Next

With the imple­men­ta­tion of a Res­pon­sible Sour­cing Stra­te­gy the com­pa­ny laun­ched in 2018, it set out on a mis­sion towards more sus­tai­nable sour­cing. The com­pa­ny has taken the first steps to improve its mate­rial sour­cing and has map­ped and publi­shed most of its sup­ply chain. It states that 19% of its pro­ducts are sour­ced accor­ding to its res­pon­sible sour­cing cri­te­ria and 13% of its cot­ton is sour­ced in accor­dance with the Bet­ter Cot­ton Ini­tia­tive. It has also joi­ned the ZDHC Pro­gramme, which aims to eli­mi­nate che­mi­cals in its pro­duc­tion pro­cess. Use of mohair has been ban­ned and only RDS cer­ti­fied fea­ther and down is allo­wed. Howe­ver, the com­pa­ny does still use mate­rials, like lea­ther, from unk­nown sources and can gene­ral­ly be more trans­pa­rent about spe­ci­fic ori­gins.

The com­pa­ny hasn’t yet ful­ly map­ped its sup­ply chain emis­sions since it reports scope 3 emis­sions but doesn’t include emis­sions gene­ra­ted by its fac­to­ries and sour­cing poli­cies. Never­the­less, it has set tar­gets to reduce emis­sions, which include a 35% reduc­tion tar­get for scope 1 and 2 by 2030. In terms of rene­wable resources, Next became a mem­ber of the RE100 ini­tia­tive, which com­mits them to using 100% rene­wable elec­tri­ci­ty by 2030. It cur­rent­ly uses rene­wable ener­gy in its owned faci­li­ties for a large per­cen­tage, but doesn’t pro­vide infor­ma­tion about these per­cen­tages in its sup­ply chain. The gaps in trans­pa­ren­cy concer­ning its sup­ply chain become a pat­tern in its repor­ting and somew­hat take away from what Next does well in its own faci­li­ties. The com­pa­ny has to catch up a lot in terms of packa­ging. It still uses harm­ful che­mi­cals like PVC, which contain main­ly unre­cy­clable plas­tics and only 30% is FSC cer­ti­fied.

Next is a mem­ber of the Ethi­cal Tra­ding Ini­tia­tive and is invol­ved with ACT in Cam­bo­dia to advance living wages. It has a Code of Conduct in place and states that it has audi­ted 99% of faci­li­ties during the pre­vious year. While ETI does conduct exter­nal audits, the exact num­ber of audits, who conduc­ted them and audit results are not known, which implies that there is room for impro­ve­ment for labor in Next’s sup­ply chain.

Next has a lot of tar­gets in place and has star­ted to look ahead, but more dis­clo­sure and trans­pa­ren­cy about its mate­rials, car­bon foot­print and labor condi­tions are needed.