000 gallons.

As one of the globe’s foremost fashion staples, experts in the field have called on all involved to take action. Now, the modern denim industry is revamping its waste-making ways using advanced technology and efficiency-driving processes to cut water usage—in some cases, to none at all.

Sourcing Journal spoke with two of the industry’s forward-thinking innovators about how the issue of water management could change denim going forward.

ARTISTIC MILLINERS “The denim industry’s water consumption is much heavier compared to a majority of other apparel production,” said Murtaza Ahmed, executive director of Pakistan-based denim manufacturer Artistic Milliners and co-founder of the L.A.-area laundry and de-

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sign center Star Fades International (SFI).

“That’s not only because water consumption is higher per piece,” he added, “but because denim is indispensable to worldwide apparel, and has the lion’s share of the water consumption in the fashion industry overall.”

Denim has always been manufactured using water-intensive processes, Ahmed said, from cotton cultivation to final garment manufacturing. “Around 1,800 gallons of water is needed just to grow enough cotton for one pair of jeans,” while milling, dyeing and production account for between 60 to 70 percent of the water used in the process.

It’s not just water consumption that’s an issue when manufacturing denim—pollution of waterways is also a major concern, Ahmed said, noting that the fashion industry’s dyeing and finishing practices account for one-fifth of global wastewater. What’s more, most textile and apparel-making takes place in countries that are already suffering from acute water scarcity. According to a 2021 United Nations water study, 2.3 billion people globally reside in water-stressed countries, while 733 million face high and critical shortages.

“Women and girls in these regions spend long hours fetching water for their families, depriving them of time for education or employment,” Ahmed said, noting that a lack of access to water also affects health and hy-

consumers’ growing knowledge and expectations, and Allbirds publishing carbon data on shoes is radical considering the work it takes to report that information.

What are some common misconceptions about assessing the sustainability of inputs?

D.A.: It is often assumed that there is not enough supply to meet demand for more sustainable materials. That may have been the case 10 years ago, but with the emerging sophistication of the supply chain, more certified materials are available today than ever. Given the rising demand for sustainability, availability is poised to continue developing. The key here being ingredients that are certified as more sustainable.

The rings inside a tree trunk might highlight its longevity, but they don’t tell the full lifecycle. Wood pulp fibers continue to have a long and useful life once transformed into TENCEL™ and LENZING™ branded fibers and, ultimately, sustainable garments. Here, Daren Abney, senior business development manager and Kerstin Zimmerman, sustainability communications manager discuss Lenzing’s sustainability story.

When it comes to sustainability, it really does take a village.

How are you engaging your partners to join your efforts?

Daren Abney: The community aspect of sustainability makes working in this industry so inspiring. Lenzing Fibers engages with the entire industry beyond our pulp suppliers and yarn spinner customers. By offering TENCEL™ and LENZING™ ECOVERO™ fibers to the market, new technology like True Carbon Zero and TENCEL™ Modal with Indigo Color Technology enables brands to implement a turnkey solution as part of a wider material strategy. We also raise awareness and educate end consumers with campaigns like #MakeAPledge, #CheckWhatsGood and #MakeItFeelRight.

Who is impressing you these days regarding sustainability?

D.A.: I admire the full range of commitments—from large brands like Levis Strauss to small brands like Triarchy Denim.

AG’s The Jean of Tomorrow have become more common with

How does Lenzing’s biorefinery concept pull energy from its wood inputs to reduce the use of outside energy?

Kerstin Zimmerman: Lenzing’s biorefinery process ensures that 100 percent of wood constituents are used to produce dissolving wood pulp for fiber production, biobased products and bioenergy, thereby maximizing value creation from an economic and environmental perspective.

Dissolving wood pulp production at the Lenzing and Paskov, Czech Republic sites not only self-sufficiently meets its own energy demand, but generates surplus green energy (steam and electricity), used for fiber production or exported to the local grid. Lenzing’s expertise in integrated dissolving wood pulp and fiber production is the basis for future opportunities to become CO2 neutral and to reduce greenhouse gasses.

How is Lenzing improving its existing facilities to be more efficient and sustainable?

K.Z.: In addition to setting group sustainability targets in each strategic focus area (for more information on our 18 Sustainability targets, see our Sustainability Report 2020), Lenzing invested 200 million Euro to substantially improve the footprint of two facilities in Asia. One, by transforming Lenzing’s Nanjing facility from coal to natural gas to reduce its CO2 footprint by 50 percent, and two, upgrading the air emissions and wastewater treatment of our Indonesian facility (SPV) to become a best-in-class viscose production facility by obtaining EU ecolabel certification.

We are also building the biggest and state-of-the art Lyocell production facility in Thailand. We have a target to use 100 percent sustainable bioenergy for operations of this facility. This measure will make it the first carbon-neutral (Scope 1 and 2) facility in the wood-based cellulosic fiber industry.

TENCEL™, LENZING™ and ECOVERO™ are trademarks of Lenzing AG.

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TRANSFORMING WOOD PULP INTO ENERGY AND SUSTAINABLE FIBERS

giene, leading to higher child mortality rates.

“For fashion to be sustainable, ethical and inclusive, we must mitigate water consumption by significant levels,” he added. “There is just not enough clean, fresh water left in the world to be used indiscriminately for industrial use.”

Fortunately, Ahmed said, the new generation of shoppers has cottoned onto the need to hold the apparel industry to account. They are more conscious about issues like the environment, as well as the working conditions of those who make their clothes. “In addition to the fact that water use mitigation is the right thing to do, it’s also a very pragmatic business risk to counter,” he added, given the cost savings to a company over time.

Artistic Milliners has examined the issue holistically, “from the farm level to the final garment,” Ahmed said, and is aiming for zero liquid discharge (ZLD) by 2025. Thus far, the company’s vertically integrated operations,

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which include mills and laundries, recycle 85 percent of H2O used for a total of 1 million gallons recirculated daily.

“We have also digitalized many of our operations, including water monitoring, which is done through sensors and reported in real time via software,” he said, noting that the system has helped promote precision in measuring, making it easier for the manufacturer to achieve its water reduction targets.

By decreasing its reliance on the fresh water resources of Karachi City, Ahmed said that Artistic Milliners spares enough water for 250,000 of its residents to meet their daily needs. Because the facility’s clean, recycled water is looped back into production, it doesn’t risk polluting the nearby Indus Delta or the region’s native mangrove forests.

In addition to recycling the water it uses, Artistic Milliners has invested in advanced finishing technology, like laser and ozone machines, which negate the need for wa-

SAITEX IS WORKING WITH VIETNAM’S INDUSTRIAL ZONE TO TAKE ON WASTEWATER TO BE REUSED IN THE LAUNDRY PROCESS.

ter altogether. Coupled with the company’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design-certified (LEED) buildings, Ahmed said that the firm’s campus uses half the water of a conventional industry setup.

Research and development is an ever-important pursuit, he added. Recent wash innovations like Clear Fade, which replaces chlorine and polypropylene with ecologically friendly chemicals like ozone powder, and Clear Vintage, which employs a laser and waterless aging compound to achieve a worn-in, washed-out aesthetic, have helped Artistic Milliners move away from heavy dousing. The company’s latest offering, dubbed Purecolor, makes use of heavy metal-free dyes certified by the Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS).

“Through the fabric dyeing technology, we have successfully replaced reducing agents that yield hydrogen peroxide with organic compounds that are safe for marine life,” he said. A recently implemented dyeing recipe called Crystal Clear, which helps the manufacturer reduce its water impact in the dyeing process by 70 percent, has helped Artistic Milliners and a U.S. brand partner receive Cradle to Cradle’s gold-level certification on a specific jean that is set to hit shelves in September.

Since more than half of denim’s impact originates with cotton-growing, Artistic Milliners has made farm-level interventions with the World Wildlife Federation in Pakistan to encourage the cultivation of organic crops, which the Textile Exchange asserts consume 90 percent less water.

“Organic cotton is grown without any artificial fertilizers, pesticides or genetically modified seeds,” Ahmed said, remarking that it also eliminates the chemical risks associated with conventional farming. “This is not only important for the people working on the fields, but also for the soil, as it is not contaminated by toxic pesticides” which could have adverse effects on the environment and the water consumed by people nearby.

SAITEX Vietnam-based denim manufacturer Saitex recently made its foray into the U.S. market

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with the opening of Saitex USA in Vernon, Calif.—just outside of Downtown L.A.’s garment district. In August, the company completed its vertical integration with the opening of a mill near its Ho Chi Minh City factory, feeding fabric into its laundry and cut and sew operations globally.

Founder Sanjeev Bahl said that while the denim industry at large has skirted the issue of water waste for some time, his company has made it a goal from day one to tackle resource use head-on. He cited the UN’s sustainable development goals—which promote the availability and management of water and sanitation for all people—as a key driver behind the company’s mission.

Most denim mills and manufacturers don’t recycle their water, Bahl said simply, “and that’s a key differentiator between us and them.” Saitex employs a proprietary, multi-million-dollar H2Zero filtration system at its Vietnam-based factory as well as its new L.A. operation.

The company is also constantly assessing methods to make dyeing, laundering and finishing more efficient. According to Bahl, the company fills up the dye vats at its mills just once per month, dyeing continuously and recycling the wastewater every few weeks.

“There is traditional chemistry and modern chemistry,” Bahl explained, noting that well-worn denim-making tactics include the use of harmful chemicals like potassium permanganate (which give denim that coveted bleached-out look) and chlorine, as well as pumice stone-washing, which creates debris that are flushed into waterways. “When it gets out into the water system, the contaminated sludge is extremely toxic,” he said.

Sludge from denim manufacturing, which combines waste chemicals, dyes and other production remnants, contains noxious chemicals like methane which can tamper with the ozone, contaminate the water table and endanger soil health. “You can be irresponsible and just dump it,” Bahl said—and most companies do. “The cost of that recklessness may not be felt by people today, but it will at some point in time, and that’s one of the key reasons we don’t go this route.”

In order to combat the issue of water use and sludge production, Saitex embarked on

“For fashion to be sustainable, ethical and inclusive, we must mitigate water consumption by significant levels.”

—Murtaza Ahmed, Artistic Milliners

a journey toward “radical resource productivity and green chemistry” when it created its factories and its mill. The goal was to rework the age-old mechanisms used to create denim using new solvents and machinery that would both improve efficiency and make water waste a thing of the past.

“What we found is when you start reinventing the chemistry, it has to marry with the right equipment,” Bahl said. The company has invested heavily in technology in its operations across the globe, like two wholly unique laser cutting and dry process machines that burn fading and whiskering directly into the surface of a pair of pants and cut them from the fabric in just a few quick swipes. The whole process is done without a drop of water. “There’s a lot of technology available, and you just have to try and make it your own,” Bahl said. “We spend a lot of time, effort, energy, intelligence and manpower trying to make things fit for our purpose.”

At the new mill, the company will take water recycling to new heights, Bahl said. “At the laundry we use fresh water and then recycle it, but at the mill we are taking wastewater from other industries, cleaning the water for our purposes and using it again.” The company is working with Vietnam’s industrial zone to take on that wastewater, he added.

“What we wanted to do to promote water stewardship and lessen our footprint was to create a mechanism where we don’t use new water, we just use ‘grey’ water,” he added. “The theory of change at the mill is that waste can be an input for manufacturing.”

The mill will give not only Saitex’s manufacturing bodies, but other suppliers, access to “the most sustainable fabric on the planet,” Bahl told Sourcing Journal earlier this summer, noting that all textiles manufactured at the plant will be made with recycled or organic inputs. The facility, which was developed in partnership with ACSC, a FIDIC Silver contractor, was built to LEED gold certification standards, including natural ventilation in production areas, offices and communal spaces, and a reflective roof.

A custom water recycling system supports mill operations, while rainwater is collected for use in flushing factory toilets, irrigation and fire-fighting capabilities.

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When asked how Saitex’s advancements in water management stand to influence the denim sector at large, Bahl said that industry-wide change will likely be driven by public interest. “There’s a higher level of awareness which has been building—consumers are becoming more aware, climate change is larger than life,” he said. “There’s a global agenda and a larger discussion happening,” he added, pointing to the UN’s sustainable development goals, “and what Saitex wants to do is prove that there is a way to do it.”

While the company is interested in sharing its best practices more widely, Bahl said it will ultimately be brands that influence their factories to take on environmental measures, like water conservation and recycling, as a matter of importance. “In our industry, everything is top down—the brands govern,” he said.

“They have corporate social responsibility agendas and goals for water stewardship,” he added. “There’s a lot going on in the brand world when it comes to sustainability, and they’re going to keep pushing their factories.”

ARTISTIC MILLINERS CRYSTAL TECHNOLOGY HELPS THE MANUFACTURER REDUCE ITS WATER IMPACT IN THE DYEING PROCESS BY 70 PERCENT.

While a high-quality product can guarantee pleasant user experiences, it can also have a longer lifetime, enabling it to be reused or upcycled by others. If an equivalent amount of resources is used, quality apparel production can be more profitable for manufacturers and brands, helping achieve sustainability’s “triple bottom line”—people, planet and profit.

SGS, the world’s leading testing, inspection and certification company, is helping brands realize this goal and ultimately extend product life and minimize landfill and waste.

Katherine Stein, business development director, and Min Zhu, Ph.D., technical director, U.S. and Canada softlines at SGS North America Inc., share their insights on how SGS helps brands substantiate their sustainability claims and achieve their sustainability commitments.

How has the apparel and textile industry evolved since the start of the pandemic, and has this impacted how sustainability is prioritized?

Katherine Stein: The work-from-home order during the pandemic has slowed down the supply chain and commerce, but it has allowed many companies to accelerate their long-pending white board plans on sustainability and finally put them into action. On the other side, many factories and mills adopted more sustainable measures, such as using less water and more energy-efficient machinery, improving raw material utilization.

There is no doubt that digitalization leads to efficiency and accelerates sustainability, and it impacts transparency too.

The global supply chain has adopted digitalization for many operations, with SGS pivoting to services including remote and video-aided product inspection and factory auditing; cloudbased virtual color approval to eliminate cross-continent carrier packages of swatches; and blockchain tools to enter more consumer product industries.

How can apparel brands ensure that the raw materials, as well as their certifications and factories’ self-declarations, are all valid and trustworthy?

Min Zhu: Traceability and transparency from fiber to product is now a business necessity. A physical document trail with clear supply chain mapping has been adopted by most companies as the most feasible approach. However, this task is extremely daunting and laborious to retrieve data from third- or fourthtiers suppliers and beyond.

To ensure the authenticity of a document trail, a well-designed and defined process needs to be established and

mutually agreed with all partners. Clear communication on the traceability objectives and expectations will help suppliers deliver a correct paper trail on time. Brands must implement third-party partners at supplier factories to conduct on-site professional verification of reports, certificates, documents and processes to ensure the validity of claims and certifications.

How does SGS help brands and retailers substantiate their sustainability claims?

M.Z.: In today’s commercial ecosystem, consumers have less opportunity to touch and feel a product. It is critical to establish trust with consumers and to reinforce their confidence that the products they are purchasing are authentic and truthful.

Most companies have been aggressive in moving towards sustainability with various claims, but those claims must be verified qualitatively and quantitatively. If the industry is not actively providing due diligence on labeling, advertising, marketing and content, litigators will have opportunity to report violations to the FTC. K.S.: For consumers, it’s always easy to read claims in simple terms that relate to their daily experiences. For companies, the claims must be valid, accurate and verifiable. Labeling and marketing rules should always be strictly followed. There are many dos and don’ts in making sustainability claims. SGS assists companies in evaluating claims, providing professional critiques and judgement on legitimate claims, and substantiating those claims by robust testing. SGS is the partner whenever you need to be sure.

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Shipping and Delivery Firms Taking the Green Route FROM ELECTRIC VEHICLE SOLUTIONS TO THE CONTAINER VESSELS OF THE FUTURE, TRANSPORTATION IS TURNING THE CORNER. A RT H U R F R I E D M A N

F

rom electric vehicle solutions to the container vessels of the future, transportation is turning the corner.

SEA

A.P. Moller-Maersk and Hyundai Mipo Dockyards agreed on a contract for Hyundai Mipo to build a feeder vessel with a dual engine technology that will allow it to sail on either methanol or traditional “very low sulfur” fuel.

“From 2023, it will give us valuable experience in operating the container vessels of the future, while offering a truly carbon neutral product for our many customers who look to us for help to decarbonize their supply chains,” Henriette Hallberg Thygesen, CEO of Fleet & Strategic Brands at Maersk, said.

More than half of Maersk’s largest customers have set or are in the process of setting ambitious science-based or zero carbon targets for their supply chains, making the order another important step in Maersk’s efforts to support the rising number of customers calling for carbon neutral products, the company said.

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DHL Global Forwarding introduced another Sustainable Marine Fuel service for ocean freight as part of their sustainability strategy. Following the success of the launch of a similar service for Less-than-Container Load (LCL) shipments, it is now extending the carbon reduction option to Full-Container Load (FCL) shipments.

With the launch of the SMF service, which is now available for all ocean freight shipments, DHL Global Forwarding is not only making it easier to access sustainable deliveries for its customers, but also raises awareness for sustainable alternatives.

The use of sustainable marine fuels is an important lever for DHL Global Forwarding to reduce the environmental footprint of ocean freight. When selecting sustainable marine fuels, care is taken to ensure that they are produced with sustainable feedstock and do not conflict with other sustainability requirements, such as food production.

The Port of Los Angeles and its partners are also launching what they are calling “a new era of pollution-free goods movement” with the debut of five hydrogen-powered fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEV) and the grand opening of two hydrogen fueling stations.

In the U.S., textiles make up 8 percent of all landfill waste, and while recycling is the best option, unfortunately it’s not always a realistic one. To this end, boosting a garment’s durability, increasing its longevity, and enhancing end-of-life biodegradation, are all positive steps toward sustainable textiles.

Cocona Labs recently launched 37.5 Technology with Enhanced Biodegradation. “Although not a final solution, addressing the issues caused by the staggering amount of textile waste ending up in landfills is a vital step toward a sustainable industry,” said Scott Whipps, EVP of sales, global apparel, at Cocona Labs, who further details this new offering.

What are your latest sustainability initiatives?

Scott Whipps: Our company was founded on finding natural, effective alternatives to chemical fabric treatments. 37.5 Technology is the only thermoregulating technology available that takes a holistic approach to sustainability and offers sustainable solutions throughout the product lifecycle. Using naturally derived volcanic minerals permanently embedded at the fiber level, offering recycled yarn options that are Oeko-Tex certified, and ensuring these yarns can be blended with other sustainable fibers are all sustainability benefits of 37.5 Technology. Products containing 37.5 Technology also can require less energy to launder than those made with conventional materials and the technology extends garment life by trapping and releasing odors during laundering.

Explain the process by which 37.5 yarns with Enhanced Biodegradation biodegrade faster in landfills.

S.W.: All 37.5 staple fibers and filament yarns now feature an optional additive that allows them to biodegrade at enhanced rates once placed in landfill conditions. Third-party laboratory testing under ASTM D-5511 in an accelerated landfill environment showed almost complete breakdown of 37.5 polyester fiber to natural materials in two years. In an actual landfill, this means that, unlike traditional polyester and nylon yarns that will sit unchanged in landfills for centuries, 37.5 yarns will now break down over a matter of decades.

Notably, unlike other products on the market, this additive does not merely fracture the fibers into smaller microplastic pieces, but rather converts the 37.5 fibers into naturally occurring byproducts at the molecular level without affecting comfort and performance benefits. This means brands no longer need to choose between sustainability and performance, particularly when the additive is available in 37.5 yarns at no additional cost.

How are you engaging your downstream partners to join your efforts to be more sustainable?

S.W.: Cocona Labs provides robust marketing and sales support based on extensive third-party testing, so our partners are equipped with the necessary tools to accurately convey the sustainability benefits of 37.5 Technology to their consumers.

Also, since enhanced biodegradation is a new topic to the industry and not well understood, we created specific sales materials, and a thorough set of FAQs on the additive technology and biodegradation science. These materials have been welcomed by our partners as they seek more education to guide their decisions and effectively communicate on the topic.

What are brands that you consider to be sustainability leaders doing that others in the industry can emulate?

S.W.: Sustainability leaders in our industry use their time and resources to understand the issues, set goals and take concrete steps to address those within their sphere of control, all while being transparent. Cocona Labs is not a large company, but emulates these practices. Over the last three years, as we worked toward the launch of our Enhanced Biodegradation offering, we realized early on that the market was flooded with misinformation (both seemingly intentional and unintentional). This failed to tell the whole, rather-complicated story of textile biodegradation, and the relationship between lab testing and what actually transpires in landfills.

Understanding and accurately framing these issues is crucial to explaining what is being done to address them.

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ENHANCING BIODEGRADATION TO MITIGATE END-OF-LIFE WASTE

Under the $82.5 million Shore-to-Store (S2S) project, more than a dozen public and private sector partners have teamed for a 12-month demonstration of the zero-emissions Class 8 trucks and will expand the project to include five more hydrogen-fueled heavy-duty trucks, two battery-electric yard tractors and two battery-electric forklifts.

The large-scale, multiyear demonstration is designed to advance the port’s Clean Air Action Plan goals and help California achieve statewide climate change, air quality improvement and sustainability targets for reducing greenhouse gases and toxic air emissions.

AIR DHL Express and Eviation, a Seattle-area based manufacturer of all-electric aircraft, revealed that DHL is the first to order 12 fully electric Alice eCargo planes.

Eviation’s Alice is a fully electric aircraft that allows cargo and passenger airlines to operate a zero-emission fleet. Eviation expects to deliver the Alice electric aircraft to DHL Express in 2024.

“We firmly believe in a future with zero-emission logistics,” John Pearson, CEO of DHL Express said. “Therefore, our in-

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vestments always follow the objective of improving our carbon footprint. On our way to clean logistics operations, the electrification of every transport mode plays a crucial role and will significantly contribute to our overall sustainability goal of zero emissions. We have found the perfect partner with Eviation as they share our purpose and together we will take off into a new era of sustainable aviation.”

The aircraft is ideal for feeder routes and requires less investment in station infrastructure. The Alice can be charged while loading and unloading operations occur, ensuring quick turnaround times that maintain DHL Express’ tight schedules.

Through its UPS Flight Forward subsidiary, UPS Inc. plans to purchase electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft from Beta Technologies as part of its innovation-driven strategy to identify new ways to help small businesses with sustainable solutions.

With the capability to take off and land directly on UPS property, eVTOL aircraft are well suited for moving smaller loads that would otherwise fly to and from airports on small feeder aircraft or take even longer by ground, UPS noted.

“This is all about innovation with a focus

DHL EXPRESS HAS ORDERED 12 FULLY ELECTRIC ALICE ECARGO PLANES FROM EVIATION.

on returns for our business, our customers and the environment,” Juan Perez, UPS chief information and engineering officer, said. “These new aircraft will create operational efficiencies in our business, open possibilities for new services and serve as a foundation for future solutions to reduce the emissions profile of our air and ground operation.”

LAND Digital freight network Convoy and global logistics platform Flexport set a long-term, strategic partnership to bring end-to-end shipment automation across land, sea and air. The partnership draws on Flexport’s international client base and Convoy’s North American carrier network to provide customers with seamless logistics services while expanding business capabilities for both companies through a new shared data exchange that integrates shipments across their platforms. The network improvements will save time, and thus, carbon emissions.

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Dan Lewis, CEO and co-founder of Convoy, said the partnership advances a vision shared by Convoy and Flexport “that technology will create efficiencies and bring flexibility to the supply chain.”

Pitney Bowes Inc. said it plans to deploy AmbiSort robots–automated parcel sorting systems from Ambi Robotics–in e-commerce hubs within the U.S. over the next five years. Powered by AmbiOS, Ambi Robotics’ advanced operating systems leverage proprietary simulation-to-reality AI that allows its highly dexterous robots to train exponentially faster than teaching algorithms in the physical world. AmbiSort robots pick, place and pack parcels twice as fast as manual processes, significantly reducing operating costs and automating tasks that are widely regarded as among the most physically and mentally taxing in the logistics industry, often leading to high rates of employee turnover.

After safely completing hundreds of drone deliveries from Walmart stores, the mass merchant is making an investment in DroneUp to continue developing a scalable

MAERSK HAS CONTRACTED HYUNDAI MIPO DOCKYARDS TO BUILD A SHIP WITH DUAL ENGINE TECHNOLOGY THAT CAN SAIL ON METHANOL OR VERY LOW SULFUR FUEL.

last-mile delivery solution, John Furner, CEO and president of Walmart U.S., said.

In April, Walmart announced a similar investment in Cruise, an all-electric autonomous vehicle company. Through these commitments, Furner said the company is learning how these technologies can get customers the items they need faster.

Amazon.com Inc. announced an expanded investment in Florida with six new buildings to support operations closer to customers.

The new robotics fulfillment center and five new delivery stations are expected to create more than 2,000 full-time jobs in the state.

At the same time, the e-commerce giant’s Amazon Air Hub operations at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport went operational with an 800,000-squarefoot sorting facility equipped with robotics technology that helps move and sort packages, including robotic arms and mobile drive units that transport packages across the building, as well as miles of interlinked conveyors and ergonomic workstations that support a comfortable work environment for employees. The building will also feature a solar rooftop scheduled for installation over the next year, and all energy generated from the panels will feed directly into the electrical grid of the local community.

As part of FedEx’s commitment to achieving carbon-neutral operations by 2040, the company signed a multiyear, multiphase agreement with Nuro to test the autonomous delivery vehicle maker’s next-genera-

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tion last-mile craft within FedEx operations.

This pilot allows FedEx the opportunity to explore various use cases for on-road autonomous vehicle logistics, including multistop and appointment-based deliveries. It is the latest addition to the FedEx portfolio of autonomous same-day and specialty delivery devices. The exponential growth of e-commerce has accelerated the demand for reliable, autonomous solutions throughout all stages of the supply chain and FedEx believes that continued innovation and automation will improve safety, efficiency and productivity.

DHL Supply Chain announced a framework agreement expanding its collaboration with Locus Robotics. Initial investments in assisted picking robots have proven effective in commercially scaled operations, DHL said.

By 2022, the supply chain specialist plans to take on up to 2,000 robots, making it the largest customer of Locus Robotics worldwide. The assisted picking robots are mostly used in e-commerce or consumer warehouses to help with picking and inventory replenishment, increasing efficiency and accelerating delivery processes.

DHL said assisted picking robots help reduce time spent on maneuvering pushcarts through warehouses, lower physical strain on employees and increase picking efficiency. They display images of goods to be picked, calculate optimal navigation routes and reduce required training time.

“Our investments always follow the objective of improving our carbon footprint.” —John Pearson, DHL Express

The LYCRA Company knows a thing or two about creating innovative fabrics, but with today’s apparel consumers seeking more information on the materials that comprise their clothing, the fiber manufacturer is committed to providing sustainable fiber options. While increasing its own fiber recycling capacity, The LYCRA Company is also collaborating with various organizations to tackle issues around growing the circular economy in the textile and apparel industry.

Jean Hegedus, director of sustainable business development at The LYCRA Company, discusses the fiber brand’s Planet Agenda commitment, its recent partnership with HeiQ and its approach to garment-to-garment recycling.

The Planet Agenda commitment adopted in 2008 shows that the company has been committed to sustainability for the long haul. What are the newest innovations or concepts the agenda has helped blossom?

Jean Hegedus: Our sustainability platform, which we call Planet Agenda, is based on the belief that to have a healthy business, we must have a healthy planet. The platform features three key pillars— corporate responsibility, manufacturing excellence and product sustainability—and this has been our approach to sustainability long before it was so top of mind. Our initiatives on the circular economy encompass all three pillars.

Initially, our product focus was around recycled and renewable raw materials. However, as the industry became more aware of the impacts of increased apparel consumption, we realized we needed to look at the entire process—from raw material development to helping extend garment wear life to developing solutions for end of life, thus closing the loop.

The LYCRA Company recently entered a partnership with another textile innovator, HeiQ. What are some of the goals of this collaboration?

J.H.: This collaboration with HeiQ will leverage our shared philosophies and strengths in textile science, commercial networks and global marketing to drive innovation platforms into broad textile markets. Together we are focused on developing consumer-branded sustainable innovations in the comfort, stretch, thermoregulation and freshness market spaces.

What’s The LYCRA Company’s approach to creating fibers that facilitate the move toward circularity?

J.H.: On the input side, we have developed a variety of recycled fiber offerings made from pre- and post-consumer content under our EcoMade family of fibers across the LYCRA®, COOLMAX® and THERMOLITE® brands.

While our original polyester recycling technology uses mechanically recycled PET bottles, our new COOLMAX® and THERMOLITE® EcoMade fibers are now made from 100 percent textile waste, combining our brands’ equity and performance attributes with the sustainability benefits of these technologies.

The infrastructure for recycling spandex is still developing but how is The LYCRA Company positioning its materials to make garment-to-garment recycling possible and scalable?

J.H.: When it comes to garment recyclability, we are taking a three-pronged approach. The first priority is to identify those garment recyclers who accept garments with LYCRA® fiber today. Many garments with 10 percent LYCRA® fiber content or less can be recycled. The second priority is to develop applications for the residual LYCRA® fiber that is left after separating the fibers during garment recycling—this is a mid-term development; and the third, longer-term development is to find ways to re-spin the LYCRA® fiber extracted from garments so it can be used in apparel again. This poses a significant technical challenge, so it is not yet commercialized, but we believe this is key to help closing the loop.

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THE LYCRA COMPANY EVOLVES ITS PLANET AGENDA PLATFORM

Leading Brands Join Forest-Saving Pack4Good Pledge UGG SAID THAT JOINING CANOPY’S INITIATIVE FURTHERS ITS “COMMITMENT TO SUSTAINABLE PRACTICES ACROSS FOREST RELATED SOURCING.” A RT H U R F R I E D M A N

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he movement to save the world’s ancient and endangered forests from ending up as take-out containers, shoe boxes or other paper packaging got a boost this summer, with 29 new brands joining the fight.

Brands ranging from footwear, beauty and fashion to food and beverage have committed to Pack4Good and will eliminate controversial forest fiber from their packaging, while speeding the uptake of next generation solutions for packaging made from things like agricultural residues instead.

The Pack4Good initiative now comprises 156 brands, worth an estimated $78.5 billion in revenue.

About 3 billion trees are cut down every year for paper packaging, according to the initiative, or 8 million every day, many from the world’s most integral forests.

The Pack4Good initiative is the brainchild of international environmental organization Canopy. The initiative, now 18 months old, is geared to working with some of the largest industry players in the fashion, food and beverage, and beauty and care industries to save forests and speed the uptake of “Next Gen Solutions” that use agricultural

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residue to make paper packaging.

“The companies that are joining Pack4Good are the out of the box thinkers we need–leaders ready to transform paper packaging supply chains and scale up solutions to save forests and our climate,” Nicole Rycroft, executive director of Canopy, said. “We have so many solutions just waiting to be implemented, it’s time to take them from the margins to the mainstream. Today’s announcement will help us do just that.”

Pack4Good partners included in the announcement are committed to ensuring that, by the end of 2022, all their packaging is free of ancient and endangered forests, designed to reduce material use, maximizing recycled and alternative fibers and using FSC-certified wood when virgin forest fiber continues to be used.

Canopy also noted that the fashion designers and retailers joining up have all signed on to the CanopyStyle initiative along with their Pack4Good commitments. These comprehensive forest sourcing policies will keep ancient and endangered forests out of wardrobes, as Canopy collaborates with these companies to shift the viscose supply chain toward more sustainable alternatives.

“We have so many solutions just waiting to be implemented, it’s time to take them from the margins to the mainstream.”

—Nicole Rycroft, Canopy

In an era when brands are becoming more concerned about the origin of their goods and raw materials, product traceability is a crucial element of the supply chain conversation.

For example, with the U.S.’s ban on Xinjiang, China-sourced cotton puts brands at high risk of receiving a Withhold Release Order if their imports originate from the region. Under these implications, ignorance of material provenance can lead the imported goods to be destroyed altogether.

Mark Burstein, industry principal at Logility, discusses how the company ensures brands can trace chain-of-custody through all tiers in the supply chain.

How does Logility’s traceability tool differ from other traceability solutions on the market?

Mark Burstein: Logility’s traceability solution uses a private blockchain to ensure companies can track chain-of-custody throughout the supply chain by storing and managing all supporting documents related to every transaction between trading partners at every level. Our solution identifies the digital thread for every product and creates a compliance certificate summarizing each exchange of products and materials—from fiber origin to final destination.

We use anomaly detection, exception alerts, advanced analytics and proactive notifications to discover any unauthorized or prohibited suppliers that have provided input that might create a Withhold Release Order upon receipt at U.S. Customs and Border Protection checkpoints.

How does it enable brands and retailers to ensure social and labor compliance across the supply chain?

M.B.: Compliance audit tasks are time-consuming, inefficient and error prone. Many audits are performed using email and spreadsheets, and some consist of more than 3,000 questions.

Logility’s corporate responsibility solution offers a single, integrated system for the planning, scheduling, execution and evaluation of audit results and the management of remediation activities.

Wasteful overproduction largely results from a lack of insight into customer trends and the long lead times of traditional product development and production. How do Logility’s cloudbased solutions facilitate better assortment planning and speed to market?

M.B.: Logility’s merchandise and assortment planning solution helps customers convert high-level financial goals into chainand store-level plans for both financial and unit profiles across all retail channels and locations. It translates merchandise

plan targets into merchandise collections to be deployed to channels and stores within the organization.

Not only do we project each store’s needs down to the SKU level to build and allocate assortment plans, our solution also automatically reacts to weekly changes in demand patterns.

We ensure bottom-up store plans and top-down merchandise plans are always in sync so that the right product is in the right place at the right time.

We understand that the long-term viability of a company depends on its ability to deliver a steady stream of profitable products to market. The current pace of change has created a growing challenge to compress development cycle times and get products to market quicker.

Sustainability efforts needn’t only occur within production or office facility. What are some of your company’s off-site/philanthropic initiatives to help the environment?

M.B.: Logility encourages employees to participate in both organized group events and individual efforts supported by the company. We offer support by providing paid time off for employees to pursue volunteer opportunities including park and beach clean ups, youth mentorship, food security and more. Headquartered in Atlanta, Logility has also pursued local initiatives with the Piedmont Conservancy, co-sponsoring Day in the Dirt, a companywide event where employees helped clean and maintain Atlanta’s Piedmont Park.

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AMID TROUBLES ABROAD, TRACEABILITY PLATFORMS ARE MORE ESSENTIAL

Pulp Non-Fiction: Lenzing Links With Orange THE FIBERS FOR THE TENCEL LIMITED EDITION ARE BEING TRANSFORMED INTO A NEW COLLECTION OF FABRICS THAT ORANGE FIBER WILL PRESENT IN OCTOBER. A RT H U R F R I E D M A N

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enzing Group, a global producer of wood-based specialty fibers, is partnering with Orange Fiber, an Italian company that has patented the pulp production process for citrus by-products, to produce the first Tencel branded lyocell fiber made of orange and wood pulp.

The new product aims to realize the companies’ shared vision to enhance sustainability in the textile and fashion industry. The Tencel Limited Edition initiative combines the imagination, innovation and inspiration of eco-responsible textiles by reinventing Tencel branded fibers using unconventional sustainable raw materials.

“The introduction of Tencel Limited Edition leverages our leading edge in highly sustainable production processes, and we are proud to collaborate on this special edition fiber series with Orange Fiber,” said Gert Kroner, vice president of global research and development at the Lenzing Group. “By upcycling waste materials such as orange peels in our products, we are taking proactive steps toward a more sustainable future and minimizing the environmental impact of waste.”

The Tencel Limited Edition in partner-

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ship with Orange Fiber presents a novel cellulosic fiber to further inspire sustainability across the value chain. The fibers are currently being transformed into a new collection of fabrics which Orange Fiber will present to the market in October.

Lenzing said as increased regulations for sustainability pose new challenges at all levels of the supply chain, every stakeholder must work together to support the transition. From manufacturers to retailers, partnerships facilitate the exchange of resources and expertise to resolve the issue of textile pollution. The Tencel brand aims to guide its many global textile partners in adopting and achieving an efficient closed-loop process, as well as to achieve high industry standards.

Collections produced from Tencel Limited Edition with Orange Fiber will have dedicated marketing materials, such as special edition co-branded swing tags that will provide relevant information about the process of production and materials involved.

The goal is to encourage co-development of innovative solutions to give waste a new life and promote greater transparency in the textile and fashion industry to fully achieve sustainable industry practices.

the Victoria Independent School District. Since 1998, more than 75,000 students and teachers have visited for programs on environmentally focused topics.

How are you engaging your brand and retail partners to join your sustainability efforts?

A.G.: In 2020, we released our CORDURA® Sustainability Platform. Part of that platform exhibits our efforts to innovate and work with brands committed to providing eco solutions.

From brands to mills, we have publicly declared our intention to seek out those partnerships that make sustainability and cutting-edge eco fabric solutions a priority.

“Innovation is at the core of who CORDURA® truly is, and we make it a priority to continually bring new ideas and products to our brand and retail partners,” said Anthony Green, vice president of advanced fabrics brand CORDURA®, explaining the company ethos. “As we innovate and work toward a future state, we work with our customers and partners to understand their priorities, needs and wants, and to ensure we deliver.”

Beyond sustainable material innovation, what are some philanthropic environmental initiatives?

Anthony Green: INVISTA [CORDURA®’s parent company] strives to operate in the best interest of the communities in which we live and work, and the environment surrounding our facilities across the globe. We apply the Guiding Principles of Market-Based Management and the Stewardship Vision and Framework, developed by our shareholder, Koch Industries.

This includes innovating to make products people value using fewer resources by reducing waste and emissions and increasing recyclability, improving efficiency (including energy efficiency), maintaining safety and operating responsibly.

INVISTA and Koch have a long history with the EPA. INVISTA has been recognized for its commitment to environmental stewardship by achieving the Wildlife Habitat Council Conservation at three plant sites. In 2019, INVISTA Victoria completed a 15-month multi-million dollar investment project to renovate its 53-acre wetland. In addition to the wetland’s role in the site’s biotreatment process, it also serves as an outdoor environment classroom through collaboration with

Cordura has always been known for its brand ambassadors.

Are you working with any “environmental”-type influencers to spread your message of sustainability?

A.G.: In the very near future, you’ll see some big news from us related to stewardship and sustainability. We have been lucky to collaborate with the best partners who strongly believe in Sustainability Begins with Products That Last–brands and mills that share our belief that products we create must be produced responsibly and be strong and durable to slow down replacement.

You are also known for your durable-yet-fashionable products.

What are some of Cordura’s latest durable introductions/ partnerships?

A.G.: Those familiar with CORDURA® already know our recycled polyester and RN6 fibers, which are part of our CORDURA® EcoFabric line. Additionally, we are incredibly proud of our solution-dyed nylon fabric, our CORDURA® Truelock—a high-performance N66 fabric with many benefits over conventional dying techniques. It’s made with less water and energy, with less CO2 used in production. Coming soon is something our customers and partners have been asking for and something we’ve been working hard to deliver!

What inspired Cordura to venture into hemp denim?

A.G.: It has been just over a decade since we unveiled denim as part of our technology lineup, and for those 10 years, we’ve explored, engineered, created and challenged the denim world to push performance. The hemp blends bring synergistic fiber properties to the high tenacity, strength, durability, versatility and sustainability of the CORDURA® fabric range. CORDURA® denim has been proven to be at least four times more durable than traditional 100 percent cotton denim, which truly adheres to our belief that Sustainability Begins with Products That Last.

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EMBODYING A ‘SUSTAINABILITY BEGINS WITH PRODUCTS THAT LAST’ CREDO

Prana Hits PlasticFree Milestone THE CALIFORNIA BRAND HAS “OFFICIALLY” ATTAINED ITS GOAL OF USING ONLY 100 PERCENT PLASTIC-FREE PACKAGING WITH ITS FALL/WINTER LINE. JASMIN MALIK CHUA

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rana has given single-use plastic the ol’ heave-ho.

The California lifestyle brand has “officially” attained its goal of using only 100 percent plastic-free consumer packaging with the launch of its fall/winter collection.

The milestone coincides with the first anniversary of the Responsible Packaging Movement (RPM), an initiative Prana kick-started with nonprofits such as 5 Gyres and Canopy to develop sustainable alternatives to the 180 million-plus virgin polybags the garment industry deploys every year, often to the detriment of the world’s waterways and marine life.

Mara Hoffman, Outerknown and Toad & Co. quickly threw their support behind the program. One year on, the RPM has rallied 80 brand partners across the outdoor, fashion, beauty, technology and home goods industries, including Asket, Everything But Water, Hanky Panky, Merrell, Nuuly, Reformation, Smartwool and Vestiaire Collective.

Prana’s plastic reduction efforts aren’t anything new, Rachel Lincoln, the Columbia Sportswear-owned brand’s director of sustainability, told Sourcing Journal. The company gained some ground by switching out plastic swift tacks for 100 percent recycled paper hangtags and cotton string, then by wrapping its accessories in origami-style

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paper packaging free of plastic and metal fasteners. Instead of plastic mailers, it dispatched kraft paper versions or corrugated cardboard boxes. And between 2010 and 2019, Prana punted more than 17 million polybags by rolling up its clothing and securing the bundles with strands of raffia.

“We got to the point where about 80 percent of our product was shipped with the raffia tie,” Lincoln said. “But the other 20 percent was still in plastic and it became kind of a plateau.”

Later on, a sourcing trip to India sparked an idea: Could Prana use paper instead?

It was that a-ha moment that led the firm to knock on the door of Vela, a manufacturer of Forest Stewardship Council-certified paper bags. Several tweaks and pilots later, Prana found the key to closing its plastic gap: a glassine envelope that is not only durable and weather-resistant but also more recyclable than plastic. Employing virgin, if sustainably sourced, wood pulp is only a temporary measure, Lincoln said. By 2025 all of its paper packaging—the Vela bags included—will contain only 100 percent recycled content.

The glassine envelopes are being used behind the scenes as well, though there was a “socialization period” with its factories that didn’t happen overnight, Lincoln admitted.

At first, Prana’s suppliers were concerned about their wares getting damaged in tran-

“Before we even talked to factory X, Y and Z about doing it, we told them we were doing it.” —Rachel Lincoln, Prana

sit. They were soon won over, however. “We were able to show that the paper bags function the same way,” she said.

Even so, Prana didn’t drop the idea of a polybag replacement out of nowhere.

“Before we even talked to factory X, Y and Z about doing it, we told them we were doing it, and said, ‘You know, some point down the line, we’re going to come to you and talk to you about it,’” she said. “So it’s kind of like planting seeds along the way and saying, ‘This is what we’re doing, we’re super excited, we hope you’re excited for us. Now you get to be part of it. And this is what that looks like.’”

Prana is now down to one “master” polybag—a single layer of plastic that lines the massive cartons that ship over from its manufacturing sites in China, India, Sri Lanka and Vietnam to the United States. The brand’s distribution centers, Lincoln said, operate a closed-loop recycling system that captures any plastic for recycling into new shopping bags and other products.

Now, her hope is to get more brands to do the same. If the RPM can enlist 80 brands today, why not 100 tomorrow? Lincoln said she’s elated by the outpouring of enthusiasm.

“It means that there are brands that care and want to change, and that are learning from the things that Prana did, both good and bad,” she said. “We’re able to share our best practices and help them overcome challenges.”

Still, one of the top questions Prana gets

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during its RPM panels and roundtables involves the cost-effectiveness of choosing paper over plastic.

“Honestly, paper is not going to be cheaper,” Lincoln said. “But maybe moving to a paper bag you’re able to get more products in a carton and therefore you’re getting a better cost differential there. Maybe you are super-passionate about responsible packaging and you’re able to work with your design team to find interesting ways to decrease the garment price to allow you to have the packaging.”

Ultimately, the question is a moot one in light of the burgeoning plastic crisis. Scientists estimate that roughly 8 million metric tons of plastic finds their way into the oceans every year, and that by 2050, global waterways will contain more plastic than fish. Consumers are waking up to this fact, too. In a recent survey by the EY Future Consumer Index, 62 percent of Americans and 73 percent of Britons rated plastic waste as their No. 1 sustainability concern.

And fashion, if anything, is about making things work.

“One of the best examples I love to use with our members is that if your creative team came to you with this super-amazing new hangtag, but it was $2 more, you would find a way,” Lincoln said. “So we, as individual brands, need to find a way to make it work for the margin that we need on the garments [because] that’s what we do every day.”

YOGA AND LIFESTYLE BRAND PRANA HAS “OFFICIALLY” AT TAINED ITS GOAL OF USING ONLY 100 PERCENT PLASTIC-FREE PACKAGING WITH ITS FALL/WINTER LINE.

Could Rice Straw Be the Future of Sustainable Fashion?

THERE ARE ENOUGH VIABLE AGRICULTURAL RESIDUE STREAMS IN SOUTH AND SOUTHEAST ASIA TO CREATE NEXT-GEN NATURAL FIBERS, A NEW STUDY SAYS. JASMIN MALIK CHUA

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lothing the planet without relying on petrochemicals is possible. It just requires a great deal of willpower, investment and focused collaboration.

Also rice straw, and there is already plenty of it.

According to a new study commissioned by the Laudes Foundation, agricultural waste—think wheat husks, banana stems and, yes, rice straw—is woefully overlooked in the search for innovative new materials.

This could be a missed opportunity since there are enough viable agricultural residue streams in South and Southeast Asia to create next-generation fibers without the polluting baggage of polyester or the heavy chemical and water use of cotton, the Amsterdam-based sustainability think tank said.

And unlike some newer-fangled innovations, so-called “agro-residue-based textile fibers” have the potential to scale almost immediately while providing characteristics both familiar to and desired by the apparel industry.

“To encourage the sector to shift, you have to have viable solutions at scale,” Ani-

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ta Chester, head of materials at the Laudes Foundation, told Sourcing Journal. “A lot of innovations are new materials, but they exist in petri dishes.”

But not all agricultural waste is created equal. To find the most suitable feedstocks, researchers from the Institute for Sustainable Communities, the World Resources Institute, and Wageningen University and Research examined more than 40 crops across Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam.

Rice straw, the vegetative part of the rice plant that is usually cut off and discarded after harvest, proved to be the one crop that ticked all the boxes. It’s abundant in all eight countries, has plenty of easily extractable cellulose and is suitable for transforming into textiles.

Equally important, funneling rice straw into textile production makes economic sense, and not just for the farmers who will gain another source of income. Researchers were able to use spatial mapping to identify at least 10 specific locations where rice straw’s large-scale availability coincided with existing or potential processing capacity

within a sourcing radius of 100 kilometers.

In some cases, they were able to reduce this to as little as 50 kilometers.

Establishing a business case for agro-residue fibers when synthetic materials cost next to nothing, on the other hand, is not as simple, particularly when you can’t predict the costs and benefits of a system that hasn’t yet been established. But initial calculations are encouraging. For cellulose-based biomass extraction plants, researchers projected the lowest gate cost at $63 per metric ton of cellulose and the upper end of the range at $160 per metric ton.

Still, it’s “difficult for brands to feel ownership and empathize [when] the price [of a new material] is five times what they are currently paying,” Chester said. “But we do have to work together and understand that short term-ism is not going to serve us in the long run.”

Already, a consumer backlash to polyester and its fossil-fuel-based ilk may be brew-

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ing, if slowly. A recent poll of 2,000 British shoppers by nonprofit group A Plastic Planet found that 72 percent of them were ignorant of the amount of plastic used in clothing.

Once they were made aware, however, 80 percent wanted the government to mandate plastic warning labels on clothes.

Investing in agro-residue fibers, then, could lay the groundwork for a more environmentally sustainable source of fiber for the fashion industry.

“I think one big bottleneck is still the investments,” Chester said. “It’s not technology anymore; the technology exists. Now we have to get investments into this space because without investments, nothing happens. This is not the work of one foundation or a few researchers. It requires brands, their supply chain, actors, innovators, governments and investors.”

“There are solutions,” she added. “They just need some real hard work.”

RICE STRAW AT A PADDY FIELD AFTER HARVESTING.

LVMH Takes Another Step Toward Circularity THE LUXURY GROUP’S LATEST PARTNERSHIP WITH WETURN ALLOWS A LONGER LIFE FOR UNSOLD PRODUCTS. A RT H U R F R I E D M A N

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new partnership is furthering LVMH’s range of creative circularity solutions and advancing its commitment to the circular economy, a major pillar promoted through its LIFE (LVMH Initiatives For the Environment) 360 program.

Founded in 2020, French startup Weturn has created a recycling chain dedicated to transforming unsold textiles, rolls of fabric and offcuts from major fashion firms into new quality yarns and fabrics that are 100 percent traceable and European-made.

Weturn’s initiative allows fashion companies to recycle their unsold products protected by intellectual property, after considering donation and reuse solutions, to create new eco-designed textiles. Weturn works with several LVMH Group brands to support them in recycling their textiles and to help them reuse these recycled materials in future products–packaging, accessories, fabrics for workshops, uniforms for teams or research projects for integration into readyto-wear products–intended for the original brands or other labels and designers.

LVMH has set several objectives through its LIFE 360 environmental program. By 2023, the company will build on and amplify the main advantage of luxury products, their durability, by relying on sophisticated repair services and upcycling or reuse of precious materials such as leather and fur, as well alternative materials. By 2026, LVMH is com-

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mitted to transparency with respect to its customers, with all new products equipped with a dedicated information system.

By 2030, 100 percent of the company’s new products will follow an eco-design approach, with a controlled environmental footprint, from the extraction of materials to their processing. In addition, 100 percent of strategic supply chains will have a dedicated traceability system.

“We are delighted that the LVMH group is partnering with Weturn, which offers innovative solutions in the field of textile recycling,” Hélène Valade, environment development group director at LVMH, said. “This partnership allows us to take a new step toward achieving our ambition in the field of creative circularity, which is one of the four strategic priorities of LIFE 360, our environmental policy for the next 10 years.”

Sophie Pignères, founder of Weturn, said after a year dedicated to creating a new recycling chain, “we are proud to join the circular economy market by working to recycle unsold and protected products alongside prestigious maisons such as those of the LVMH group.”

By combining digital sorting and lowcost collection tools, Weturn develops and distributes new, high-quality recycled raw materials at competitive prices aligned with the market. The model allows compensation for an entire new sector and opens up new economic perspectives for recycling.

In 2021, industrial and specialty chemicals products manufacturer The Chemours Company announced a more ambitious greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction goal, committing to reaching a 60 percent absolute reduction of operations-related GHG emissions by 2030 on a path to achieving net zero GHG emissions by 2050.

This is part of the company’s larger commitment to building a more sustainable future through its ten Corporate Responsibility Commitment (CRC) goals, which will bring responsibility to life by 2030. Evolving its product portfolio is another aspect of Chemours' CRC goals, and products such as the Teflon EcoElite™ fabric protector finish, a renewably sourced, bio-based non-fluorinated technology that repels water and water-based stains, will help it get there.

Bob Buck, technical fellow at The Chemours Company, chatted with Sourcing Journal about the chemical developer’s goals, and the journey to reach them.

As a manufacturer of a range of responsible chemicals across industries, how has Chemours taken these learnings to improve on its apparel/footwear products?

Bob Buck: We consider corporate responsibility an operational imperative and we look to embed sustainability into every aspect of how we operate. It is an integral part of our culture, which includes our approach to improving our offerings for apparel and footwear products.

Our Teflon EcoElite™ finish is one example of our broader pledge to develop products with industry-leading sustainability profiles that enable our customers farther up the value chain to meet consumer demands.

Chemours announced that it wants to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. What strategy has the company developed to achieve this goal?

B.B.: Chemours is a performance-driven company and we will continue to invest capital toward achieving our CRC goals.

Reaching net zero by 2050 is a moon-shot for the industry as a whole and it’s going to require innovation, new technology and partnerships the likes of which many of us have never seen before. But we know reaching net zero is doable and we believe in the creativity and collective entrepreneurship of our team to make it a reality.

With a new CEO as of June 2021, what sustainability strategies will be different and what will be staying the same?

B.B.: Environmental, social and economic considerations sit at the heart of Chemours’ decision making, and [CEO] Mark Newman continues our long-standing commitment to do what is right, not just what is required. He is charismatically energized by sustainability and is proud of the progress our team continues to make in delivering our essential chemistry to the world responsibly.

The measures we’ve put in place, particularly our third-party validated EVOLVE 2030 methodology, are doing a fantastic job of bringing people from different elements of our product creation into the conversation. And Mark’s a great champion for that.

How have demands from apparel brands changed over the past year, and how has this impacted your products and operations?

B.B.: We are committed to working with commercial partners to reduce their GHG emissions and develop products and processes that help them reduce their environmental footprint.

Changing consumer demands during the pandemic took PPE beyond the medical community and boosted demand for technical fabrics treated with antimicrobial and oil- and waterrepellent finished and anti-static agents to improve wearer safety and comfort.

The increased interest in athleisure and casualwear has driven brands to textiles that incorporate moisturemanagement and antimicrobial and odor-control solutions for long-lasting comfort.

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CHEMOURS SETS SIGHTS ON AMBITIOUS NET ZERO EMISSIONS GOAL

Burberry Aims to Be ‘Climate Positive’ by 2040 THE BRITISH LUXURY FASHION HOUSE IS “GOING FURTHER IN HELPING PROTECT OUR PLANET FOR GENERATIONS TO COME,” CEO MARCO GOBBETTI SAID. JASMIN MALIK CHUA

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urberry has a lofty new sustainability goal: to become “climate positive” across its entire operation by 2040, a move it says goes beyond its current net-ze-

ro ambition.

The British luxury house has committed to reducing supply-chain emissions by 46 percent by 2030, an improvement from its previous target of 30 percent. It will become net-zero by 2040, 10 years ahead of the 1.5-degree Celsius pathway set out by the Paris Agreement, meaning it will pull from the atmosphere as much carbon as it generates. But Burberry will also invest in initiatives “beyond its value chain,” such as those that protect and restore natural ecosystems, promote climate resilience and empower vulnerable, frontline communities, which it says will allow it to do more good than harm.

The Burberry Regeneration Fund, in particular, will support a slate of verified carbon offsetting and insetting projects, which the brand says will enable it to store carbon, safeguard biodiversity and facilitate the restoration of critical ecosystems.

For its inaugural insetting project, which will tackle Burberry’s own direct footprint,

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the company is partnering with France’s PUR Projet to establish a regenerative agricultural program with wool producers in Australia. The project, it says, will work at a farm level to improve carbon capture in soils, strengthen watershed and soil health, and support biodiverse habitats.

“Burberry was built upon a desire to explore nature and the great outdoors and they have remained our inspiration for more than 150 years,” CEO Marco Gobbetti said in a statement on Thursday. “Drawing on this heritage of exploration and driven by our creative spirit, today, we are setting a bold new ambition: to become climate positive by 2040.”

Burberry, which came under fire only a few years ago for burning unsold stock to preserve its “brand value,” says it will continue to rally with nonprofits, peers and policymakers around programs that will help galvanize change in the fashion industry.

The latest of these is Fashion Avengers, a coalition of global organizations that seek to inspire action toward achieving the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. As part of this, Burberry will be supporting the Forest for Change, an SDGs-inspired installation created by British designer Es Devlin

for the 2021 London Design Biennale.

The company says it’s “on track” to become carbon neutral across its own footprint by 2022, which it will achieve by reducing emissions, improving energy efficiency and switching to renewable electricity sources before offsetting any remaining emissions.

Burberry currently sources 93 percent of its electricity from renewable sources. Its events, including shows and presentations, have been certified carbon neutral since 2019.

Burberry’s biggest challenges, however, still lie ahead. The bulk of a company’s carbon footprint tends to lie in parts of the supply chain that are beyond its direct control and therefore more difficult to manage.

More recently, Burberry teamed up with Apparel Impact Institute, a mill-improvement firm, to establish a platform for Italian manufacturers to coordinate, fund and scale environmental programs with “measurable impact.” But Burberry also scored a middling 31 percent to 40 percent in Fashion Revolution’s 2020 Transparency Index, meaning it’s publishing some information about its first-tier suppliers but it might require deeper visibility into the layers of the supply chain that are often overlooked.

All of these efforts require investment. To raise money for eligible sustainable projects, Burberry became the first luxury brand to issue a sustainability bond last September.

“As a company, we are united by our passion for being a force for good in the world,” Gobbetti said. “By strengthening our commitment to sustainability, we are going further in helping protect our planet for generations to come.”

Burberry appears to be borrowing a page from its rival Gucci, which announced in January that it would be going beyond carbon neutrality to take a “nature-positive” approach to climate-change mitigation.

The Italian luxury house had created the Natural Climate Solution Portfolio, an “evolution” of its climate strategy that it says will protect and restore critical forests and mangroves, invest in regenerative agriculture within its supply chain and, in a broader

sense, “give back to nature.”

“The evolution of our strategy incorporates a series of clear climate actions that will continue to prioritize reducing our emissions and drawing down CO₂, which allows us to maintain carbon neutrality across our entire supply chain,” Marco Bizzarri, Gucci’s president and CEO, said at the time. “At the same time, we are investing in regenerative agriculture as an important pillar of our approach.”

Gucci parent Kering, too, has made biodiversity a key pillar of its carbon-neutral strategy.

“We want to reframe fashion’s relationship to nature,” Marie-Claire Daveu, chief sustainability officer and head of international institutional affairs at Kering, said at the launch of the conglomerate’s Regenerative Fund for Nature in February. “It’s important to have the vision, the strategy and the action plan, but it’s also important to have the operational tools to support the transition.”

Decarbonizing the fashion supply chain, which relies heavily on coal-fired supply chains for electricity and heat generation, fossil-fuel-derived synthetic materials such as polyester and highly polluting shipping by air and sea, won’t be easy, experts say. Neither will lip service cut it.

Brands must support solutions like slowing ships and eliminating “dirty fuels” in the short term and a decarbonization strategy by the end of the decade in the long term. They must also commit to sourcing lower-carbon and longer-lasting materials, phasing out fossil-fuel-based fibers such as polyester.

“Despite commitments to slash their emissions, the fashion industry’s supply chain saw more dirty coal, more fossil-fuel-based fabrics and more delivery by highly polluting cargo ships prior to the Covid-19 outbreak,” Gary Cook, global climate campaigns director at environmental nonprofit Stand.earth, said last August. “The industry must implement concrete, collaborative efforts to tackle its pollution problem through a combination of rapidly transitioning factories to renewables, eliminating fracked fabrics like polyester and greening up shipping.”

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