Timberland
Plastic Waste is Fashion’s New Sustainability Gimmick
Looking for the latest in eco-friendly fashion? One word: plastics.
H&M announced on Tuesday that it will debut its second Conscious Exclusive campaign — an upscale version of its Conscious Collection program founded in 2012 — which includes formal wear for men, women and children. The line uses recycled polyester made from plastic waste, an estimated eight million tons of which litters oceans each year, and is slated to be available in 160 stores around the globe in late April. The move comes shortly after Adidas partnered with Parley for the Oceans, a nonprofit that reduces oceanic plastic waste, to make running shoes made almost entirely out of discarded plastic.
For the H&M line, the Swedish retailer teamed with Bionic Yarn, a New York-based company that turns plastic bottles into technical yarns and fabrics. The signature piece of H&M’s line is a blush pink pleated gown (which retails for $249) modeled by Natalia Vodianova, who was tapped to be the face of this year’s Conscious Exclusive campaign. Singer Pharrell Williams serves as as Bionic Yarn’s creative director, and has previously teamed up with brands like Timberland and G-Star on footwear and denim that use the bionic yarn technology.
“It’s an excellent PR stunt, for H&M to raise awareness about ocean pollution — along with Adidas’ partnership with Parley for the Ocean,” said Lauren Slowik, outreach coordinator and design evangelist at 3-D printing company Shapeways. “But I like to hope that ocean trash is a finite resource and not something we can build whole industries on. The only real positive I see is that it helps to bring supply chain and production of materials to the forefront on consumers’ minds.”
H&M and Adidas said their ocean plastic efforts were designed to be more than just ploys to attract eco-conscious consumers. Adidas began selling its recycled shoes for $220 in November 2016 with a commitment to making a minimum of 1 million pairs by the end of 2017. It also plans to team with Parley on communication, education and research efforts.
Meanwhile, H&M is attempting to increase its percentage of garments made from sustainable materials, which was reported at 20 percent in 2015. It also asserts to be one of the biggest users of recycled polyester and organic cotton, and has a lofty goal for all cotton to be sustainably sourced by 2020.
However, despite its commitment to sustainability, H&M has still been vague in its transparency efforts and faces ongoing criticism for being a fast fashion retailer that is still using significant resources to produce low-priced goods. Natalie Grillon, founder of Project Just, told Glossy in a previous article that despite the assertions made against the company, H&M has still made strides in efforts like employee wages.
“H&M comes under fire a lot for their initiatives because they do publicize it,” said Grillon. “When really, they’ve made a ton of effort in support of better wages. But then they talk about it a lot, and then they come under fire a lot for anything at all that goes wrong.”
*This story first appeared on Glossy
Timberland announces its Q2 2015 CSR performance
Highlights from this quarter’s performance are as follows, organized by Timberland’s four CSR Pillars: Factories, Climate, Product, and Service.
More detailed performance data and analysis can be found on the Goals & Progress section of Timberland’s Corporate Social Responsibility (“CSR”) website, http://responsibility.timberland.com.
FACTORIES: Of the 320 active factories at the end of Q2, 36% are rated Accepted, which is a 16% improvement over our Q1 result (31%). For a complete factory list, visit the factories section of our Responsbility site. For more about VF’s Compliance audit process click here.
In 2015, we will be transitioning the measurement of suppliers’ environmental and social/labor management to the Sustainable Apparel Coalition’s Higg Index, consistent with our parent company, VF Corporation. To have the greatest impact on VF’s supply chain as a whole, the focus will be on the top 250 suppliers across all VF brands. In the coming quarters, we will be reporting on Timberland’s highest producing factories and their scores on the Higg Index.
CLIMATE: In 2014, we had a 9% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions compared to 2013 (15,874 vs. 17,514), which is a 46% reduction over our 2006 baseline. This decrease can be attributed to lower energy usage in several of our European and Asian sites, and a decrease in emissions related to employee travel.
Our use of renewable energy decreased slightly in 2014 (18.7% in 2013 vs. 16.7% in 2014). This decrease can be partly attributed to several sites in Europe with expired renewable energy contracts. We are working to re-establish contracts in those locations that previously had them, and 2 large US locations are new procuring renewable energy. As such, we look forward to a more favorable result in 2015.
SERVICE: Timberland employees served 46,509 hours year to date. YTD Hours Utilization Rate (the percentage of employee service hours used compared to the total available hours according to our Path of ServiceTM program) during Q2 2015 was 18.5%, which is even with our Q2 reslut (18.6% increased to 7.6% vs. 4.4% in Q1 2014. Our Benefit Utilization Rate (the percentage of employees who serve at least one hour) YTD increased from 18.1% in Q1 2014 to 34% in Q1 2015.
**This story first appeared in the Timberland newsletter here.
Timberland announces its Q1 2015 CSR performance
STRATHAM, N.H. – June 3, 2015
Highlights from this quarter’
s performance are as follows, organized by Timberland’s four CSR Pillars: Factories, Climate, Product, and Service.
More detailed performance data and analysis can be found on the Goals & Progress section of Timberland’s Corporate Social Responsibility (“CSR”) website, http://responsibility.timberland.com.
FACTORIES: Of the 350 active factories at the end of Q1, 31% are rated Accepted, which is slightly lower than our Q4 result. For a complete factory list, visit the factories section of our Responsbility site. For more about VF’s Compliance audit process click here.
In 2015, we will be transitioning the measurement of suppliers’ environmental and social/labor management to the Sustainable Apparel Coalition’s Higg Index, consistent with our parent company, VF Corporation. To have the greatest impact on VF’s supply chain as a whole, the focus will be on the top 250 suppliers across all VF brands. In the coming quarters, we will be reporting on Timberland’s highest producing factories and their scores on the Higg Index.
CLIMATE: Since the transition to our parent company’s energy reporting structure, there is a significant delay in obtaining quarterly data of our greenhouse gas emissions and our use of renewable energy. We therefore are now reporting these numbers externally on a yearly basis, in conjuction with our Q2 reporting.
SERVICE: Timberland employees served 19,148 hours year to date, a 85.6% increase over the same period last year. YTD Hours Utilization Rate (the percentage of employee service hours used compared to the total available hours according to our Path of ServiceTM program) during Q1 2015 increased to 7.6% vs. 4.4% in Q1 2014. Our Benefit Utilization Rate (the percentage of employees who serve at least one hour) YTD increased from 18.1% in Q1 2014 to 34% in Q1 2015.
