G‑Star

How sustainable is G‑Star Raw?

This screening has been done by Fairify on March 22^nd 2020

G‑Star Raw is a Dutch denim brand. It was foun­ded in Ams­ter­dam in 1989 and partly becau­se it made cle­ver use of stra­te­gic part­nerships with cele­bri­ties, it has gai­ned inter­na­tio­nal fame. The latest of which being a part­nership with Pha­rrell Williams, who beca­me a co-owner of the brand. They’ve wor­ked together in the past when Pha­rre­ll’s Bio­nic Yarn colla­bo­ra­ted with G‑Star on laun­ching a sus­tai­na­ble collec­tion made of reused plas­tics from the ocean. Now, the Dutch denim brand and the Ame­ri­can pops­tar have big plans for the futu­re together, which defi­ni­tely pro­mo­te sus­tai­na­bi­lity. But the­re is some work to be done.

G‑Star does not lack ambi­tion. The brand is impro­ving trans­pa­rency of its supply chain by publishing an inter­ac­ti­ve manu­fac­tu­ring map on its web­si­te, which shows all the foreign fac­to­ries that G‑Star works with, inclu­ding their addres­ses. This allows us to gain insight into exactly whe­re all pro­ducts come from. The Dutch denim giant is also doing great in terms of mate­rial sour­cing and currently uses 97% sus­tai­na­ble cot­ton. It’s on track to increa­sing this per­cen­ta­ge to 100% in 2020. The com­pany sta­tes that 86% of its mate­rials are currently sus­tai­na­ble and is con­sis­tently wor­king towards increa­sing this per­cen­ta­ge. It’s also wor­king together with ZDHC to eli­mi­na­te che­mi­cals from its pro­duc­tion pro­cess.

G‑Star has also sig­ned the UN Cli­ma­te Char­ter, com­mit­ting to cut total emis­sions by 30%. To achie­ve this, it began buil­ding an inven­tory of sco­pe 1 and 2 emis­sions in 2019 and sta­ted to assess sco­pe 3 in 2020. As of now, the famous denim brand has not map­ped its car­bon foot­print, which disa­llows it to mea­su­re its pro­gress towards the tar­get of 20% car­bon reduc­tion by 2025. This is the reason why G‑Star doesn’t recei­ve a higher sco­re. We’re mis­sing a bit of trans­pa­rency con­cer­ning actual envi­ron­men­tal per­for­man­ce of its faci­li­ties and data on aspects like water and was­te, espe­cially sin­ce water is a very impor­tant topic in denim pro­duc­tion. The­re is also no infor­ma­tion avai­la­ble on energy usa­ge and, if appli­ca­ble, the per­cen­ta­ge of rene­wa­ble energy being used. The same goes for pac­ka­ging and trans­por­ta­tion. So whi­le the com­pany ack­now­led­ges that it does not pos­sess the data to accu­ra­tely mea­su­re its impact, it’s wor­king on get­ting the­se sys­tems up and run­ning and, in the pro­cess, has already com­mit­ted to redu­cing its foot­print.

In terms of labor rights, G‑Star are medio­cre. The com­pany is trans­pa­rent about its supply chain and has a Code of Con­duct that outli­nes labor rights in its fac­to­ries. It also sta­tes that it con­ducts inter­nal and exter­nal social and envi­ron­men­tal audits to ensu­re its stan­dards are being lived up to, but its repor­ting doesn’t inclu­de the audits’ con­duc­tors and results. The denim brand does par­ti­ci­pa­te in a lar­ge num­ber of initia­ti­ves and is currently part­ne­ring with ACT to aim for living wages in its supply chain. But G‑Star could further impro­ve its trans­pa­rency by per­for­ming and publishing social audits in its fac­to­ries.

All in all, G‑Star is sho­wing it’s com­mit­ment to posi­ti­ve chan­ge, but the­re are some neces­sary steps the brand has to take in order for us to truly belie­ve it prac­ti­ses what it preaches.