Alpine Group to adopt the Future-Fit Business Benchmark

Alpine Group, which supplies brands including The North Face, American Eagle Outfitters, Under Armour and Sweaty Betty, has become the first textile and garment manufacturer globally to adopt a new science-based sustainability management tool, the Future-Fit Business Benchmark.

The end-to-end apparel manufacturing company announced the news to coincide with its 40th anniversary and stated that it will use the science-based strategic management tool, which aligns with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, to clearly define how it can move its business forward towards a “future-fit society”.

Utilising the Future-Fit Business Benchmark, the Alpine Group said it would be “pursuing a comprehensive sustainability strategy,” dubbed ‘Threading the Future’ that will focus on materials and innovation, people development and empowerment, and environmental impact and community action.

Ashok Mahtani, co-founder and chairman of Alpine Group, said in a statement: “In the early years when I was visiting textile and dyeing mills, I had seen with my own eyes the damage the industry was doing, and no one seemed to care about sustainability then. Fixing that broken system requires collective effort.

“At Alpine, we have spent the past 40 years researching and pioneering sustainable breakthroughs in materials science and manufacturing technology. Adopting the Future-Fit Business Benchmark now is our way of accelerating change by bringing the rest of the industry – brands and partners alike – on this journey with us. We do it so that our innovation and manufacturing can positively impact the entire value chain.”

Textile and garment manufacturer Alpine Group set sustainable goals

The Alpine Group’s sustainable commitments will revolve around the three pillars: Every Threat Counts concentrating on materials and innovation, Every Action Counts focusing on environmental impact and community action, and Every Person Counts setting goals for people and development.

When it comes to materials and innovation, the Alpine Group is committing to ensure that by 2023, more than 60 percent of all polyester used will come from recycled bottle or textile waste and that 100 percent of all man-made cellulose fibres from wood pulp will be sourced from Canopy Green Shirt fibre manufacturers.

Other sustainable goals include ensuring that 100 percent of all cotton comes from sustainable sources according to guidelines defined by the Textile Exchange’s Sustainable Cotton Challenge by 2025 and that 25 percent of all garments will be produced with solution-dyed materials to reduce overall water consumption.

The Alpine Group is also targeting that by 2030, 75 percent of all man-made cellulosic fibre is from tree-free sources, such as agricultural waste and bacterial cellulose.

Alpine Group announces sustainable strategy focused on materials, environment and people

Targets directed at environmental impact include making sure that all manufacturing facilities use 100 percent renewable energy by 2030 and setting themselves a Science-Based Target to reduce its scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions in line with the Paris Agreement goals.

The final action pillar aimed at people and empowerment will see the Alpine Group supporting a minimum of 250,000 women, on top of the 50,000 per year in the next five years through its Dignity Kits programme that uses textiles waste to create kits that alleviate period poverty.

In Egypt, the group is also working on a HERfinance partnership with HERproject to digitalise wages within the apparel workforce to empower production floor employees to take advantage of the benefits of digital wages and enhance financial literacy.

Lewis Shuler, head of innovation at Paradise Textiles, Alpine Group’s dedicated innovation hub, said: “The apparel industry has long been mired in debates about the sustainability problem, often sidestepping each other even as greenwashing continues unabated. What our industry needs to make fashion fit for the future is more collaboration on more solutions from all angles.

“Our sustainability innovations include our work on textile-to-textile recycling technology and processes that help to minimise waste at scale, and thus, at an accessible price point. Beyond textile recycling, we are also continuing to research and push for the use of better bio-based alternatives that deliver on performance, such as corn and hemp, while also deploying advanced Physical Tracer technology that facilitates transparency and authenticity to all materials we use.”

Commenting on the significance of Alpine Group embracing the SDG-aligned benchmark, Dr Geoff Kendall, co-founder and chief executive of Future-Fit Foundation, added: “The transition to true sustainability is going to be long and hard for any business — and like any journey, you don’t get very far unless you know exactly where you’re going. The Future-Fit Business Benchmark defines the destination all companies need to aim for and offers guidance to steer toward it.

“Unfortunately, many businesses still find the idea of real transformation daunting, so settle for incremental improvement to the unsustainable status quo. That widespread lack of ambition only serves to underline the importance of Alpine Group’s commitment to Future-Fit. It’s a milestone development that stands to pave the way for the fashion industry as a whole. Hopefully other organisations will follow Alpine Group’s lead — to play their part in building a better world.”

Alpine Group to open Alex Apparels “factory of the future” in Egypt

The move follows the group’s announcement in April to open a state-of-the-art “factory of the future” for its Alex Apparels company based in Egypt in response to the strong momentum it has secured in the region.

Set to open in late 2022, the factory will add an additional 10 million garments to its annual capacity in the country and provide an additional 2,000 jobs for the local community. The complex is also being built using sustainable methods and the group is looking to secure LEED Gold certification, a voluntary environmental certification system to recognise the sustainability attributes of design, construction, operation and maintenance of buildings.