It’s an incredible honour and we feel immensely proud to win this award that will be collected by our CEO Geoff von Sonsbeeck at a ceremony during COP26 in Glasgow.
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2021 marks the 10th anniversary of the of the United Nations Global Climate Action Awards. These prestigious awards shine a light on examples of innovative action on climate issues from around the world.
“This past year, we have seen deadly wildfires and floods in many parts of the world,” said UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Patricia Espinosa. “We urgently require solutions and actions from everyone: public and private sectors, civil society, academia, investors, cities and regions, etc. The winners of the 2021 UN Global Climate Action Awards provide tangible proof that solutions to tackle the climate crisis exist and that they can be replicated and quickly scaled up. This is what inspiring leadership looks like.”
The 11 award-winning projects fall within three focus areas: Climate Neutral Now, Financing for Climate Friendly Investment and Climate Leaders. We are extremely proud and honored to be one of the winners in the ‘Climate Neutral Now’ category, along with such leaders as Microsoft and Taylors of Harrogate.
As a business we have worked incredibly hard to be where we are now, having made a number of changes to our use of materials and logistics in recent years. From Q2'19 to Q2'21, we have achieved an average saving of 1.19 kg of CO2e and 830 litres of water for every garment we produce. In the first half of 2021 alone, this represents a total saving of 99 tonnes of carbon equivalent emissions and 74 million litres of water.
This recognition belongs to the company; to our team and manufacturers who have worked so hard to analyse and reduce emissions at every stage of operations.
Receiving the Climate Neutral Now award from the United Nations cements Baukjen’s position as a leading Green Fashion Brand.
Our work to become a low carbon brand has entailed choosing fibres and fabrics with lower environmental footprint, shortening our supply chains, becoming a Zero Waste company and moving our office to a Green Building.
We’re also increasingly circular, with an increasing percentage of recycled fibres in our collection (mostly natural), Rental and Pre-Loved collections.
We became completely Carbon Negative across our entire supply chain as of 2020 by analysing, reducing, restoring and offsetting our carbon emissions through Gold Standard CER and VER offsets. Carbon Negative means that the impact goes beyond achieving net zero carbon emissions to actually create an environmental benefit by removing additional carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
So, we’re actually Climate Positive!
As one of the Best for the World B Corps, people and planet are at the heart of everything we do at House of Baukjen, so we are thrilled that our work in this area has been recognised by the United Nations. We won’t be resting on our laurels though!
We’re continuing to work as hard as ever to reduce emissions and the environmental impact of our business in every environmental SDG, whilst striving to have a positive impact on all the people we impact, directly or indirectly.
We use our business as a force for good and want to encourage other companies to follow our lead and take action to combat climate change together. We’ll campaign to create a more sustainable fashion industry and lead the way as much as possible, sharing our path along the way.