GOING CIRCULAR

Sustainability Compendium V

An F2F Initiative

Suvastra India

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From the Director’s Desk

Karthigeyan.B (Karthik)

Director

Here at Suvastra India & Associated Partners, lies a dedicated staff able to interpret and satisfy the ethical fashion industry by providing sustainable design to deliver, platform. An enterprise that can truly offer, a wide range of services, with the highest degree of transparency and ethical standards. We are committed to make a difference in the lives of our employees and partners through fair and transparent business practices, by providing safe and hygienic working conditions and by producing high quality, sustainably designed products with integrity.

About

Company Background

Suvsastra in Sanskrit means “Happy Clothing’’. The company started in 2010 with the vision to create a community of happy stakeholders across the value chain. “This principle of happiness or goodness defines our business ethics, philosophy and the products we make. We believe that we can produce happy clothing only when all the people associated with us, directly or indirectly, are happy in short.” It is all about ‘The Planet and The People’. The company’s mission is to create a community of happy stakeholders across the value chain—from the farmers who produce the cotton and employees to suppliers, and from bankers to customers.

Policy

Sustainability Policy

Suvastra India works on sustainability in the core processes of all daily operations. It is a top priority, and a key factor in the decision-making process, both strategically and operationally. The daily work consists of continuous improvements via audits and follow-ups. “Following this direction gives us a good chance to incorporate sustainability in all aspects of our products in our daily operations.”

The company believes in being EcoFair with the following values:

Eco-friendly: GOTS & GRS
Ethically made: Fair Trade and Fair Wear Foundation;
Design: Sustainable design by international designers at the Suvastra Japan design office;
Durability: Support ethical fashion as against fast fashion.

The international offices- Suvastra Japan, Suvastra Europe and Suvastra USA—are aligned to the policy on sustainability and “we all have a common goal which is ethical fashion.”

INITIATIVES

SUSTAINABILITY INITIATIVES

Some of the sustainability initiatives taken by Suvastra India are as under:

2013: Joined GOTS and Fair Trade.
2014: Joined Fair Wear Foundation.
2014: Fair Trade India’s largest shirt was made—to generate awareness. It remains a record according to the Limca Book of Records.
2015: Joined Global Recycle Standard.
2015: Joined hands with Swastik NGO on Women Empowerment project—to make an impact on women’s empowerment, their health and safety.
2016: Made the first Coca-Cola sustainable workwear (pet bottle to shirt).
2017: As part of workers’ better life initiatives, distributed living wages for all workers (with contribution from Nudie Jeans).
2018: Started working on Work Wear (EcoFair workwear) to make an impact on the unorganised sector.
2019: Worked on a Workwear Exclusive Collection with the EcoFair concept.
2020: Workwear Exclusive Collection presented in London.

VIEWPOINT

Overall Circularity Viewpoint

Some pointers:

The world’s second largest polluting industry is textiles and apparel.
Industrial waste (pre- and post-usage) is one of the top sources of environmental pollution. Across the world, untreated or improperly treated industrial effluents pollute the air, water and soil both in and around industrial sites. The pollution caused by an industry depends on its nature, with some industries generating more toxic waste than others

Have you ever taken a moment to look at the care label on your clothes to see where your clothes were made? Although the label may seem harmless because a lot of our products are manufactured with different raw materials, there is so much more to the story than just a composition label. We live in a ‘fast fashion world’ rather than in a ‘sustainable fashion world’ where companies produce high volumes of low-priced clothing at the expense of the environment and workers.

Fashion companies across the world process 50 million garments per day. Just imagine the resources involved, both human and otherwise. In the world’s least developed countries, an estimated 40 million people sew more than 1.5 billion garments in 25,000,000 factories and sweatshops each year. In many cases, these workers are not provided with basic worker’s rights, fair wages and ethical working conditions.

So, how can we make the difference?

Surely, we can do better to save Mother Earth. The solution is sustainable fashion through -- brands, factories and consumers. The solution is sustainable fashion through Fair Trade, GOTS and GRS guidelines, and ethical fashion through Fair Wear Foundation guidelines.

PRODUCTS

Circularity Initiatives Planned

The Fair Wear Foundation is an independent multi-stakeholder initiative that aims to improve the working conditions in the textiles industry around the world. The Foundation audits working conditions in Asian companies that manufacture branded products. This enables one to ensure that suppliers meet the social responsibility requirements. We are proud to be a part of this initiative.

The Global Organic Textile Standards (GOTS) prohibits harmful and hazardous processing methods, driving industry to innovate alternative non-hazardous and sustainable techniques. GOTS certification helps in market entry. It also improves prospects for enterprises in less-developed countries leading to improved industrial performance. Suvastra India wants to achieve 100 per cent capacity in GOTS certified cotton production by 2022.

The Global Recycle Standard (GRS) helps reduce the harmful impact of production on people and the environment; provides assurance that materials in the final product are actually recycled and sustainably processed; drives innovation in addressing quality issues in the use of recycled materials.

Recycled polyester is certified by independent third-party organisations to confirm that we are doing our bit in reducing our environmental impact. Suvastra India, made our first shirt under GRS for Coca-Cola Sweden. The target is to produce all workwear with recycled polyester by 20205.

Fair Trade aims to give disadvantaged small producers and workers more control over their own lives. It addresses the injustices of an insufficient income for a decent living and insufficient market access by guaranteeing that producers receive fair terms of trade and fair prices or wages. The target over the next five years is to develop 10 small producers, and with the workwear initiative bring about ethical working standards at these places.

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Suvastra India

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