Textile pioneer stays on course

BRANDS Fashion, the specialist headquartered in Buchholz and renowned throughout Europe for stylish and sustainable corporate workwear, has released its latest sustainability report for the 2022/2023 period. In nearly 100 pages, it provides comprehensive insight into the developments and significant advances in all four of the company’s relevant segments: materials and products, initiatives and standards, partners and supply chains, and location and employees.

‘We rely on high ecological and social standards and support legal regulations to promote fair conditions and transparency in textile supply chains. We are delighted to present details about our commitment in our latest sustainability report – after all, the transparency we desire naturally also applies to BRANDS Fashion itself’, remarks Rabea Schafrick, Head of Sustainability, on the publication.

The report offers detailed figures in clear graphics and concise texts, such as the raw materials consumed. For example, In 2023, around 51% of the textile products procured by BRANDS Fashion were awarded a sustainable product seal. This was a considerable increase compared to 2021 when the share was 36%. The most important raw material continues to be cotton, with a strong trend for organic and Fairtrade-certified materials. In 2023, 83% of the cotton came from certified organic cultivation or from cultivation of cotton undergoing a transitional phase to organic farming, and around 45% was Fairtrade-certified. Within the last seven years, BRANDS Fashion generated more than 1.275 million euros in Fairtrade awards that were utilised by farmers for promoting education, hygiene, infrastructure or women’s rights.

Developing a sustainable textile industry can only be achieved through close partnerships in sourcing countries with customers, suppliers and service providers that extend along the entire supply chain. BRANDS Fashion is not only conscious of this but also works specifically on this, as its latest projects show: the opening of the Green Factory of its strategic partner in the Indian city Tirupur or the initiative ‘From the field to the fan shop’. This initiative is being realised with the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development and nine Bundesliga football clubs. It aims to improve the living conditions of 450 cotton farmers and 1,000 children and adolescents in different farming regions and promote sustainable cotton farming.

More details are included in the full sustainability report, which can be downloaded at: www.brands-fashion.com/nachhaltigkeit

Picture: Brands Fashion GmbH