Esprit and Puma have announced a series of steps to clean up the supply chain and introduce responsible production practices. Esprit has announced that it has achieved the removal of all poly fluoro carbons from its supply chain four months ahead of schedule. The company also said that in the past 18 months, it has tested and evaluated the discharge from 33 of its core facilities in China and Bangladesh, reporting the results of 42 per cent of these on the IPE web platform.

It is committed to training all its suppliers in the Manufacturers Restricted Substance List, use of positive formulations and delivery of responsible use of chemicals. As a part of its own detox agreement, Puma said it will ensure all its products are poly fluoro carbon-free by no later than the end of 2017. Puma is committed to eliminating all long-chain carbons by January 2015 and all other fluoro carbons by December 2017.

Esprit in 2013 invested in modern in-house test equipment. It’s one of the few fashion brands with its own in-house laboratories where it can check its products for restricted substances as they arrive at the warehouse. It uses these facilities in addition to independent test reports.