Sustainable Cotton
Ranking 2017
With 18.3 out of 100 points, Hugo Boss has started the journey towards sustainable cotton sourcing. The company scores relatively high on policy, mostly due to its membership of the Better Cotton Initiative (BCI). The company does not communicate a time-bound target for sourcing sustainable cotton, but has publicly stated to set targets in 2017. It is also committed to increasing its efforts in the area of traceability.
Hugo Boss has a comprehensive cotton policy that outlines the negative impacts of cotton cultivation and the priority issues. In taking action, Hugo Boss relies on its partnerships with BCI and Cotton Leads. There are currently no additional corporate policies in the areas of water and Highly Hazardous Pesticide (HHP) use, biodiversity and human rights in cotton cultivation. The company has promised to publish a binding commitment on the use of sustainable cotton as well as quantitative goals in this area in 2017 – within the framework of its overall materials strategy.
Hugo Boss does not publish any information about volumes of more sustainable cotton sourced, either in percentage or absolute terms.
The company sees supply chain transparency as one of its strategic priorities and has set itself several targets in this area. For cotton, these efforts translate into annual disclosure in a sustainability report of the overall amount of cotton used. The website lists of 93% of the company’s finished products manufacturers (tier-1). No information is provided on yarn and fabric suppliers, nor origin of the cotton used in its products.