How Does C&A, With Its 100 Years Of Development History, Implement Sustainable Development Strategy In The Chinese Market?

(source SocialBeta) in most people's eyes, fashion has "fast rhythm" and "high consumption" labels.

According to statistics, global consumers will buy 80 billion new clothes each year, with a total consumption of 1 trillion and 200 billion dollars. According to McKinsey's latest report, more than half of the fast fashion apparel will be abandoned in less than a year.

With the upgrading of fashion industry consumption, young people's awareness of environmental protection has gradually begun to awaken.

At the same time, SocialBeta also observed that Shanghai fashion week as an example, since 2017, "sustainable development" has become a fixed official agenda, and more and more brands are beginning to respond to the slogan of "sustainable development". The fashion of sustainable development seems to be moving from edge to mainstream in China.

Since 2016, the global fashion retail brand C&A has held #Wear the change green new fashion environmental protection activities every year in China.

C&A, founded in Belgium in 1841, is famous for its fashionable and fashionable fashion and accessories.

As an advocate of the concept of "sustainable development", C&A has been promoting the values of the green industrial chain in the field of sustainable development in the past hundred years.

In the face of the slogan of "green consumption" launched by many brands, how should we define the concept of "sustainable development fashion"? According to the 2018 annual report of global fashion format released by BoF and McKinsey, sustainable development is not just a marketing tool. It goes deep into the upstream supply chain of enterprises, and uses the concept of circular economy to update the fashion business operation mode.

This time, SocialBeta interviewed Dewey, CEO, Mr. C&A of China, to learn how C&A broke through in the Chinese market at the moment of "green trend".

Dewey C&A China - Mr. CEO

(CEO of C&A China- James Michael Dubow)

The sustainable concept of close integration with commerce

Since joining the Textile Exchange in 2005, C&A has been actively promoting the green garment industry chain in many countries and regions, and has become the "world's leading organic cotton buyer" in less than ten years.

In 2012, C&A launched a new global sustainable development strategy, including sustainable products, sustainable supply chain and sustainable life, and insisted on mitigate the environmental damage caused by various links within the scope of its capability.

In this interview, Mr. Dewey also gave us a detailed introduction of the achievements of C&A in the past year around the concept of "sustainable development":

Procurement of more sustainable products

The proportion of cotton fabrics made from organic cotton is very small in the Chinese market.

Therefore, since 2017, C&A has worked with the C&A foundation and Cotton Connect to conduct pilot projects in Shandong to support the pformation of 300 cotton farmers from traditional cotton to organic cotton.

In addition, C&A launches environmental protection fabric series every year, including environmental friendly Binzhou cotton series, comfortable cotton linen series and vitality cotton series, aiming to bring consumers more green and healthy experience.

C&A is an organic demonstration cotton field in Binzhou, Shandong.

Improving green supply chain management

At present, C&A China and C&A Europe share 45% of the suppliers.

In C&A official website, every customer can easily find the name and address of the factory responsible for making the goods.

In 2018, C&A was also ranked the top ten in the list of the 2018 index of green supply chain CITI in terms of sustainable chemicals and supply chain management, ranking fourth in the industry and second in the apparel industry.

Continue to focus on sustainable life.

Every year, C&A encourages employees to actively participate in social charity activities. In May 2018, 97% of C&A employees participated in the C&A global inspiring world activities, and raised a total of 41160 euros for 3 charity women's development foundation, the Shanghai Association for the promotion of public welfare foundation and WWF (India).

In January 2019, the C&A China joint Beijing women and children development foundation and the Far East Chia social welfare fund donated clothes to children left behind in the mining subsidence area of Tianfu town, Beibei District, Chongqing.

In the same month, C&A and Zhongzhi (Shanghai) donated a total of 230 winter clothes to the children left behind in Dayao County, Yunnan Province, and once again sent love and warmth to the children in remote mountainous areas.

In C&A's view, the concept of "sustainable development" is the cornerstone of brand commerce.

When we released the "global sustainability report 2017" last year, C&A global chief sustainability officer Jeffrey Hogue also said: "we made significant progress in 2017, which is the direct result of the perfect combination of sustainability and our business organization.

Sustainable development is an important factor that we must consider when designing and purchasing garments. This fully reflects our respect for human beings, animals and environment in the process of purchasing and making.

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Pay attention to the training of consumers' "green consumption" consciousness

In order to help customers make smarter purchase decisions in the sustainable development of clothing, C&A has launched a global multi-channel sustainable development campaign #Wear the Change green new fashion since 2016.

Mr. Dewey told SocialBeta: that "a lot of things originate from an idea.

At the beginning, we pursue a more recyclable and sustainable fashion, because it is not only beneficial to ourselves, but also makes the future better.

But later we found that sustainability is not only that: organic cotton producers, cotton farmers, and the communities they live in can lead a healthy and happy life, as well as our social responsibilities.

This is the first concept of #Wear the Change green new fashion. Every step is important from the birth of the product until it is sent to the consumer.

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In 2018, C&A China launched the #Wear the Change green new fashion marketing campaign for the first time.

They launched the environmental theme design competition jointly with the cool net of the station, and produced the "harmonious symbiotic" environmental protection products of the winner of the competition. The series adopted the environmentally friendly cotton which was cultivated in the cotton demonstration field in Binzhou, Shandong Province in the pition period.

In addition, SocialBeta has previously reported their "harmonious symbiotic" series notebooks, which are launched with the local brand nine hills, which are also made from Italy environmental protection writing paper and environmentally friendly soybean ink.

"In the Chinese market, the implementation of #Wear the Change green new fashion" is the most important thing. We think that the most important thing is whether consumers form a concept of sustainability, and pass the meaning and idea behind the environmental products to consumers. We think this still needs a long-term process.

Mr. Dewey said in an interview.

In addition to the activities of #Wear the Change green new fashion, C&A also launched the energy saving and low carbon store pformation plan, replacing the lamps and lanterns of the store with the LED lights, and pmitting the concept of environmental protection to more consumers through the scene of the store.

At present, 15 stores have been refitted, saving 33% of electricity compared with the previous ones.

Promoting the localization of the concept of "sustainable development"

In 2018, C&A conducted a survey of "whether you understand #Wear the Change green new fashion" for consumers in various markets around the world.

Mr. Dewey told SocialBeta: that "#Wear the Change green new fashion" has made a good response in the global market. We are delighted to learn from the findings that the Chinese market has performed particularly well.

We also received a lot of feedback from consumers in various markets, prompting us to continue to improve our activities and to make the concept of sustainable development truly localized.

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In C&A's view, China's younger generation of consumers, especially the young after 90 and 00, have a high degree of acceptance and communication ability for sustainable concept.

In recent years, they have released interactive activities on the social platform, such as the international forest day and the earth hour, and have also gained a large number of fans' participation and feedback.

To better implement the brand concept of "sustainable development" in the Chinese market, C&A has also set up a special team in China to integrate the brand's global sustainable strategy into the local market.

At present, C&A has established the global sustainable development committee in Europe headquarters. In China, this work is supervised by the cross functional Committee. The members of the committee are from the marketing department, purchasing department, commodity department and personnel department, etc., to promote the implementation of local sustainable development in China, and to ensure better and effective communication with the global C&A Sustainable Development Committee.

Mr. Dewey pointed out that in the future, the C&A world will also aim at "becoming a recognized sustainable development retailing fashion brand". From the three aspects of sustainable raw materials, sustainable supply chain and sustainable life, the goal of sustainable development in 2020 has been formulated: 67% of raw materials are more sustainable, 100% of cotton is more sustainable; C&A's total footprint of the national stores, distribution centers and headquarters has been reduced by 20%, achieving zero hazardous chemical emissions; continuously improving staff's sustainable development performance; and establishing and achieving the key objectives in the women's empowerment action plan.

(source SocialBeta)

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