Everything to do with sustainability
We are making a carbon footprint analysis
In a small series of blog posts, we want to share with you our current status, aspirations and achievements in the field of environmental and social sustainability. As a company and brand, we have existed for almost 200 years and have always remained true to our roots and the region. In order to continue this history and, above all, to put this success on a sustainable foundation, we want to continuously improve our efforts in both environmental and social sustainability. Because despite old and new successes, resting on them has never been part of our philosophy. Continuous progress is necessary for us as a brand, but also for us as a society, in order to maintain the freedoms and privileges we enjoy. Because nowadays, hopefully even the last person has understood that unrestricted consumption of goods and commodities cannot be maintained without cuts in organisation, production and behaviour. Until today, we consume and enjoy at the expense of the environment, animals and fellow human beings.
We are already clearly feeling this in the form of ozone holes in the atmosphere, melting glaciers, increasingly frequent extreme weather phenomena such as hurricanes, the extinction of numerous animal species and a large and seemingly unbridgeable gap between the global North and South. It is therefore not only a matter of the heart for us to constantly improve in all areas of social and ecological sustainability, but as part of society and an economic player, we also see it as our obligation towards our environment and fellow human beings. Because we are aware that the textile and apparel industry is the second dirtiest industry in the world after the oil industry. It is time for all players in our industry to take responsibility and push for change. We are therefore taking a clear position and want to bring about a change in the industry and the consumer behaviour of society. Read more about this in our sustainability policy statement on our website.
Our goal is therefore to be able to celebrate Lodenfrey's 200th anniversary in a climate-neutral and completely circular way! The aim is to achieve climate neutrality by 2025 at the latest. We already have a number of milestones on the way to achieving this goal. At our headquarters in Garching near Munich, we have been producing more solar energy than we consume for more than 10 years. Our branch office in Austria is also completely supplied with green energy and we are currently converting our own production facility in Romania so that the entire production there can also be based on solar energy via solar cells on the roof.
Our clothing has always been based mainly on our namesake fabric, loden. Even today, we have a natural fibre content of about 80% in our entire production, the majority of which is loden, i.e. pure new wool. For the remaining synthetic fibres, we take great care to ensure that the fibres are made from recycled materials. We are in close contact with all our suppliers. This allows us to produce clothing that is biodegradable, yet has a high level of functionality and is economical in water consumption. Our clothes are also designed to be durable. Even today, we get old jackets and coats returned to us from grandfathers and great-grandfathers that are still completely intact. This quality is what sets us apart and is always maintained. Clothes are not just for the moment, they are meant to last a lifetime. This longevity and purity in the fabrics also allows our products to be mostly recyclable and upcyclable. Of course, this is to be developed even further.
All this is completed by the regionality of our company. We are deeply rooted in the alpine regions, we source our fabrics from these regions, we produce in the European Union and sell mainly in Central Europe. Accordingly, we have (almost) only inner-European transport routes. We also work with our logistics partners to make transport as climate-friendly as possible and to achieve climate neutrality as soon as possible. Furthermore, points such as the reduction or even elimination of plastic in everyday office life and replacing it with biodegradable materials, the introduction of a company car policy, as well as enabling home offices are on the agenda or have already been implemented. Our employees in Germany and Austria already work from their home offices at an average rate of 50%, which saves a lot of commuting kilometres. We are currently drawing up a precise carbon footprint of our company, which takes into account everything from the birth of the sheep to the cleaning of our products. With the completion of this first carbon footprint, our company's first sustainability report will also be published at the end of the current business year.
We are also particularly concerned with promoting new types of business models. Because it should be clear to everyone that the type and amount of consumption that we cultivate in our society can only be maintained if this does not happen at the expense of our world and living space. Models such as lending, renting or sharing clothes must be promoted and established accordingly. That is why we support young start-ups, such as ClothesFriends from Munich, which is a clothing exchange platform (it is definitely worth taking a look at ClothesFriends). In addition to a large portion of creativity and courage on the part of the industry, this also requires a paradigm shift on the part of the consumer. Because a change towards such sustainable and future-oriented models can only be achieved together and hand in hand!
Next week you can read more about our social sustainability efforts.