Inside High Fashion Group: Implementing Efficient Environmental Management Systems and Safe Chemicals in Textile Production
Acknowledging that natural resources are finite and recognising their own environmental impact as a company, Hong Kong based High Fashion Group has been taking steps to building a sustainable supply chain for textile production: from sourcing sustainable fibres, to following stringent chemical regulations, to building environmental facilities.
One of their divisions, Advance Textile, is a textile and garment manufacturer that has been specialising in silk for over 40 years, covering raw material procurement, spinning, weaving, dyeing, printing and manufacturing.
We are excited to welcome High Fashion Group’s Advance Textile as a new addition to the Future Fabrics Virtual Expo showcase, particularly during the launch of our Future Fabrics VIRTUAL Expo LIVE this past week from 1-8 July. In recognition of our new addition, we’ve listed four ways in which High Fashion Group is taking action to produce sustainably. (And as another added bonus: High Fashion Group’s gender employment is equal, with the ratio of female to male in management at about 6:4.)
- Material Choices with a Low Environmental Impact
High Fashion Group sources fibres with a low environmental impact for production, such as Lenzing TENCEL™ fibres (from sustainable sourced wood cellulose), ECOVERO™ fibres (certified by EU Ecolabel), REFIBRA™ technology (which involves upcycling cotton scraps and recycling lyocell fibres), linen, and sustainable silks.
“An increasing number of materials will be replaced by more sustainable yarns such as those from Lenzing Group, Naia, and other bio-based yarns,” says High Fashion. “For example, TENCEL™ has the flexibility to develop into different kinds of yarns for various garments. We think TENCEL™ might gradually replace polyester, nylon, and a portion of cotton. As a result, we’ve developed a fashion sportswear collection that combined both silk and TENCEL™ to give the sportswear market a new alternative to petroleum-based fabrics.”
- Effective Environmental Management
Since 2008, High Fashion has been regulating emissions and promoting developments in renewable energy. Every year, they invest in their facilities to transition to more environmental systems of production, such as solar energy, wastewater treatment, waste gas treatment, and energy-saving machines. The company is investing further into renovating their current solar power system, with the goal to power 26% of their factory with it by the end of this year (versus current 11%).
The solar power system is also used to heat up water for production use. Up to 50% of wastewater can be filtered and reused for production, and controlled VOC is used for the treatment of waste gas.
High Fashion Group is certified with management certification systems such as ISO 9001, ISO 14001, OHSAS 18001.
- Safe Chemicals in Production
High Fashion Group is the first and the only silk manufacturer since 2018 that has been certified OEKO-TEX Made in Green, which requires both OEKO-TEX Standard 100 and STeP certifications. The MADE IN GREEN label is a more complex certification to achieve, because it combines both OEKO-TEX® Standard 100 and STeP certifications. The label gives customers the certainty of knowing that the product is made with materials that have been tested for harmful substances (as covered by Standard 100); in environmentally friendly facilities and in safe and socially responsible workplaces (as covered by STeP).
Fabric finishings and dyes can contain harmful chemicals such as azo dyes, formaldehyde, nickel and more, and the origins of chemicals are further obscured when supply chains are not traceable or transparent. EU REACH regulations (which OEKO-TEX® Standard 100 also covers) require that companies who produce products in the EU must meet one of the strictest chemical regulations around the world. Therefore companies outside the EU, such as High Fashion Group, that certify against standards with EU REACH regulations as part of its program, meet comparatively higher levels of testing that are safer for the environment and people. The OEKO-TEX® laboratory tests include around 100 test parameters and take into account the intended use of the textiles. The more intensive the skin contact of a textile product, the stricter the limit values for each product class.
STeP, a program by OEKO-TEX®, differs from other certification systems because it assesses production conditions instead of only individual sustainability aspects. STeP analyses all important areas of a company using 6 modules: chemical management; environmental performance; environmental management; social responsibility; quality management; health protection and safety at work.
High Fashion Group also became a bluesign® partner in June 2020. While other standards certify end products based on sample tests without observing the chemicals used in manufacturing, the bluesign® system for textile suppliers aims to reduce the industry’s impacts on the environment and people through Input Stream Management, eliminating environmentally damaging substances from the beginning of the process. High Fashion Group is working towards being bluesign® approved by the end of the year.
Further to the company’s own strict standards for chemicals, High Fashion also applies a dyeing process to their fabrics that reduces water consumption by four times.
- On Mulberry Tree Farming for Sericulture
Sustainably cultivated silk can be a carbon mitigation fabric compared to others in the industry. The Bombyx Mori moth, which produces the silk fibre, feeds exclusively on mulberry tree leaves — the higher the quality and fresher the leaves, the higher the quality of the silk fibre.
Cultivating mulberry trees in a balanced ecological system increases yields per land used, provides environmental and economic benefits, and restores and regenerates the soil. Mulberry trees also grow well on ‘marginal land’, and their deep roots can prevent soil erosion. The mulberry tree is one of the fastest-growing trees while absorbing carbon dioxide in the process. According to a research of IOP Conference Series: Materials Science, a field of mulberry trees mitigates CO2 equivalents 735 times the weight of the produced silk fibre of that area.
Agroforestry projects involving organic cultivation of mulberry trees allow for companion planting of other crops (such as food) alongside the trees, also known as “intercropping”, providing more subsistence income to the farmers involved.
At High Fashion, original mulberry leaves are used as a colour dye in garment production, and the natural fibres of silk waste are biodegradable, which can be composted and serve as nutritious feed to Mulberry trees, closing the loop on silk production.
To ensure that the carbon footprint of silk production is sustainable across the supply chain beyond the mulberry trees, High Fashion has built their own production ecosystem on the same campus, which includes weaving, printing & dyeing, garment manufacturing factories, and production bases.
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