Our Sustainability Report 2019 is here. Entitled HÄLT, it was prepared in accordance with the latest Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) standards and provides information on our progress and plans in terms of sustainability. The report highlights the five areas of action of our holistic sustainability strategy: products, corporate governance, environment, employees and commitment. A brief overview:
ACTION AREA PRODUCTS (extract)
More transparency
All our production partners have recognised the amfori BSCI Code of Conduct as binding. It defines standards with regard to management practices, working hours and remuneration, freedom of association, the prohibition of child labour, the prevention of discrimination, health and safety at work and ethical business practices and is therefore based on the ILO core labour standards, among others. Compliance with this code is audited once a year by independent experts. Our Sustainability Report 2019 presents the production sites and their audit results in detail and sets out our plans to further intensify social audits by 2020
Less packaging - more sustainable material
Since 2019, we have deliberately dispensed with cardboard inserts and clips for shirts and blouses. This allows us to save around 4 tonnes of paper and cardboard and 1.5 tonnes of plastic every year. We want to reduce the need for non-recycled packaging material by 50% by 2022.
We also want to review and reduce the microplastic footprint of our products by 2022. To this end, we are planning a market analysis of alternative fibres and PFC-free alternatives for textile finishing.
We were also able to increase the proportion of sustainably produced cotton to 24% in the reporting period. By 2022, we want to cover up to 50% of our processed cotton from sustainable sources and use only sustainable merino wool.
FIELD OF ACTION CORPORATE MANAGEMENT (extract)
Brand, values, growth
We have also already implemented a number of goals from our sustainability strategy 2017 - 2022 in the area of corporate governance. We relaunched our brand in 2017 and developed our values compass in 2017/2018. We achieved our ongoing goal of healthy growth by successfully closing the 2018 financial year with an 11% increase in sales compared to the previous year.
More digitalisation
We have set ourselves the new strategic goal of expanding digitalisation. We will examine the various possibilities offered by new technologies such as big data and artificial intelligence in all areas of the company in order to, among other things, reduce the physical strain on our colleagues and increase the traceability of our supply chains. It is important to us to bring digitalisation and HAKRO together - in other words, without sacrificing employees.
ENVIRONMENTAL FIELD OF ACTION (extract)
Sustainable energy and emissions strategy
At HAKRO, we pursue the vision of a world worth living in, in which people use natural resources in a sustainable and balanced way and limit climate change. With this in mind, we want to minimise the ecological footprint of our entire value chain and avoid emissions. To this end, we have opted for renewable energies and made our logistics centre self-sufficient in electricity. We fully offset unavoidable emissions - and retroactively until 2016 - to make our site climate-neutral. This also applies to our business trips and even our employees' daily commutes.
Greenhouse gas reduction in the supply chain
As one of the first signatories of the Fashion Industry Charter for Climate Action, at the end of 2018 we committed to reducing energy requirements in our value chain, utilising renewable energies and using raw materials produced in an ecologically sustainable manner. This includes reducing greenhouse gas emissions along the entire supply chain by 30% by 2030 compared to 2015. To achieve these targets, we will examine alternative transport routes by 2022 in order to reduce upstream transport emissions.
FIELD OF ACTION EMPLOYEES (extract)
Living diversity
Mutual respect is very important to us - regardless of gender, age, ethnic origin, religion or ideology, sexual orientation and physical condition. With 167 employees from 15 nations, we support the Baden-Württemberg Entrepreneurs' Initiative and are in favour of a right to stay through work for men and women who have fled. Free German courses during working hours and the expansion of participation in Diversity Day are two of many other measures and projects in this field of action.
Open to new ideas
We are working on setting up a company suggestion scheme, are already giving our employees the opportunity to share their suggestions and concerns via the Better Box and would like to involve our production partners even more closely in the sustainability dialogue in future.
Sustainability concerns everyone
Because sustainability is a joint endeavour, our new report also gives long-standing business partners a chance to have their say for the first time. Under the heading ‘Companions’, they describe their view of things. It's worth taking a look!
Our Sustainability Report 2019 is available in the download area at www.hakro.com/service/downloads. We will be happy to send you a printed copy on request. Please simply contact our customer service.
