During the production of material and products there are chemicals required at several stages. In order to safeguard people working with the applications, surrounding ecosystems and finally the ones wearing the products we

apply a chemical management approach across all of our product and material categories, which includes:

1. 

Requiring our suppliers to comply with our chemical agreement, which includes adherence to international and national chemical regulations, such as the European Chemical Regulation REACH, Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants, The California Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act, Biocidal Product Regulation, and The California Safer Clothes and Textile Act. Our chemical agreement also includes our Restricted Substance List (RSL), with all banned and restricted substances which our suppliers must agree on and follow.

2. Prioritizing materials with certifications, such as bluesign® approved and Oekotex®-100 certified materials, that guarantee safe use and application of chemistry.

3.Where the material doesn’t carry a certification or similar it’s considered higher risk and will be included in our 24-month chemical testing cycle. The purpose of this cycle is to perform chemical testing on all material and product categories, based on content risk and supplier throughout a 24-month period.

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n addition to performing chemical tests based on RSL risks we have a few focus substances and groups which we have put effort behind phasing out over several years. One of these groups are anti-bacterial or biocidal substances, which can be used as anti-odor applications in products. Dæhlie have had a ban on antibacterial treatments for over a decade

The PFAS group (also referred to as PFC) of substances is another focus area for us. We began transitioning away from PFAS in 2013 and since several years we are 100% PFAS-free today six out of our seven brands are PFAS-free. In order to still achieve high-quality water-repellent properties, we use the BIONIC FINISH® ECO by Rudolf.

Water can be required in different stages during material manufacturing. Dæhlie’s portion of cotton, which is often considered to be one of the most water intense raw material in the textile industry, is relatively small and our focus on water risks therefore rather lies in the material manufacturing stage. During this stage water is used for dyeing, cooling or cleaning of equipment and is held during processing but might return to its original watershed. If too much water is held it can contribute to water scarcity in the local area. Optimizing and reducing water use is therefore important. The water can also be polluted during the processing stage and is therefore not returned to its original watershed in the same shape which can have negative effects on the surrounding ecosystems. The latter is linked to ensuring a sound chemical management system and waste water treatment possibilities, on- or off-site. The former is controlled at the facility by optimizing water use, or by utilizing dyeing technologies which require less or close to no water. At Dæhlie we are working closely with our material manufactures whom we are nominating our materials from and we are tracking the systems and certifications they have in place to verify environmental parameters are controlled. The bluesign® approved manufacturers are required to systematically measure, control and improve environmental parameters, including water -use and -pollution, and this is in addition to ensuring safe chemistry, another reason why we are prioritizing the use of bluesign® approved materials.   

At every stage of our product's journey to the consumer, packaging plays a crucial role. During transportation, it protects the product from extreme variations in temperature and humidity that can occur during sea freight from one continent to another. Once it arrives at the warehouse, the packaging supports storing and picking. Finally, in-store packaging is used to merchandise the product and communicate with consumers.

However, our use of packaging also generates packaging waste, and we are committed to controlling and reducing this waste to the greatest extent possible. To achieve this, we take the following key approaches:

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We are conscious of how and why we use packaging, and we avoid unnecessary packaging wherever possible. We also design out free space to increase packaging efficiency and minimize packaging material use.

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We use materials and packaging designs that allow for recycling, to minimize the environmental impact of our packaging waste.

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We choose better packaging materials, with lower environmental impact.

In 2019 we took on the Green Dot’s Plastic pledge (Plast Løftet), which means we committed to increase the use of recycled plastic, avoid plastic where possible and design our packaging for recycling.