Be honest about your production process and show your efforts to consumers.
‘We aim to incorporate at least 10% locally collected ‘post-consumer’ textiles into our collections by 2025 and create transparency throughout our entire supply chain.’
We love to meet up with clients. This time, co-founder Jolanda in talks with Gijs Konink, Sustainability Manager at State of Art menswear. What does sustainability mean to State of Art? To us sustainability is about keeping people and planet top of mind at all times. This includes good working conditions and the use of sustainable materials. We also find it important to be transparent about everything we do. What does the sustainability strategy of State of Art look like? The State of Art brand was born from the Albert Westerman knitwear factory, where quality and reliability came first always. We want every product to have a long lifecycle and our long-term partnerships guarantee the quality and sustainability of our collections as well as the social and ecological conditions at these facilities.
So I believe we are already doing a good job, but we haven’t really shown this so far because we first want to collect the evidence to proof that our efforts are real. We strive to create transparency throughout the entire supply chain and increase the use of sustainable materials. That is why we got our GOTS certification last year and developed the sustainable label ‘Responsible. Together’ which includes all of our sustainable initiatives. Our collaboration with Loop.a.life, with whom we created our first circular collection, is an example. We are also associated with the Green Deals Circular Textiles and our ambition is to incorporate at least 10% locally collected ‘post-consumer’ textiles into our collections by 2025 and create transparency throughout our entire supply chain. How does supply chain transparency help State of Art to become more sustainable? With most of our suppliers, we’ve been working for over 20 years, so we know a lot about the production process.
With tex.tracer, we can trace our products back to origin and see the entire journey. The real-time data that is saved onto the blockchain gives us verified insights into the entire production process. The educated decisions we make based on these insights result in making State of Art more sustainable. The QR code that can be scanned by consumers shows the entire journey of our products which creates trust, eventhough the supply chain may not be entirely sustainable yet. Do you have any advice for other brands? Always be honest about your production process and show your efforts to consumers. You can never be entirely perfect, because in the process of making improvements, other things happen which makes that you can never score a 10. But in the end it is not about the number, it is about putting a real effort into taking steps forward.
