Environment & Supply chain

Environment & Supply Chain

Our supply chain is a very important piece of the sustainability puzzle, where both people and planet are key stakeholders of our actions. On this page we will focus on environmental issues in the supply chain and what we are doing for our planet.

To learn more about what we’re doing for people working in our supply chain, please read more here.

There is a heavy dependence on natural resources within the fashion industry, at the same time it’s senseless that so many clothes and discarded textiles end up in landfill. It is obvious that the fashion industry needs to change. At NA‑KD we are committed to do our part of transforming the fashion industry to become more and more sustainable.

All our new suppliers agree to

Share environmental data with NA‑KD through the Higg Index Facility Environmental Module (FEM), hosted by the Sustainable Apparel Coalition and Higg Co.
Have at least one certificate for production with more sustainable materials; for example GOTS certified organic cotton. And, of course, all our suppliers need to sign our supplier Code of Conduct and have a valid social audit. Read more on that here.

The supply chain environmental challenges

The fashion industry has a significant impact on climate change, ranging somewhere between 3–10% of total greenhouse gas emissions. Raw materials, yarn and fabric production as well as garment manufacturing represents more than 2/3rds of greenhouse gas emissions. Production also comes with environmental challenges such as water usage, scarcity and discharge, chemical use and potential pollutions, as well as impacts on soils and biodiversity. That’s why we at NA‑KD think it’s of essence to address the environmental challenges in the entire fashion supply chain.

Finding the sustainability hot spots

Continuous improvements to reduce environmental impact is an integral part of the day-to-day work for us at NA‑KD and for our partners. We use the Higg Index’s Facility Environmental Module (FEM) through our collaboration with the Sustainable Apparel Coalition. The Higg Index is a performance platform that identifies, tracks and manages environmental impacts of a facility over time. It enables identification of sustainability hotspots and improvement opportunities. See our most recent Sustainability Report to get the latest updates on our status.

Higg index

The Higg Index FEM focuses on six areas of environmental sustainability in our production:

Environmental Management Systems
Energy Use and Greenhouse Gas Emission
Water Use and Wastewater
Emission to Air
Waste Management
Chemical Use and Management

Water, chemicals and energy

Water

Water is essential to all life on planet earth. With climate change comes water scarcity, and hence we have to take even greater care of all water we use. In the fashion industry, water is also essential for our business. From growing the cotton crops, to dying the fabrics into wonderful colours and washing our fav pieces. That's why we at NA‑KD strive to move towards more water efficient production methods, and communicate with our customers how to care for their fav pieces in a more environmentally sound manner.

Wastewater

Chemicals

There is no reason that garments shouldn’t be safe to produce and wear. Safe for people wearing them, safe for the people producing them, and safe for the environment. We are continuously working on eliminating any hazardous pollutants into water, soil and air.

The chemical requirements stated in the NA‑KD Restricted Substances List (RSL) apply to all NA‑KD products and materials – including fabrics, garments, trims, accessories and packaging. All NA‑KD orders must comply with these minimum standards.

The NA‑KD RSL is developed together with TÜV Rheinland, and is stricter than the EU REACH legislation. At NA‑KD we don’t accept any of our products to contain restricted or prohibited substances, in accordance with local and international regulations. This is agreed in the purchase agreement signed by all suppliers.

Energy

Most energy used for the fashion industry is used in the supply chain; fibre & yarn production, fabric production, wet treatments and confectioning (sewing the actual piece of clothing).

Here we need work through two angles: energy efficiency and switching to renewable energy. There are two enablers that are key in this work: supply chain transparency (knowing who our suppliers, and sub-suppliers are, all the way to raw materials) and information on suppliers environmental performance.

Our ambition is to support the suppliers to improve their environmental performance, both for energy efficiency and choice of energy used. By gaining supply chain transparency and environmental performance data of suppliers, we can focus our efforts where they make the greatest impact – and collaborate with our industry peers in doing so.

To learn more about our work for climate action, please read here.

Exciting projects

Jeanologia

With Jeanologia, jeans are produced using up to 80% less chemicals, up to 85% less water, and up to 50-60% less energy.

To create a “used worn” look on the jeans, Jeanologia is using laser technology instead of traditional sandblasting, hand sanding and PP spray.

For example, check out these, and these, and these.

Vegetable dye

We recently started to work with vegetable dyed fabrics in Turkey. In this dying process, only waste from fruit and vegetable crops are used. Lemon, pomegranate, rose petals, lavender and walnut shells give colour to both denim and jersey.

The process requires 25% less water and creates an anti-allergenic garment. Check out these, and these, and these!

OUR CLIMATE IMPACT

To understand more about the climate impact from our supply chain, we have calculated our climate footprint according to the GHG protocol. We have also set bold reduction targets and will work actively to reduce emissions across our value chain. The supply chain in naturally in focus of this work as it stands for the largest share of our emissions.