BETTER CHOICE BETTER FUTURE BY SUPERDRY | SYLVIA PARK

Superdry is on track to move all pure cotton garments to organic by 2025, launching its SS22 range with the iconic Better Choices Better Future campaign.

The international fashion brand has taken its 2030 sustainability goals seriously, coverting more than a third of its offering across Australia and New Zealand to organic, recycled or low impact materials this season.

Since setting the goal to be the most sustainable global listed fashion brand by 2030, Superdry has invested heavily in organic cotton farming. Organic cotton accounts for less than 1% of the world’s supply of cotton, and it takes three years for farmers to convert from traditional cotton farming to organic alternatives. By 2025, the brand commits to converting 20,000 cotton farmers to organic cotton practices, enough to supply Superdry’s entire cotton footprint. Superdry is the only global fashion brand to commit to converting the number of farmers needed to meet our organic cotton goals and will do so 5 years ahead of the originally proposed 2030 goal.

“We are dedicated to provide better choices for our consumers and do our part for a better future” says Superdry AUS/NZ GM, Antony Hampson.

“Our global team have worked very hard, and we are proud to say that more than one third of our products this season moving forward are sustainably sourced with goal of reaching 65% by 2025 and 100% organic or recycled cotton by 2030”.

Superdry is proud to unveil its ‘cotton in conversion’ strategy, investing in more than 7,500 farmers in India and Turkey in 2021/22 to convert to organic farming practices, extending this programme to over 12,000- farmers in 2022/23. In 2021/22 Superdry also donated over 65 million organic cotton seeds to these farmers to support them during their conversion period, alongside training and guaranteeing to buy their cotton harvest at premium.

The Superdry brand is proud to unveil a wide range of tees, shirting, shorts, and polos made with organic cotton, cotton-in-conversion or recycled materials, making up 35% of their total offering this season, available in store and online.

Further to this, Superdry’s SS22 range includes the brands first sustainably focused denim range. All cotton used in the new range is 100% organically grown. The brand is also making some moves in its detailing process, with all pockets made with recycled polyester and leather patches replaced with paper jacron alternatives.

Beyond cotton, the brand is making some significant sustainable developments in its summer product offering with a recycled swimwear range that makes a difference. Superdry’s SS22 swimwear collection is crafted from up to 4.5 million plastic bottles, bags, nylon fishing nets and general plastic waste. Once sourced and sorted by colour and type, the plastic is then broken into small flakes, cleaned, and sterilized before melted into liquid and spun into threads for new fabrics, creating a range made from waste. This latest development comes as a seasonal extension of the brands winter range, which saw puffer jackets filled with either responsibly sourced down fill or recycled fill produced using up to 48 plastic bottles per jacket.

“Many brands have been making waves in the sustainability space but very few are tackling the issue on the global scale that Superdry is” says Superdry Australia and New Zealand’s Head of Marketing and PR, Matthew Iozzi.

“Superdry is a global brand looking for global solutions”.

Superdry is also reusing the waste associated with garment production in its own supply chain. As an industry, up to 15% of fabrics used to produce garments is traditionally wasted and discarded during the production process. In 2020/21, Superdry recycled 418 tonnes of fabric waste (in the form of pattern offcuts), enough to make 1.3 million Superdry t-shirts. Recycled cotton reduces carbon emissions by up to 25% and uses up to 95% less water, compared to conventional cotton.

Finding ways to recycled and resus water holds particular relevance to the Australian market which sees the Aussie consumer on average discard approximately 23 kilograms of clothing to landfill each year according to a recent report by the Australian Government DCCEEW.

Superdry’s sustainably sourced products will be available in store and online available at www.superdry.com.au/sustainably-sources/ as of this month.