Product

Produced the Right Way

We produce 138 million units of apparel each year globally. With this kind of scale, transparency and accountability are of utmost importance. To become transparent, we are sharing information about our suppliers, design process, innovative products, material sourcing, and preferred chemistry initiative.

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Global Design Standards

Our new Global Design Standards look at the entire lifecycle of a product to give designers and product developers a foundation for end-to-end improvement. Priorities include circular material innovation, sustainable materials, and state-of-the-art processes to create products that are used for longer and can be reused or recycled.

Preferred Chemistry

Part as our commitment to responsible manufacturing, all chemicals used in production must comply with the ZDHC Manufacturing Restricted Substances List (MRSL) ensuring safer chemistry for people and the planet.

Preferred Materials

To meet this standard, 70% of the fabric materials used in a product must be sourced from our Preferred Material list. Read more on this below.

Low Impact Fabric

To meet this standard, fabric must come from a denim mill (prior to cut and sew) that has achieved at least 90% reduction in fresh water use from an independent third-party established 2018-2019 baseline. Learn more about our Indigood™ Program.

Low Impact Finishing

To meet this standard, the product must achieve a “Low Impact” score calculated via Jeanologia’s Environmental Impact Measurement (EIM) tool. The program scores the finishing process of a garment.

Circular Pathways

To meet this Standard, the main fabric of a garment must be comprised of at least 95% mono-material, of which at least 20% of the content is recycled; OR the garment should be a part of a validated resale or up-cycling business model that facilitates the reuse of garments or recycling of post-consumer waste.

Our Preferred Materials

We search the world to find the right materials for our apparel and source materials that have a positive impact on people and the planet.

Our Responsible Materials Policies apply to all Kontoor Brands’ Vendors and Material Suppliers and aims to ensure transparent and robust materials claims. This includes policies on restricted substances, cotton fiber sourcing, conflict minerals, animal- and forest-derived materials.
Our goal is full transparency from farm (for cotton) or manufacturer (for synthetics) all the way to final product and consumer.
Our Preferred Materials are backed by data to validate their environmental and social impact. We may update our Preferred Materials list as new or innovative materials are available.

Cotton

Cotton is the number one material input for Kontoor Brands products. Our cotton strategy focuses on advancing regenerative agriculture practices globally while sourcing more sustainable cotton for every Kontoor Brands product. We currently define sustainable cotton as any one of the following: cotton grown in the U.S., Australia, or Africa (not including Egypt or South Africa), recycled cotton from validated post-consumer or post-industrial sources, or cotton certified under one of the following frameworks: Organic and Regenagri.

Sustainable Synthetics

We prefer to use synthetic fibers that have been manufactured from materials recovered from the waste stream. Whether made from pre- or post-consumer synthetic fiber waste, using recycled synthetics over virgin synthetics reduces the apparel industry’s overall reliance on non-renewable crude oil and contributes to a reduction in waste from our industry and others. Additionally, we accept alternative bio-based fibers, like Sorona, and certified Man Made Cellulosic fibers, like Lyocell.

Natural Materials

Sustainable hemp is a perfect complement fiber to cotton. As an industrial crop, hemp can grow with little water and minimal pesticides and herbicides. It has a high per acre fiber yield and absorbs more carbon dioxide per acre than any forest or commercial crop. We require our preferred Hemp to be certified sustainable by a third party or traceable to the field on which is was grown. Additionally, we accept similarly certified or traceable Linen and Kapok.

Manufacturing

Every stage of the manufacturing process has an environmental impact – from water and chemical use to energy and carbon emissions. Chemicals are essential in denim production, but when not managed properly, can be harmful to factory workers and pollute local water resources, impacting the local community. Preferred chemistries are those which have been shown to not cause any negative impacts to human health or nature.

As a part of our sustainability strategy, we have committed to achieve and maintain a minimum of 90% ZDHC MRSL compliant chemicals.

See more on our supply chain

Read our 2024 Sustainability Report & Consolidated Performance

Download the 2024 Sustainability Report

Learn More About Kontoor’s Sustainability Program

Goals

In 2020, we announced our first global sustainability goals to address the environmental and social impact of our operations, supply chain, products, and people.

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Stakeholder Engagement

We recognize we cannot address major environmental, social, or economic challenges alone, so we collaborate with experts who share our commitment.

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Product

We strive to use responsibly sustainable suppliers, materials and operations for each of the millions of products we produce each year.

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Planet

Our longstanding commitment to environmental stewardship and compliance unites with a vision of a more sustainable world.

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