Jack & Jones is furthering its sustainable fashion efforts.
The European menswear producer pledged to Cotton made in Africa (CmiA) Thursday and will be the initiative’s first Demand Alliance partner in Denmark. Jack & Jones’ clothing now carries the CmiA sustainability seal.
All Jack & Jones apparel is made in Uganda from cotton field to finished product, which establishes a special bond between individuals involved across the country’s complete textile value chain.
“In Jack & Jones we love cotton and it is our most important raw material. Through our ambitious ‘Cotton Strategy’ we want to support that cotton is grown under better social and environmental conditions,” Jack & Jones sustainability manager Dorte Rye-Olsen said. “Our partnership with Cotton Made in Africa supports this goal.”
Along with the CmiA partnership, Jack & Jones also teamed up with Fine Spinners Ltd., a vertically integrated Kampala textile company, establishing a fully integrated production chain in Uganda.
“We can thereby increase the textile value addition within the cotton producing country and take care that all our CmiA labelled products can be completely traced back within our textile value chain from the final product in the store down to the South-Western CmiA growing region in Uganda,” Rye-Olsen said.
Consumers also play a key role in the Jack & Jones-CmiA partnership. Purchasing textiles with the CmiA label allows people to support the lives of smallholder cotton farmers in Uganda, create job opportunities in the nation’s textile value chain and protect the environment.
“With Jack & Jones we have won a partner that invests in long-term relationships between the Ugandan cotton and textile industry and the international consumer market. Thereby, CmiA smallholder farmers, workers along the textile production chain in Uganda as well as consumers worldwide can directly profit,” CmiA managing director Tina Stridde said. “We are looking forward to a fruitful cooperation with Jack & Jones where CmiA cotton lays the basis for their engagement in Uganda.”