planet

STICA

Gina Tricot is part of the Swedish Textile Initiative for Climate Action (STICA). This platform helps Swedish textile companies and organizations increase understanding of our climate impact and how this can be handled in the best possible way. Thus, we must evaluate our impact throughout the manufacturing process and work hard to minimize the entire company’s climate impact. From fibre to recycling of the garment. Our efforts within STICA give us more knowledge and tools for becoming a far-sighted company with reduced climate impact.

Our goals within the framework for STICA:

• Understand all aspects of our climate impact, in all business streams
• Measure our greenhouse gas emissions
• Develop science-based goals and plans to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions in line with 1.5 °C global warming
• Develop a process and structure for reporting and communication of our organization’s progress and impact
• Identify measures that generate business advantages and organize collaborations to reduce emissions in areas of the value chain that we cannot control

WWF

We partner with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) to cooperate in and improve work to ensure fresh water. This partnership involves our work with our own water use and allows us to contribute to improved overall sustainable water stewardship, for example through collaboration in projects and providing inspiration to other actors in the textile industry.

For several years, we've use WWF's Water Risk Filter. As a brand, this gives us the possibility to investigate, assess, and respond to water risks in our supply chain. This is the first step towards a more sustainable and responsible use of water in our supply chain. Gina Tricot works to be a positive force when it comes to water stewardship. We want our suppliers to use water more efficiently, recycle and re-use as much waste water as possible, and ensure proper management of any unwanted chemicals in waste water.

We've collected data from our wet processes in our supply chain, including amounts of water used, types of water, and the amount and location of water outflows. During the collaboration, we’ll continue to evaluate our risks, and develop goals, strategies, and action plans based on those risks, as well as the opportunities that we have to improve the water environment.

To reduce water risks related to Gina Tricot, and find opportunities to make positive contributions, we're working with WWF according to their best-practice model for sustainable water stewardship. Using this model, we assess the water risks in our supply chain, identify challenges and opportunities, and work in a transparent way to implement solutions. Together with WWF and other partners, we're also participating in a project in the Büyük Menderes watershed in Turkey to achieve sustainable water stewardship in the area. We do this by working with the area's textile industry to ensure that they use the best techniques in their wet processes, and that local cotton growers use regenerative cultivation and sustainable water methods. It's also important here to influence decision-makers to implement plans for protecting and restoring the ecosystem; this is vital for the area's biodiversity, for example in wetlands.

All our production, transports and facilities involve climate emissions and affect the size of our carbon footprint. We are aware of this challenge and want to quickly reduce these, in line with our climate reduction goals.

We as a brand have a great responsibility to reduce our climate impact and strive to apply the best and more environmentally friendly techniques in production. If we take a closer look at production, water processes are the part of production that has the greatest climate impact. This part of production not only affects the climate through the emission of greenhouse gases, but also uses a large amount of water and chemicals.

Our goal is to reduce our greenhouse gases in line with the 1.5°c pathway, as outlined by the UN Framework on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement. Within the framework of our stica membership, we have set targets to minimize our climate impact in all areas and reduce by 50% until 2030, with our base year updated to 2021. Our short-term targets have been validated by the science-based targets initiative (sbti).

To reduce the emissions from the production of our Gina Tricot goods, we work closely in 1-2-1 dialogues with our suppliers ranging from energy efficiency to installing on-site solar panels, adopting biomass, shifting to I-REC certified electricity as well as setting and following up mutual targets.

In our own operations, our focus is on reducing energy use and encouraging property owners to shift to renewable energy. This is done by continuously updating our store lights to LEDs. Encouraging energy shift is primarily done through ongoing discussions as well as through mutual green lease agreements. Our own electricity contracts for stores and other premises are 100 % powered by renewable, Bra Miljöval-certified energy.

Water is critical for life on our planet and is also crucial to our business. Water impacts occur at all stages of the textile value chain, including at the consumer stage through laundering of garments which requires water, energy, and detergents.

Gina Tricot strives to be a positive force in terms of water management. We work with our suppliers to help them use water more efficiently, recycle and re-use as much wastewater as possible, and make sure to effectively deal with any unwanted chemicals in wastewater.

To mitigate the risks linked to Gina Tricot, we work with Water Stewardship in partnership with World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). This is a best-practice model for sustainable water management, developed by WWF. Through the stewardship model we assess water risks in our supply chain, identify challenges and opportunities, and work in a transparent and collaborative manner to implement solutions. Collective action is targeted through WWF’s Buyuk Menderes basin project in Turkey. This collective action project strives to ensure sustainable water management, with a multi-disciplinary, multi-stakeholder, inclusive and integrated approach. The long-term aspirations are to enhance soil and water health for ecosystems business and communities. It is also to mitigate operational risks in industrial and agricultural production, increase competitiveness of local textile industry and cotton production, as well as to protect freshwater habitats, species and their populations via effective wetland management and restoration.

RENT

Since a few years back RENT has been a returning concept for Gina Tricot, where you can rent your dream outfit for the season’s parties, dinners, and celebrations in selected stores. We highly encourage all our customers to see fashion in a circular sense and to expand their ways of consuming fashion.

For our RENT collections, we focus on garment that are normally only used for specific occasions to increase the number of uses for each of these garments. Party wear is the product group in our original assortment that we have identified as most suitable for rental, and we hope that our customers will join us on our journey in developing this circular business model further. In the process of developing the styles that are available to RENT, durability is of high importance since this enables a longer lifespan and the possibility to share the product between more users. Additionally, the creation of time-less styles that will not go out of trend is a priority.

We always work to optimize the efficiency of our transports. The majority of our transports are by sea freight, which is the eco-friendliest option. Our goal is to reduce our environmental emissions, year on year. Thus we have a zero-tolerance vision for air freight in the product planning phase. We also strive to use the most environmentally friendly packaging available for all our products. Minimizing “dead” space is important – that is, by using the least possible amount of packaging, we can reduce fuel consumption because more packages can be loaded per transport. From and including 2023, our garments are delivered in 100 % recycled polybags. The boxes used for transport by our suppliers are re-used when we send products to our stores. This provides both an economic and sustainability advantage, because we don’t need to buy new boxes. Our goal is to ensure that all paper-based materials will be FSC-certified or recycled, and that all necessary plastic will be recycled.