Bluesign partners with SCTI on sustainable chemistry index for textiles

Bluesign has collaborated with Sustainable Chemistry for the Textile Industry (SCTI™) to create a sustainable chemistry index that will serve as a standard communication guide for chemical suppliers, manufacturers, brands, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

The first-of-its-kind index aims to drive change in the industry by making it simpler for stakeholders to analyze the sustainability of textile chemical products against the highest criteria while protecting participating chemical businesses’ intellectual property (IP). IP protection is essential for assuring continuing investment in long-term solutions.

SCTI™ is an alliance of leading chemical companies that aims to enable the textile and leather sectors to use sustainable, state-of-the-art chemistry solutions that safeguard factory employees, local communities, customers, and the environment. Bluesign will implement and administer the sustainable chemistry index as an independent authority, using a holistic approach to assisting firms across the textile supply chain in improving their sustainability performance.

Chemical items, such as dyes and textile auxiliaries, are frequently labeled as “free of a specific chemical.” Rather than focusing just on materials, the bluesign® SYSTEM goes above and beyond. To be bluesign® APPROVED, the chemicals, and the manufacturing facility must fulfill certain standards for environmental performance, occupational health and safety, and product stewardship performance.

The sustainable chemistry index will be reserved for substances that provide transparency on a variety of extra indicators, such as the chemical’s circularity viability, greenhouse gas emissions during manufacturing, and raw material source. The sustainability chemistry index will also demand that the chemical’s downstream usage be optimized, which means that it encourages resource conservation in textile finishing, for example. Furthermore, effective corporate governance along with well-defined environmental and social (ESG) goals would be required.

Dr. Wolfgang Anton Schumann, SCTI™ Chairman, said that for the past two decades, Bluesign has earned the industry’s trust by providing sustainable chemical solutions and impact reductions across the supply chain through its independent stance. This cooperation illustrates their companies’ combined knowledge and how collaboration produces solutions that may drive substantial change throughout the industry to decrease the effect on people and the environment.

Daniel Rüfenacht, Bluesign CEO, said that SCTI™ offers substantial sustainability knowledge in the chemical business. The new sustainable chemistry index will assist the industry move beyond present standards and implementing the EU Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability by giving textile chemical users a clear grade on a substance’s environmental and social effect to enable them to make better decisions.

The aim of Bluesign and SCTI™’s combined cooperation, and specifically the sustainable chemistry index, is to promote transformative change through sustainable chemical solutions. The first step on this shared path is to provide textile and garment industry stakeholders with a validated catalog of sustainable chemical products.