Pollution

Detox Commitment

In 2013, Greenpeace exposed that Chinese factories working for renowned fashion brands discharged wastewater, containing traces of hazardous chemicals, into rivers and oceans.
Like many others, G-Star signed a DETOX Commitment with Greenpeace to address this issue and ban the use of hazardous chemicals from our products and production processes by January 2020. With the deadline expired, we have set the goal to have phased out all unsustainable chemicals applications by 2030.

Signing the DETOX commitment followed our membership to the Zero Discharge of Hazardous Chemicals (ZDHC) initiative. The ZDHC signatory brands, manufacturers, chemical formulators, and associates unite around a joint roadmap to ensure safe and sustainable chemical use in the fashion industry. In practice, this means aligning to ZDHC’s mission to lead fashion’s value chain to achieve the highest standards for sustainable chemical management, driving resource efficiency and circularity, and committing to specific guidelines, such as the ZDHC Manufacturing Restricted Substances List (MRSL) and Wastewater Guidelines, and industry tools for chemical environmental performance and wastewater testing.

Since 2018, G-Star RAW tracks the performance of the wet processing factories on the input, process, and output areas of chemical management in the so-called G-Star RAW DETOX program, completed twice per year. The DETOX program was designed to monitor G-Star's supply chain partners based on externally verified information and to be able to identify points of improvement.