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Sustainable Brand: 5 Tips to Add Eco-Conscious Values Into Your Business
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Building a Sustainable Business

Sustainable Brand: 5 Tips to Add Eco-Conscious Values Into Your Business

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We have reached a point where greenwashing is no longer acceptable. It’s no use saying that the company has eco-conscious values if there is no transparency, traceability and honesty. But do you know how to shift your business into a sustainable brand? A true one?

Sustainable Brand

The importance of sustainability for brands is at an all-time high. According to the Harvard Business Review, being a sustainable business can lead to innovation, employee retention, brand loyalty, reduce environmental and supply chain risk and reduces production costs for your brand. In other words, there are simply no negative implications that come from making your brand more sustainable. 

Sustainable Brand

According to the State of Fashion 2022 report, executives also rate sustainable brand as an opportunity in the year ahead, suggesting that any costs or challenges they encounter relating to sustainability may be outweighed by business benefits associated with improving their company’s impact on the environment and society.

According to Forbes and a study conducted in 2019, Gen Z Shoppers Demand Sustainable Retail, the vast majority of Generation Z prefer to buy sustainable brands, and they are most willing to spend 10% more on sustainable products. The report also found that Generation Z along with Millennials are the most likely to make purchase decisions based on values and principles (personal, social, and environmental).

5 Tips to Transform Your Business Into a Sustainable Brand

1. Low Impact Materials 

Understanding the materials that your goods are made from is essential. Educating yourself on every little detail that is in your product is crucial to understanding where you can do better.

Sustainable Brand

Therefore, choosing low environmental impact materials and fabrics is very important to sustainability and one of the key areas that you can make a massive impact. 

According to Research Gate, and the publication – Carbon Footprint of Textile and Clothing Products, 2015, the extraction of oil from the earth and the production of synthetic polymers require a high amount of energy and therefore emit a much higher amount of CO2 as compared to natural fibers.

Natural fabrics and materials are typically better for the environment as they take less energy and water to make and emit less CO2. Try and stick with natural fibers, if possible, like hemp and linen. Choose to use organic fibers and fabrics – like organic cotton – and recycled fabrics – like recycled wool – whenever possible.

Also, try and void virgin synthetic fabrics – polyester, acrylic, elastane etc. – as these are made from fossil fuels. If you do choose synthetics, recycled  (like rPET) is always usually better for the environment.

Choosing certified mills to make your garments is a great option. Utilizing certified fabrics is very good as well as this can give you assurance that strict environmental guidelines etc. were used to produce them. Some of the certifications include, but are not limited to are Oeko-Tex, Blue Sign, Global Organic Textile Standards (GOTS), Global Recycle Standards (GRS), Organic Content Standard (OCS) etc. 

Summing it up, if you can begin to identify where you can make improvements to your materials, just even one garment at a time, you can bring drastic improvements for your brand. 

2. Amazing Labour Practices 

The second tip of the five to shift your brand toward sustainability is to educate yourself on the current labour practices in your supply chain. Ensure you are not utilizing child labour and there is no harassment happening in your supply chain. To do this, ask questions and create a Supplier Code of Conduct or a Vendor Code of Ethics.

These types of documents are produced for the purpose of ensuring that a company’s suppliers establish safe working conditions, and their employees are treated fairly. Elements of a supplier code of conduct can include labor practice, environmental policy and standards, ethics, health and safety and review and documentation policies.

Sustainable Brand 1

Begin by creating your own Supplier Code of Conduct or Vendor Code of Ethics and get your suppliers to sign it. In other words, this ensures they understand and abide by what your brands requirements are. If they fail to sign it, this might indicate a red flag by your supplier. Download a Guide on how to write a Supplier Code of Conduct here

3. Transparency Across the Board

Being a sustainable brand that is perfect in the eyes of the public, can be a daunting challenge for an entrepreneur and his/her team. Many brands struggle with a balance of making money and what the critical information is to share with the public.

Brands are worried, that if you disclose how, you are truthfully doing in terms of sustainability, it will scare customers away. Well, in actual-fact, customers will trust your brand more. Engaging with your stakeholders and asking them about what is important to them is a key component for transparency.

If you have committed to being sustainable, then you need to start to disclose the information. It’s essential to put the truth out there and be honest. After all, to be truly sustainable, you must be transparent. Explaining where you are at in this journey is important, whether at the beginning or a ways through. It not only is great for your customers to see where you are at, it is also good for a brand to be accountable to the improvements it needs to make.  Creating goals and targets for your brand is crucial to keep you accountable and on track. 

To be transparent, create a list of all your suppliers and manufacturers and publicly display this on your website. There are lots of brands these days that publically list their suppliers including Patagonia, Adidas, Arc’teryx, Nudie Jeans etc.  Begin to identify where you can make other improvements to increase your sustainability whether it be waste or energy reduction etc. Talk to your customers base and stakeholders to find out what is important to them! Start the conversation about transparency and be open to criticism. 

You can read more about the importance of transparency here.

4. Up Your Packaging Game

According to a 2020 report released by McKinsey and Company, governments, on all continents, have responded to public concerns regarding packaging waste.  A focus by governments around the world is especially high for single-use packaging waste. They are implementing regulations to both minimize environmental waste and improve waste-management processes. 

This can be a difficult area for brands to navigate as they have different environments and logistical constraints that their products need to get through prior to even getting in the customers hands. They need to protect their products from various elements (water, dust bugs etc.), so they require durable and weatherproof packaging. 

When it comes to paper or boxes, make sure you do not just buy materials that can be recycled. This is good step, however, the materials you choose to use for your brand should have recycled content in them.  This also goes for plastic. 

If you can avoid packaging at all, this is an excellent option too. Or, if not, there are different sustainable alternatives out there for packaging.

5. Waste Reduction in Supply Chain

Waste in most supply chains is a huge issue. Conduct a waste audit of your supply chain and find out where all the waste is coming from. This includes paper, plastic and fabric etc. Choose the low hanging fruit to make some big changes.

A simple example could include utilizing fabric scraps back into designs or make them into one-of-a-kind clothes or scrunchies. Wastepaper can be made into little note-takers for your company. You could also implement a take-back or mending side of your business. This way you get a free resource back that can be re-used in the cycle of creation.

One really great brand that has made a huge splash in this area is Patagonia. Patagonia has created Worn Wear, an off shoot of their parent company. Worn Wear takes your old Patagonia clothing back and then make them into re-crafted clothing. This way it keeps clothes out of the landfill and gets them used for a lot longer. This helps to reduce waste and landfill emissions. 

There are many other actions you can take. However, these are the first 5 tips you can do now for you sustainable brand! 

Evaluating where you are exactly on this journey is critical. Training is essential to understanding what encompasses sustainability. Furthermore, having a Sustainability Assessment conducted for your brand can get you started on your way.

Moda Circolare conducts sustainability assessments for brands and assesses the governance of the brand, the social and ethical issues, environmental consideration, transparency, traceability and circularity options. The brands get the results by way of a lettered scorecard, from A to F, and easily can identify where it need to improve. Check out all the consulting packages that MODA CIRCOLARE offers here. 

Some extra resources for you: 

If you would like to conduct your own mini sustainability assessment quiz, you can download it here

Having a Sustainability Guide on sustainable fashion is essential as well. Download your copy here

* Written by Lizzy CrossFounder and CEO at MODA CIRCOLARE/ @modacircolare

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