C&A has announced the beginning of its journey towards circular fashion with the launch of its Cradle to Cradle (C2C) gold certified T-shirts. C&A will become the first fashion retailer worldwide to launch C2C certified T-shirts in June 2017 that have achieved gold level. These C2C certified T-Shirts follow the cycle of use, reuse and rebirth of clothing. In partnership with the C&A Foundation, the company will launch T-shirts made of 100 per cent organic cotton, produced using only chemicals that are designed for safe cycling as biological nutrients, and manufactured in a socially and environmentally responsible way.
C2C certified products are evaluated and optimised for human and environmental health, recyclability or composability, renewable energy use, carbon management, water stewardship and social fairness. These products take nature as an inspiration, where the waste of one system becomes food for another. Products can be similarly designed to anticipate their next use. Products are considered either biological or technical nutrients–designed to be reused, recycled into new products, or to safely degrade in your compost pile. This approach to product design has wide ranging positive effects such as farmers work without hazardous fertilizers and pesticides to grow Bio Cotton; workers in the production process only work with safe chemicals.
By using renewable energy, offsetting carbon emissions, and cleaning the water used in production, C2C certified products support both the health of the ecosystems and communities in which they are manufactured and the overall health of the planet.
