Environment & Supply chain

ENVIRONMENT & THE SUPPLY CHAIN

Our supply chain is a very important piece of the sustainability puzzle, where both people and planet are key stakeholders of our actions. On this page we will focus on environmental issues in the supply chain and what we are doing for our planet.

Learn more about NA-KD's commitments for Climate Action here. To learn more about what we’re doing for people working in our supply chain, please read more here.

There is a heavy dependence on natural resources within the fashion industry, at the same time it’s senseless that so many clothes and discarded textiles end up in landfill. It is obvious that the fashion industry needs to change. At NA‑KD, we are committed to do our part of transforming the fashion industry to become more and more sustainable.

All our new suppliers agree to

Share environmental data with NA‑KD through the Higg Index Facility Environmental Module (FEM), hosted by Worldly.
Hold certificate(s) for production with recycled or organic materials; for example OCS certified organic cotton or RCS certified recycled polyester, or be able to produce with other lower impact materials.
Sign our supplier Code of Conduct and have a valid social audit that is renewed continuously. Read more on that here.
Be open to collaborate for traceability and transparency.

The supply chain environmental challenges

The fashion industry has a significant impact on climate change, ranging somewhere between 3–10% of total greenhouse gas emissions. Raw materials, yarn and fabric production as well as garment manufacturing represents more than 80% of greenhouse gas emissions. Production also comes with environmental challenges such as water usage, scarcity and discharge, chemical use and potential pollutions, as well as impacts on soils and biodiversity. That’s why we at NA‑KD think it’s of essence to address the environmental challenges in the entire fashion supply chain. We have identified our highest risks of environmental impacts and you can find them here.

Finding the sustainability hot spots

Continuous improvements to reduce environmental impact is an integral part of the day-to-day work for us at NA‑KD and for our partners. We use the Higg Index Facility Environmental Module (FEM) through our collaboration with the Sustainable Apparel Coalition. The Higg Index is a performance platform that identifies, tracks and manages environmental impacts of a facility over time. It enables identification of sustainability hotspots and improvement opportunities. See our most recent Sustainability Report to get the latest updates on our status.

Higg index

The Higg Index FEM focuses on seven areas of environmental sustainability in our production:

ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT SYTEMS (EMS)
ENERGY USE & GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS
Water Use and Wastewater
WATER USE
WASTE WATER
WASTE MANAGEMENT
AIR EMISSIONS
CHEMICAL MANAGEMENT

Water, chemicals and energy

Water

Water is essential to all life on Earth. With climate change comes water scarcity, and hence we have to take even greater care of all water we use. In the fashion industry, water is also essential for our business. From growing the cotton crops, to dying the fabrics into wonderful colours and washing our fav pieces. That's why we at NA‑KD strive to move towards more water-efficient production methods, and communicate with our customers how to care for their fave pieces in a more environmentally sound manner.

Wastewater

Chemicals

There is no reason that garments shouldn’t be safe. Safe for people wearing them, safe for the people producing them, and safe for the environment. We are continuously working on eliminating any hazardous pollutants into water, soil and air.

We have adopted a preventative approach with NA‑KD's Restricted Substances List (RSL), which goes beyond REACH legislation and is part of all supplier contracts. The chemical requirements stated in the RSL apply to all
NA-KD products and materials – including fabrics, garments, trims, accessories and packaging. All NA-KD orders must comply with this minimum standard.

At NA-KD, we also actively promote the use of non-hazardous chemicals and production techniques using no or fewer chemicals, and conduct risk-based screening to help our suppliers continuously improve their chemical management. We also joined the PFAS Movement in the fight against “forever chemicals”, and hope and believe that this movement will be an important driver to phase out this chemical from the industry at large.

Energy

Most energy used for the fashion industry is used in the supply chain – fibre & yarn production, fabric production, wet treatments and confectioning (sewing the actual piece of clothing).

Here we need work from two angles – energy efficiency and switching to renewable energy. The two key enablers in this work are supply chain transparency (knowing who our suppliers, and sub-suppliers are, all the way to raw materials), and gathering information on suppliers' environmental performance.

Our ambition is to support the suppliers to improve their environmental performance, both for energy efficiency and choice of energy used. By gaining supply chain transparency and environmental performance data of suppliers, we can focus our efforts where they make the greatest impact – and collaborate with our industry peers in doing so.

To learn more about our work for climate action, please read here.

OUR CLIMATE IMPACT

To understand more about the climate impact from our supply chain, we have calculated our climate footprint according to the GHG protocol. We have also set bold reduction targets and will work actively to reduce emissions across our value chain. The supply chain in naturally in focus of this work as it stands for the largest share of our emissions.