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During its annual Impact Day event, this past Thursday 16 June, ZDHC launched the Detox Fashion Radar to benchmark brands that are on their Roadmap to Zero journey to detox fashion based on engagement level and implementation progress.
From all of ZDHC’s Contributor Brands, five achieved the highest level of implementation performance in 2021. Brands who achieved the Aspirational Level in ZDHC’s leader programme Brands to Zero are regarded as industry leaders. As part of the leader programme, ZDHC stages best practices to help individual brands on their journey to sustainable chemistry.
“This journey is not a race, and it’s not a competition.” said Frank Michel, the Executive Director of the ZDHC Foundation. “However, such journeys can feel like running a marathon with low visibility on your own position. The Detox Fashion Radar intents to provide a simple benchmarking and motivation for brands to share implementation progress with the interested audience.”
With the launch of the Detox Fashion Radar, ZDHC offers a simple navigation tool for the interested audience to see how individual fashion brands and retailers are engaging in the programme and progressing on their journey towards eliminating the use of harmful chemicals across their entire value chain.
Faced with the irreversible effects of climate change and the role of the fashion industry in the current environmental crisis, people are growing increasingly concerned about the position of their favourite fashion brands when it comes to chemical responsibility in the making of clothes. Our every day choices can make the difference. The radar’s intent is to present sustainable chemical management at a glance, to show fashion brands’ level of progress in implementing ZDHC’s Roadmap to Zero Programme across their value chains.
By visualising the progress made so far, the radar also acts as a catalyst for transparency. With the ZDHC Roadmap to Zero Programme as a leading and credible industry guidance for sustainable chemical management worldwide, ZDHC wants to be transparent in how fashion brands’ are making programme implementation progress needed for a sustainable future for fashion.
ZDHC Contributor Brands enrol into the leader programme ‘Brands to Zero’ undergo an annual assessment of their implementation performance and are held accountable to take corrective action plans as part of their commitment to ZDHC.
Mia Gunawan, Global Sustainability Program Manager for Chemicals at H&M group commented; “We’d like to invite more and more of fellow brands to focus on the input chemistry because by securing the safety of the chemicals that enter our productions, we will secure the outcomes and better management within the facilities. Given the size and scale of our value chain, we have an opportunity to influence the industry and with ZDHC an opportunity to accelerate and scale the impact even further.“ She goes on to say “by implementing ZDHC programmes, we know that our supply chain is managing their chemicals properly and we can build the foundations on other forefront areas such as demanding more transparency on chemicals and relating to circularity.”
As part of Brands to Zero, brands and retailers harmonise expectations towards suppliers and remove obstacles to allow responsible chemical management to thrive throughout their value chains. While all ZDHC Contributor Brands are recognised for their leadership within the industry, ZDHC measures and benchmarks the implementation performance within the Brands to Zero by using more than 70 KPIs and metrics centred around the Roadmap to Zero Programme, sustainable chemical management and supply chain management practices.
For the annual Brands to Zero assessment, ZDHC works with KPMG who offers a professional, transparent, and credible evaluation of brand performance resulting in a neutral report.
By committing to sustainable chemical management, embracing the implementation of sustainability throughout their corporate cultures, and actively monitoring goals and results the following companies (in alphabetic order) stood out as best practices and performance leaders in the industry committed to ZDHC’s mission - achieving Aspirational Level and as a result their brands are among the first brands that feature on the Detox Fashion Radar:
In comment to its achievement, Luke Boxall, Lead, Supply Chain Environmental Stewardship, said: ”Sustainable chemical management has long been a core part of C&A's sustainability programme. Through ZDHC we have contributed to, and benefitted tremendously from, the programme's strong collaboration between brands and industry partners. We are proud of our dedicated team of experts and are committed to building upon our work with the ZDHC to drive ongoing improvement across the industry.”
Brands that are not yet on the radar are invited to share individual progress on their journey according to the radar echo trail criteria. Additionally, brands that work with other comparable sustainable chemical management programmes and tools also qualify to feature in the Detox Fashion Radar.
Visit the ZDHC website to visit the radar, and learn how your brand can get on the radar.
www.zdhc.org/detoxfashionradar
Learn more about the Brands to Zero leader programme on our landing page
www.roadmaptozero.com/brands-to-zero
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