Today MBDC is pleased to announce the first-ever Cradle to Cradle Certified™ GOLD T-shirts.
This is a level of achievement never before reached by a fashion garment, and we have been proud to work with C&A, Fashion for Good, and McDonough Innovation to help bring these items to exhibit at The Collection Room, C&A’s first-ever behind-the-scenes fashion event, today in Antwerp, Belgium at Parkloods Park Spoor Noord.
Our journey began in 2016, and the project took nine months to complete. As a first step, we visited Cotton Blossom and Pratibha Syntex, the two India-based manufacturers to help C&A develop and produce the Cradle to Cradle Certified T-shirts. We developed a baseline assessment of their factories against Cradle to Cradle Certified criteria; and we were happy to find both manufacturers already operating best-practice programmes for water treatment, social fairness, energy efficiency, and renewable energy–thus the improvements needed in these areas were minimal.
The landmark innovation and optimization portion happened during our pursuit of identifying and improving the material health criteria. We worked diligently to optimize the materials and chemicals used, ultimately replacing potentially hazardous or uncharacterized chemicals with chemicals that had been positively assessed. As an end result, the T-shirts are now made of 100% organic cotton, produced using only chemicals that are designed for safe cycling as biological nutrients, and manufactured in a socially and environmentally responsible way. The cotton clothing is even safe enough for home composting!
As the first fashion retailer worldwide to launch a product such as this, we stand proud with C&A to have been able to help make a difference in the industry.
An initial run of 350,000 the Cradle to Cradle Certified GOLD colored and designed shirts will be carried worldwide by C&A come June. Stay tuned for more Cradle to Cradle Certified apparel to come in the near future, as well as a case study that dives deep into our Cradle to Cradle process with C&A.
June 2017 update: The T-shirts are now available for purchase on C&A’s website.
For more information on how to begin your company’s product or material optimization journey, please contact us today.
