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Decathlon, the leading sports retailer, aims to achieve its science-based emissions targets in line with the goals of the Paris Climate Change Agreement. In order to achieve these goals, the company has sought approval from the Science Based Target (SBT) initiative, which has approved its Climate Change commitments. Decathlon has committed to reducing its CO2 emissions associated with direct and indirect emissions linked to buying electricity by 75 per cent and getting its main suppliers to set their own science-based targets by 2024.
These targets will be supplemented by a group-wide target to reduce CO2 emissions per product sold by 40 per cent between 2016 and 2026 for all its sports categories. Decathlon has also signed the Fashion Industry Charter for Climate Action, an industry-led initiative under the aegis of UN Climate Change, in order to help achieve its targets and encourage climate action across the sector
Decathlon aims to achieve these targets through a number of sustainable strategies, including using 100 per cent renewable electricity by 2026 in its stores – including its 45 in the UK - and warehouses, whilst supporting its industrial partners to do the same.
In addition to this, 100 per cent of new Decathlon products will be eco-designed by 2021 and it will also investigate into developing the sale of second-hand products throughout the store. The company also aims to use just 1 per cent air freight for its transportation needs and reduce the impact of other means of transport.
Monsoon hopes to be 90 per cent sustainable by 2023. Summer of 2020 will see the UK fashion retail house unveil 90 per cent sustainable beachwear, which is being seen as a major step toward the company’s commitment to sustainability. The retailer is also planning to use 70 per cent organic cotton by 2020. Presently, it’s only 30 per cent. Additionally, it plans to increase the use of viscose from 60 per cent to 65 per cent by next year. Monsoon is working to devise new strategies so as to minimise its environmental footprint. The four-decade-old company currently has over 180 stores in the UK.
Monsoon’s vibrant fashion and accessories are inspired by bohemian designs, handcrafted in Asia. The collection features striking prints and embellishments. The company offers clothing, accessories and shoes, dresses, tops, knitwear, tunics and kaftans, beachwear, jerseys, trousers, skirts, coats and jackets, shoes and boots, and work wear for women. Monsoon’s exclusive, in-house designed collection of unique, classic pieces – from sophisticated evening to casual day wear – combines feminine styling with exotic color, beautiful fabrics and detailed finishing. For women’s fashion with a more contemporary edge, the Monsoon Fusion capsule collection blends up to the minute catwalk trends with Monsoon signature styling. Monsoon Men has a stylish, on trend take on everything from suits to relaxed day wear.
Tommy Hilfiger is teaming up with US retailer Procell to collect and curate a limited selection of vintage pieces from the brand’s archives. The assortment will focus on Tommy Hilfiger garments from the ’90s and early 2000s—a time when the brand’s color-block windbreakers and baggy pants were part of the pop-culture uniform. This is a brand belonging to PVH Corp.
Tommy Jeans Platform is another example of how the brand is targeting Gen Z and millennial consumers with niche retail experiences. In August, Tommy Hilfiger launched Staycation, a shopping and tie-dye activation. And during New York Fashion Week in September, the brand held Tommy x Zendaya bus activations across New York City, allowing consumers to shop pieces from the collaboration.
Brands are using archival designs to establish new business opportunities. In 2018, Levi’s introduced a collection of pre-worn Levi’s denim. Other heritage brands are retrofitting their old garments for new consumers. In September, Gap partnered with Atelier & Repairs to reimagine looks from the brand’s 50-year archive. Atelier & Repairs was also tapped by Dockers this year to modernize the brand’s Signature Khaki pant and though not a heritage brand Madewell is refurbishing used denim for resale in select stores in a partnership with ThredUp.
Despite corporate commitments to create a more responsible economy, global sustainability performance has remained mostly flat. Companies remain mostly stagnant around supply chain sustainability, says business ratings firm EcoVadis. Only 32 per cent of the businesses surveyed maintained diversity, discrimination and harassment measures such as effective whistleblowing procedures, awareness training and anti-discrimination recruitment tactics. Or to put it a little differently, 68 per cent of businesses have zero measures in place to promote equitable and inclusive workplaces.
The size of the company can shape the focus of its efforts. Larger companies, for instance, score higher on environmental and labor and human rights themes compared to smaller ones, which outperform them in corruption, anti-competition and data privacy. Globally, Europe leads the world in sustainability performance among large companies, followed by North America, Latin America and the Caribbean and, finally, Greater China.
Corporations proclaim their social and environmental bonafides but whether thoughts translate into deeds is another matter. Organizations need to more proactively engage with supply partners to identify and address hidden CSR risks. Left unmanaged, the deepest tiers of the supply chain can expose organizations, people and society to serious issues, including slavery, forced labor, dangerous working conditions, environmental waste, corruption and more.
India’s cotton yarn exports have fallen by 38 per cent from April to September. High cotton prices in India and global trade wars have created an uncompetitive situation for Indian spinners. Indian prices are far higher than global prices. Exports of cotton yarn to markets such as China, Bangladesh, Vietnam, South Korea, Colombia and Turkey have dropped. In particular exports to the biggest market – China – have dipped 50 per cent because of reduced demand on account of the trade war with the US.
Orders from China’s weaving, knitting, and garment factories have been drying up due to the ongoing trade war with the US. This has had a cascading impact on the textile sector in Bangladesh, which has been the top destination for Indian cotton and yarn. The subdued demand has dragged prices of yarn below the cost of production in India that hit exports. Similarly, demand from Indonesia and Vietnam has also fallen for the same reason. In addition cotton yarn mills are facing declining domestic demand due to the economic slowdown. To battle the situation, some mills are reducing production by up to 30 per cent.
However, as cotton prices are set to fall with arrivals of the new crop, Indian yarn too may be back in the game from November.
Vilas V Gharat is the new president of Textile Association of India’s Mumbai unit. He has over 50 years’ experience in manufacturing functions in all composite sectors of the textile industry. He has spent more than a decade in operations and HR with an emphasis on business process consulting. He has been involved in the restructuring and transformation of large textile units. He is specialized in various fields of the textile value chain like change management, business development and project management, supply chain management, resource allocation, process reengineering and planning function. He is business consultant for Oswal Hammerle, for its upcoming state of art technology plant for manufacture of sophisticated yarn dyed shirtings. This is a joint venture project of the Oswal group and F.M. Hammerle, Austria. He has been executive director, Suvin Advisors; senior president, S Kumar’s; technical and commercial advisor, J K Cotton Mills; senior president, Morarjee Brembana.
Vikas Sharan is the new vice president. He has had a distinguished career in the textile machinery and machine tools industry. He has been with the textile machinery division of Voltas and handled the nonwovens, carpets, synthetics and circular knitting businesses of the ATE Group. He is a director of Saurer India. He is interested in sports, music, travelling and photography.
Canadian apparel giant Gildan Active Wear is moving out of Mexico, where the firm employs about 1,700 employees. It will transfer equipment to its cheaper, existing production hubs in Central America and the Caribbean. At the same time, it’s building many production complexes in Bangladesh to serve European and Chinese customers. The company is looking at its future cost structure, and believes they can achieve a much lower cost by limiting the facilities.
The will hit Mexico adversely, which has experienced its complex status as a manufacturer eroded by a range of threats from President Trump, who renegotiated NAFTA with a deal that’s yet to be ratified by Congress. However, Mexico has made an effort to target more sophisticated operations in recent years, becoming a major spot for the auto industry and attracting some aviation investment.
Montreal-based Gildan has built a global production chain ranging from yarn-spinning to clothes-stitching that has allowed the company to lower costs and compete with Hanesbrands Inc. and Berkshire Hathaway Inc.’s Fruit of the Loom. It’s heavily invested in Honduras, while its two Mexican facilities came with its 2016 acquisition of Alstyle, a company that, like Gildan, sold T-shirts and fleece to screen printers that customize them for clients. Mexico accounts for 8 to 9 per cent of Gildan’s global production.
Huntsman Textile Effects has introduced a dyeing auxiliary called Eriopon E3-Save. This is a new single-bath scour-dye-reduction clear concept providing the shortest possible processing cycle for polyester thus saving time, water, energy and cost. The dyeing auxiliary is engineered to help mills achieve considerable savings in water, energy and time for the intensive process of dyeing polyester and its blends by combining pre-scouring, dyeing and reduction clearing in a single bath. Eriopon delivers in all critical stages of polyester dyeing from pre-scouring to washing-off for exceptional performance and environmental and economic sustainability. Its environmental credentials offer mills greater processing flexibility and an optimum price-performance ratio. With cutting-edge polymer technology at its heart, Eriopon can be used to successfully dye in jet applications without the need for anti-foaming products. The superior leveling of Eriopon auxiliary also increases reproducibility, allowing mills to dispense with additional leveling agents.
Huntsman is committed to an environmentally and economically sustainable textile value chain through its range of high-performance products. The demand for polyester and manmade fibers is booming as sports and athleisure apparel markets expand rapidly around the world. At the same time, brands, consumers and mills are increasingly focused on sustainability and performance resulting in raising demand for optimization of the costly, time consuming and resource intensive polyester dyeing process.
Readymade garment exporters are working on modalities to set up a portal for exporters which will list their products category-wise on the lines of e-commerce to facilitate buyers. This mechanism will make it easy for the buyers to reach out to potential exporters.
When an importer searches for a particular product, the software will send mailers/alerts to all exporters who produce such items and also to the importer. This will increase buyer-seller interface and help both importers and exporters. The portal will be a boon for Punjab and Haryana as these two states house over 200 readymade garment exporters having base of around 2 million workers.
Readymade garments exports increased by merely 2.2 per cent to $7.8 billion during the April-September period. This was mainly due to the fact that Indian textiles were not competitive enough and around 10 per cent costlier than other countries. Also, Indian exporters face higher trade barriers as compared to countries like Bangladesh, Vietnam and Pakistan in the US and the European Union (EU). The average tariffs levied on Indian textile exports are around 6 per cent in the EU and 6.2 per cent in the US as compared to zero per cent and 3.9 per cent, respectively, on the exports from Bangladesh.
"One reason for sports licensing and merchandising not picking up in India is its low distribution capacity. Biggest Indian retailers have only around 350 to 400 stores across the country. On the other hand, Walmart and Target have 3,000 stores. This gives fans in Tier II and III towns more opportunities to access their products."
In August, three months after Liverpool were crowned the champions of Europe, the club struck a deal with the Mumbai-based brand management and licensing agency Dream Theatre, to operate its licensing business in India and South Asia. The agency will partner with licensees to give Liverpool fans access to a range of products such as apparel, sporting goods, gifts and novelties.
This licensing model for international sports teams is not new to India. However, the market for sports merchandise in India is limited which made it extremely difficult for Liverpool to sell their products in the country. As the 2018 annual global industry survey of Licensing International revealed, India sold only $41 million worth of sports goods in 2018 out of the total retail sales of licensed merchandise in the country. This is less than 2.6 percent. Indian sports licensors earned just $2.4 million in royalties last year, out of a total $86.6 million royalties earned that’s less than 2.8 percent.
Low distribution, high prices boosts counterfeits
One reason for sports licensing and merchandising not picking up in India is its low distribution capacity. Biggest Indian retailers have only around 350 to 400 stores across the country. On the other hand, Walmart and Target have 3,000 stores. This gives fans in Tier II and III towns more opportunities to access their products.
Price point is also a big obstacle. Official jerseys of football clubs such as Liverpool, Arsenal and Barcelona cost between Rs 4,695 and Rs 5,499. In India, very few consumers can buy merchandise priced over Rs 2,000. This has contributed to the booming of knockoffs industry in India. These knockoffs have plagued Indian retail for decades, with the country placed fifth in list of trading fake goods. As per Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)’s 2018 report, counterfeit products industry is reportedly estimated to be worth $500 billion globally. In India, it is reportedly worth over Rs 40,000 crore in the organised sector alone.
Smart merchandising to build a fan culture
Besides jerseys of Indian sports teams, franchises have also started selling other merchandise such as caps, mugs, mobile phone covers, badges, and headphones, which are a lot cheaper. However, apart from teams in cricket, football and kabaddi, sports merchandising has not caught on in India. One of the major reasons for this is that Indian sports leagues are still young and haven’t created as much fan following as their Western counterparts. IPL, the oldest league, has completed only 12 seasons, while American leagues like the National Basketball Association and Major League Baseball are between 70 to over 100 years old.
Building a fan culture in India is a slow process. Abhishek Ganguly, Managing Director, Puma India advises Indian sports teams to persist with merchandising for it to become a cult. He believes international sports brands need to be smart about their merchandise business if they wish to thrive in India. He cites the example of NBA, which in its early days in India, only sold imported team jerseys. However, eventually, the association started offering a wider and more affordable range of products by tying up with Indian partners.
Like NBA, Puma has also licensed most of its merchandise in the motorsport range with brands such as Scuderia Ferrari, Red Bull Racing, Porsche Design and BMW. The range, retailed at Rs 1,299 for caps and Rs 9,999 for a jacket, is doing quite well. Growing popularity of streetwear or athleisure in India, coupled with the aspirational value of the range itself, has benefitted brand’s licensed merchandise in the country.
Licensing agency Dream Theatre also wants to tap into the sports licensed apparel category. However, for this the agency needs to introduce innovative ideas that will help it to thrive in this market.
