NA-KD becomes the first e-commerce brand to announce a fully climate neutral Black Week.

NA-KD sees this year’s Black Week as an important opportunity to promote the need to take action against climate change and pushes for a more sustainable Black Week in 2020. NA-KD is already working intensively to reduce or eliminate emissions in the company’s operations and will during Black Week, climate compensate for the remaining emissions footprint for the period in order to become fully climate neutral during the whole week. 

In November 2019 NA-KD became the first fashion e-commerce brand to fully compensate for the emissions resulting from the transportation of the company’s products: from factory to warehouse, warehouse to consumer as well as from customer returns. Now NA-KD will also compensate for the rest of the company’s carbon footprint, e.g. from the production of the company’s products. The initiative to make Black Week more sustainable is an important step in the company’s target to be climate neutral at the end of 2025. This will be achieved by working towards full supply chain transparency, with aggressive targets and initiatives to reduce emissions and then by compensating for what has not been possible to reduce by 2025. 

NA-KD will work with external experts in the climate compensation space, to calculate the carbon emissions related to Black Week’s operations and sales in order to compensate for what is required. All compensation will be done by investing in projects such as renewable energy or the plantation of trees. The projects will have a Gold Standard certification, which guarantees that the projects deliver directly on the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Calculations and detailed information of the outcomes will be fully disclosed in the brand’s 2020 Sustainability Report. The work will be implemented with a basis in the GHG protocol (more info below) and NA-KD will also set reduction targets in line with what is required for the 1.5°C pathway.

During Black Week 2019, NA-KD sold more than 750,000 items for a total sum of 250M SEK. In 2020 NA-KD’s  guidance for sold pieces is in excess of 1 million items, corresponding to sales between 325-375 MSEK. The company expects more than 10 million visits from more than 100 countries during Black Week. NA-KD is working hard to rapidly increase its share of sustainable products, i.e. in terms of fabric, and manufacturing units in line with NA-KD’s expectations on fair working conditions and environmental management. More than 40% of the products released in Q4 will be sustainable according to this definition. 

Anna Winde, CSR Director:

“NA-KD’s ambition to be fully climate neutral by 2025 is a top priority for us. We will calculate our emissions according to industry standards and the GHG protocol, and will be setting our reduction targets in line with the 1.5°C pathway. This demonstrates our ambition to be online fashion industry leaders, and that we act swiftly to achieve real impact quickly.”

Jarno Vanhatapio, CEO & Founder

“Sustainability is a complex area spanning over everything we do. We are humble in front of the challenges that we as a company, the industry and society stand before. To be able to act swiftly and implement improvements in the areas with the highest impact, we have teamed up with industry experts within the field of sustainability. We will invite all our millions of customers on a transparent journey where they can follow our work to become an increasingly sustainability company. To have a climate neutral Black Week is a big milestone for NA-KD and we hope we inspire other brands to follow our example even if it comes at a short term cost”

Appendix

Black Week 2020 calculations will include: 
In GHG protocol scope 3 (indirect emissions in the value chain):

All raw material and fabric
The journey starts in the fields and forests, with the production of the raw material such as wool, cotton or viscose. Although NA-KD is not in control of this part of the chain, the brand will be including this in their Black Week carbon compensation offer.

All production
NA-KD will climate compensate for the entire production footprint.

All shipping and deliveries
From factory, to warehouse, to customer, all inbound shipping and deliveries already come with a promise of a carbon offset, all year round.

GHG protocol scope 1 (controlled emissions) and scope 2 (indirect emission from purchased energy):

Everything at the warehouse
Every work hour, all electricity and all energy that is used in our 3 warehouses will be climate compensated in full. 

Everything at the office
Computers, coffee, climate control and cleaning. Paper print-outs and push-pins. Every last detail of the day to day work in NA-KD office will be climate compensated.

Statement of the last 12 months of progress of NA-KD’s Sustainability ambitions

Products manufactured from more sustainable materials: 
NA-KD has made the commitment that that all garments will be made of 100% more sustainable materials by the year 2025, this means sustainable cotton (organic or recycled), sustainable natural fibres (cellulosic or linen) and recycled polyester.

The brand has gone from single digit numbers in the beginning of 2019, to well over 20% in Q3 2020 - and aims for 50% in 2021.

Supply chain: 
Through the Higg Index NA-KD provides suppliers with an Environmental Management System (FEM). This focuses on six areas of environmental sustainability in the production: Energy consumption, water, biodiversity, local & accidental pollution, chemicals and waste handling. NA-KD partnered with the Sustainable Apparel Coalition and Higg Index in March 2019, by end of 2019 had 60 production facilities onboard, and by Q3 2020 had introduced over 100 production facilities to the Higg Index to conduct a self-assessment of their environmental impacts, corresponding to 52% of suppliers. 

Transportation: 
Climate compensation for all transportation during 2020. From factory to delivery to customer, and returns. NA-KD investments in this space are in a gold standard certified project for renewable energy:https://www.tricorona.se/projekt/hindustan/

Warehouse: 
Solar panels on the roof (167 KW.) covering 15-20% of energy used in the brand’s new warehouse in Sweden. This will increase by time, and until that NA-KD compensates this during Black Week.

Packaging: 
The brand has made significant progress in multiple areas of packaging over the last 12 months. All hang tags are made from recycled paper. All neck and care labels are made from recycled polyester. All shoe boxes are made from recycled materials. All jeans patches are made from paper instead of leather. 100% of plastics in our shipping bags are from recycled plastics.  

All plastic packaging for NA-KD Reborn products is made from 100% recycled plastic with an added Biodegradable Organic Polymer (BDP™). It attracts microbes and allows them to consume the plastic in the same way they would organic matter, meaning that the BDP ensures that the plastic doesn’t cause microplastics. If thrown in landfill the leftovers will eventually become the same as for organic waste - compost waste, water and biogas. NA-KD’s goal is to use BDP in all our plastic packaging.

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For more information, contact:
CEO, Jarno Vanhatapio, jarno@na-kd.com, +46 768 99 180 0 
Brand Director Natasha Billing, natasha.billing@na-kd.com, +46 70 450 82 35
CSR Director, Anna Winde, anna.winde@na-kd.com, +46 70 748 80 01
 
Images:
https://www.na-kd.com/en/press-release-image-bank
 
About NA-KD.com

Swedish NA-KD launched in January 2016 with a goal to deliver the latest trends at an affordable price. With a close connection to the biggest influencers in Europe, NA-KD has quickly established itself as a leading fashion player for Millennials and Gen Z. Currently, NA-KD has over 17 million monthly visitors to na-kd.com and 3 million followers in social media - making it one of the fastest growing brands in the world. Being truly global, NA-KD delivers the latest trends to more than 100 countries every month and is represented by over 600 retailers world-wide.