Italy’s largest fashion brands pledge to Detox their supply chains

Jess Shanahan - Supply Chain Management - 3 days ago

During a recent press conference, 20 companies from Italy’s Prato fashion district pledged their commitment to Greenpeace’s fashion Detox. The district is home to some of Italy’s oldest textile manufacturers and is Italy's most extensive fashion supply chain, exporting 2.5 billion euros of clothing annually to retailers such as Burberry, Valentine, Armani and Gucci.

Greenpeace is calling for brands across the world to implement the Detox solution that aims to eliminate the use of all hazardous chemicals from their global supply chain by 2020. This is based on taking the right precautions to keep chemicals out of the supply chain, acting with transparency on behalf of communities living in areas that could be affected by pollution from these chemicals and, finally, eliminating all releases of these chemical from the supply chain.

The agreement from the companies within the Prato district will affect 13 thousand tons of yarn and 13 million metres of fabric each year. These companies have already removed several hazardous chemical groups from its production as required by the Detox campaign. These include brominated and chlorinated flame retardants, organotins compounds, and amines associated with azo dyes that can have negative effects on human reproductive systems and cause cancer.

The Greenpeace Detox campaign demands that fashion brands commit to eliminate the use of all hazardous chemicals by 2020 and requires their suppliers to disclose the releases of toxic chemicals from their facilities to communities on an online independent platform. The Prato region’s commitments will be added to the growing list of companies choosing to Detox their fashion by 2020 including 35 international fashion and textile brands and retailers, representing more than 15% of global textile production in terms of sales. Among the companies joining Detox are Miroglio and Inditex as well as major international brands such as Valentino, Adidas, H&M, and Burberry.