Isko rooted to sustainability through innovation

Many companies have hit the pause button on sustainability in the face of the pandemic however, Isko paces forward with its ideas of sustainability. With respect to the product, innovations are ongoing. From a social perspective, the denim producers have managed to evade layoffs and have even managed to access additional financial contributions to team members at a time of need. The main core that holds the brands face in its position is sustainability hence, detaching from its idea to improve its eco-impact would be difficult.

In the month of June, the company released its first Sustainability Impact Report highlighting its targets to continuously develop and improve its environmental footprint along with its end-to-end production process responsibly.

Ebru Ozkucuk Guler, senior CSR and sustainability executive at Isko believes that there is one key reason the industry keeps making with sustainability where people in the value chain who are sharing data still believe it’s all about ‘know-how sharing’ when it’s not the case. Gluer goes on to state that it is vital to not only inform the brands and the retailers but also the supply chain that it is not about ‘know-how’ sharing and more about success story sharing. They have received positive results due to their old vendors across various tiers who have been with them for over 11 years.

One of the company’s recent successful driven sustainability stories was the innovation of its R-TWO technologies which is designed to produce responsible performance fabrics. R-TWO comprises textiles concepts made using a blend of reused cotton, procured from production loss with Content Claim Standard Certification (CCS), and recycled polyester certified to Recycled Claim Standard (RCS) or Global Recycle Standard (GRS) depending on the percentage utilized.

Guler said that their brother company, Sanko Group provides them with a big advantage by providing a vertical structure to facilitate innovation of fiber in the yarn stage. He has further said that in the process they can limit utilization. From the yarn to fiber process pinning is involved and at this level, there is loss however it is not waste. According to Guler at the cut and fit stage it is possible to track and monitor the loss, he states that for every 100kg if there is a 10% loss which is a huge number it can be put back into the spinning process.

The thought and action separate sustainable companies from those who cannot innovate to keep up with it. Isko has managed to discover more ways to widen the gap.