Climate Action and Biodiv­ersity

Vision

50% absolute reduction in CO2 emissions by 2027

Directly invest in the local environment of GANNI’s suppliers to promote biodiversity by 2025

Climate action is one of our biggest focuses at GANNI. With our new Gameplan 2.0 we continue mapping and measuring our carbon footprint, choosing lower-carbon alternative materials and intensifying our focus on decarbonisation with the goal of a 50% reduction of absolute emissions by 2027 (from a 2021 baseline). In addition to this, we’re focused on carbon insetting, which sees us directly investing in and collaborating with our supply chain to reduce emissions and improve biodiversity.

The Scientific Stuff

Scopes Explained

  • SCOPE 1

    Direct emissions from owned or controlled sources. e.g. stores, offices

  • SCOPE 2

    Indirect emissions from the generation of purchased energy

  • SCOPE 3

    All indirect emissions (not included in Scope 2) that occur in the value chain of the reporting company, including both upstream and downstream emissions

GANNI’s total 2022 carbon footprint is 19,298.4 CO2eq. This includes Scopes 1, 2 and 3. In the pie chart below you can see that most of our emissions (98.7%) come from Scope 3. Our Scope 3 emissions are the largest across all scopes because of the nature of our work. Our suppliers produce clothing which, in turn, accounts for indirect emissions. Scope 3 includes categories like our materials, packaging, transportation, waste in our operations, business travel, employee commuting, the use phase of sold products; and, the end of life of sold products.

Our carbon emissions have increased by 14% compared to our 2021 emissions. This was largely due to an increase in transportation logistics, as we opened in more locations, including China, and our business travel increased as it was the first year with unrestricted travel since the Covid-19 pandemic. We are very happy to report that the impact of our materials saw an almost 2% reduction, which is largely due to us prioritising responsible materials. We have a long journey ahead of us to reach our 50% reduction by 2027 (from a baseline of 2021) but we're confident that our decarbonisation strategy puts us in the best possible position to reach the goal.

Ganni’s carbon footprint

Decarbonisation

GOAL 1

Launch GANNI’s 7 by 2027 plan to reduce carbon emissions by 50% by 2027

GOAL 2

Develop and roll out a carbon removal scheme for unavoidable scope 1 & 2 emissions in 2023

GOAL 3

Commit to not working with Tier 1-2 suppliers that use coal-generated heat or energy by 2025

7 by 27

In 2022, we took stock of all of the work and projects we had around climate action and built it into one framework, now known as 7 by 27. The 7 by 27 plan consists of 7 workstreams that need to progress simultaneously in order for us to have a chance of reaching our 50% absolute reduction of carbon emissions by 2027 goal.

The 7 By 27 Workstreams

  • 1. MATERIALS & INNOVATION

    Using responsible materials & Fabrics of the Future

  • 2. CLIMATE ACTION AWARENESS

    Creating internal & external awareness campaigns

  • 3. RENEWABLE ENERGY

    Ensuring the use of renewable energy in stores & offices

  • 4. CIRCULARITY

    Designing for circularity, circular business models, increasing recycling & upcycling

  • 5. TRANSPORTATION

    Decreasing emissions in inbound, outbound & last mile delivery

  • 6. INSETTING

    Investing directly in our supply chain to reduce carbon emissions

  • 7. NO COAL

    Removing the use of coal in our supply chain

We can’t do it alone

Towards the end of 2022, we assembled a Carbon Squad at GANNI made up of 19 employees from different departments including Product Development, Logistics, HR, Marketing, and E-commerce. The Carbon Squad are specialists in their respective fields and have a willingness and interest in GANNI’s climate action work to help us reach our 50% carbon reduction goal through the 7 by 27 plan. Senior Management at GANNI also have carbon-related KPIs to achieve. The Carbon Squad officially launched in January 2023. We look forward to sharing the Carbon Squad’s progress in next year's report.

Saying goodbye to coal

GANNI has been a UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) signatory since 2019 and we are committed to not working with suppliers that use coal-generated heat or energy. During the summer of 2022 we dived into our Tier 2 supply chain to assess if any factories were still using coal and if these facilities were shared with the other UNFCCC signatories. A mammoth task to say the least!

After almost 4 years with the UNFCCC, we decided to end our membership towards the end of 2022. The other brands that are part of UNFCCC are much bigger than us, which means they have very different approaches to a multi-stakeholder project like this. We believe the best solution for us is to work directly on our supply chain.

We are currently in the process of validating the information we have from our Tier 2 suppliers to assess their coal use. Our focus right now is on Tier 2 suppliers, as coal boilers are generally more common with material suppliers (McKinsey, 2020). Despite having ended our membership with UNFCCC, we have committed to not working with Tier 1-2 suppliers that use coal-generated heat or energy by 2025.

Carbon Insetting

GOAL 4

Scale and evolve carbon insetting to 5 more suppliers by 2025

We have been using carbon offsetting from 2016 to 2020 and investing in Global Standard Foundation and UN-approved social projects that support clean energy. While carbon offsetting can be part of a holistic climate action strategy, there is an increasing discussion in the industry around its actual social and environmental impact.

In 2021, we made a decision to move towards carbon insetting, an initiative that will see us invest directly in decarbonising our own supply chain by partnering with our suppliers to lower their emissions. The initiative also empowers our suppliers by giving them more sustainable means of operation, while creating benefits for the industry as a whole.

In 2022 we partnered with two of our Portuguese suppliers, Ramil and Rodrigues, on a pilot project to install solar panels at both factories. We also worked with local biodiversity experts to implement measures to improve biodiversity on the land surrounding the factory.

As of November 2022, the Ramil project was completed, while Rodrigues will be completed by October 2023 once the building of their new facility is finalised.

SPOTLIGHT ON

Carbon insetting with Ramil in Braga, Portugal

Ramil is one of GANNI’s strategic suppliers based in the Braga region in the north of Portugal. They produce GANNI’s software collection and knit the fabric in the same premises. They have 35 employees and GANNI accounts for 65% of their production capacity. Ramil was not using renewable energy to power their factories at the outset of the pilot but had already considered switching to solar panels independently of GANNI. That made them an ideal collaborator for our carbon insetting pilot. Integrating biodiversity work as an aspect of the carbon insetting pilot was always important to GANNI, and Ramil was an interesting case as the factory itself is situated on a large piece of land of roughly 4000 square meters that includes a vineyard.

We commenced the pilot project by concluding that the existing roof at Ramil’s facility could handle the weight of solar panels. After agreeing to collaborate on the installation of solar panels, we introduced them to STRIX, a Portuguese biodiversity consultancy we partnered with for this pilot. After all elements were cleared, the solar panels went up. The next step was for STRIX to conduct a biodiversity assessment of the fauna and flora in the area surrounding Ramil’s factory. STRIX looked at what was native and what was not and put together a plan to introduce more native species of plants to attract more insects along with bird and bat life. Biodiversity measures ranged from simple solutions like creating log piles and clearing debris to installing bat boxes and planting peach trees to attract pollinators. We then spent a day in September planting with the STRIX and Ramil teams, installing the bird and bat boxes and clearing the area of any unnecessary debris. Together with STRIX we conducted a biodiversity workshop for the employees to bust some myths and to explain the importance of biodiversity.

The solar panels were installed in July 2022 and we should have an accurate understanding of their impact by July 2023.  We are, however, able to estimate the emissions savings based on the capacity of the solar panels and Ramil’s current energy usage. Our carbon consultants, Plan A, helped us estimate that with the current installed capacity there is a potential annual net emissions mitigation of approximately 8.3 metric tonnes of CO2eq, roughly 1.2% of Scope 2 emissions, which include indirect emissions from the generation of purchased electricity.

In 2023, we will be focusing on our second insetting project with Rodrigues, also located in the north of Portugal. It is still our ambition to collaborate with other brands that we share suppliers with in order to scale this initiative further.

Biodiversity

GOAL 5

Pilot 2 measurable biodiversity projects in Portugal by 2023

GOAL 6

Develop a biodiversity strategy by 2023

A recent report from the European Commission (so pretty legit) states that ‘biodiversity loss and climate change must be tackled together’ as protecting and restoring healthy ecosystems can help us mitigate and adapt to climate change. That is why we have added this element to our climate action work and Gameplan 2.0.

We started this work as part of our carbon insetting projects in Portugal, but the reality is that we do not know the true carbon impact of these projects as it is pretty hard to measure. But even without all of the maths and science, if habitats and soils are restored, it might be a good thing, right? Of course we will not stop there, we need to find a way to measure the impact while also scaling to more geographies across our supply chain. In 2023, we plan to scope out a full biodiversity strategy and ensure that any carbon insetting project that we start has a biodiversity element to it. We look forward to keeping you updated on this.