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Expert solutions for sustainable textiles and apparel production

“At SgT, we believe that a deep on-the-ground manufacturing experience brings pragmatic solutions to your sustainability challenges”

The Reality of Textile Production & the Environment

These statistics – coming from previously published literature – are frightening, and so they should be, to both brands and consumers. In recent years textiles and apparel brands are rushing to become sustainable, to prevent being singled out as being ‘dirty’ or ‘dangerous’ and to improve the efficiency of their production methods which in the end – can save costs.

SgT’s Solutions for Sustainable Textiles

Based on our on-the-ground experience of the textile industry and its manufacturing challenges, we have developed a range of Textile Sustainability Services, to help you achieve your sustainability goals and those of your customers.

1) Manufacturing Sustainability Services

  • Environmental / Chemical Assessment and Solutions: Assess and improve textile manufacturers’ environmental and chemical performance.
  • Verification of Low Impact or Sustainable Processes: Detailed verification of processes that are claimed to have low impact vis-à-vis regular processes and the quantification of such low impacts.
  • Higg Index Verification: The Sustainable Apparel Coalition (SAC) which develops the Higg Index has approved SgT’s verifiers to:
    • Verify and validate the self-assessment score of a factory that is using the Higg FEM 3.
    • Provide performance improvement plan as per SAC verification protocol.

2) Product Sustainability Services

SgT’s experts work with you to identify opportunities to improve the environmental performance of a product with the following services:

  • Life Cycle Assessment: (ISO 14040/14044): full or screening data confirmation, modelling and reporting to assess a product’s environmental impact either from cradle to grave or from cradle to cradle.
  • Life Cycle Assessment Critical Review: fair and reasonable 3rd party evaluation of your LCA to ensure its transparency and credibility.
  • Carbon Footprint (ISO 14067) / Water, Energy and Ecological Footprints.
Sustainability services

3) Green Claim Services

Also called environmental claim, a green claim is an assertions made by brands, retailers and suppliers about the environmental qualities or characteristics of their goods or processes.

  • Green Claim Verification: verification, quantification and validation of your existing green claims.
  • Green Claim Development: our experts will help you develop quantifiable, accurate and official green claims.

4) Recycling Verification Services

  • Supply Chain Traceability & Validation: assessment and validation of the percentage of post-consumer, post-industrial or total recycled content.
  • Recycled Content Preparation & Validation: consulting and testing service to help you ensure that a recycled product has the right percentage of recycled content.
  • Recycled Product Footprint: quantification of a recycled product’s environmental impact vs. a virgin product. Recommendations and action plan to ensure the recycled environmental footprint is positively different than the one of a virgin product.
Technical advisory

5) Sustainable Textiles Academy

Comprehensive set of training for internal teams, suppliers and factories. Available in English or in your local language, training are hosted by SgT to upskill your team on a wide range of topics related to sustainability in textiles and fashion:

  • Environmental Management & Assessment
  • Chemical Management & Assessment
  • Carbon Footprint in Textiles & Fashion
  • Environmental Footprints (Carbon, Water, Energy and Ecological footprints)
  • Textiles Product Life Cycle Assessment
  • Sustainability in Textiles & Fashion
  • SAC approved Higg Index FEM 3.0 Training
  • Higg Index Capacity Building
  • Detox Assessment Capacity Building and Training

 

SgT also offers additional support via different reading resources (blog articles, newsletters, e-books, etc.) to do more research on the topics covered in training.

The Benefits of Sustainability:
4 Main Reasons to Be Sustainable

1) Ensuring Environmental Compliance

Become a proactive industry-leader in environmental compliance. Increasingly strict regulations are being continuously imposed as countries race to be seen as the ‘most sustainable’ and comply with new international regulations. Being ahead of the competition will also ensure that less work will be required to comply with new future regulations.

2) Save Costs with More Efficient Production Methods

Lower Energy & Resource Usage

Although there may be some initial investment required to implement ‘green’ production processes, it has been proven by very successful energy and resource reduction initiatives, that sustainability lowers real-world production costs.

 

Enhanced Profit Margin

As with all organic and sustainable products, you’re able to charge a premium for your goods. Consumers will want to pay that in order to be ‘doing their part’ too.

3) Increased Sales

Today’s consumers are becoming ever more environmentally conscious, and with the bad press that fashion is now regularly getting, textiles are in the crosshairs. Differentiate your products from your competitors and maintain an excellent brand image by pushing initiatives for sustainability and improving the quality of your softlines.

4) Improved Positive Impact on the Planet

We can all agree, especially considering the statistics shared earlier, that lowering the environmental burden of our products is a positive point for the planet now that we are starting to see climate change and pollution really take effect. If you can be seen to be genuinely making an effort to become a more sustainable business, not only does it protect the environment and people involved in the production of textiles and garments, but it also protects your brand from criticism and improves brand favorability.

Industrial Initiatives

There is an increasingly large number of environmental and sustainable initiatives in the global marketplace today. Some of the initiatives are given below:

Global Social Compliance Programme (GSCP)

Launched in 2006 and gathering 39 members, The GSCP mission is to hamonize the existing efforts and to deliver a common, consistent and global approach across sectors for the continuous improvement of working and environmental conditions in global supply chains.

Sustainable Apparel Coalition (SAC)

Initiated by Walmart and Patagonia in 2009, the SAC is an alliance of more than 200 global apparel manufacturers, brand and retailers that has developed the Higg Index, a universal approach to measure the sustainability performance of products and facilities.

Zero Discharge Hazardous Chemicals (ZDHC)

In 2011, a group of major retailers made a shared commitment to help lead the industry towards zero discharge of hazardous chemicals by 2020. The ZDHC Programme includes a collaborationof 24 signatory brands, 59 value chain affiliates, and 15 associates and support implementation of safer chemical management practices.

SgT’s Global Network

Why Choose SgT?

We have a peerless sustainability expertise. Our experts are on-the-ground every day, allowing a pragmatic understanding of your processes, facilities, products and legislation.

SgT’s Global Network

Led by a world-class leader who holds a Doctorate in Textiles Sustainability (PhD) with an extensive experience on Environmental Sustainability and who developed the very first scientific models for EI, ESI, RPI, LCA based Consumption, and Eco-functional Assessments.

Expertise & Knowledge

All SgT employees also have an extensive textile and technical background, some with in excess of 15 years of industry experience. Our dedicated team has extensive knowledge of the sustainability challenges and needs of the textile industry. They’ve visited many factories producing every type of textile-based goods around the world to provide environmental and chemical assessments, training, and consulting.