Gant

How sustainable is Gant?

Gant main­ly uses natu­ral fibers of which cot­ton is its main mate­rial. It has a tar­get in place for 100% sus­tai­nable cot­ton by 2020, and is cur­rent­ly using 36% more sus­tai­nable cot­ton sour­ced from the Bet­ter Cot­ton Ini­tia­tive. Other mate­rials the com­pa­ny uses are syn­the­tic fibers, wool, lea­ther down and fea­thers and a small per­cen­tage of plant-based fibers. Its down is cer­ti­fied by the Res­pon­sible Down Stan­dard, but it does use lea­ther and wool from non-cer­ti­fied sources.

Gant doesn’t track emis­sions in its sup­ply chain. It’s a mem­ber of the Sus­tai­nable Appa­rel Coa­li­tion and manu­fac­tures a per­cen­tage of its pro­ducts in faci­li­ties that also use the Higg Envi­ron­men­tal Module. The per­cen­tage of fac­to­ries adop­ting the module has to increase in order to pro­per­ly mea­sure its envi­ron­men­tal per­for­mance. This is an essen­tial step towards mea­su­ring its true car­bon foot­print because the com­pa­ny signed the Fashion Indus­try Char­ter for Cli­mate Action, which com­mit­ted Gant to a 30% reduc­tion of car­bon emis­sions by 2030. Gant has publi­shed a list of fac­to­ries in its sup­ply chain and became a mem­ber of the Swe­dish Che­mi­cal Group’s RISE pro­ject to effec­ti­ve­ly manage che­mi­cals in its sup­ply chain. The com­pa­ny aims to reduce its water usage in manu­fac­tu­ring by 50% by 2025.

The brand has a Code of Conduct and a part­ner­ship with Amfo­ri BSCI to ensure labor condi­tions in its sup­ply chain. It also works with other cer­ti­fied fac­to­ries, but doesn’t publish about audit fre­quen­cy and results. There’s no evi­dence that sug­gests living wages are being paid and more trans­pa­ren­cy is nee­ded in general.