Boden’s Mission on Sustainability

  • Our Mission

    Boden’s mission is to inspire our customers to live their best lives.  We do this by creating clothes that make them look and feel good year after year. We also want to minimise our impact on the planet while seeking to grow sales and make a profit.

    We try to look after the people we work with, both within the company and in our supply chains throughout the world and out intention is to always treat people fairly and with respect. We design clothes that make people look and feel fantastic, manufacturing them to a high-quality standard in a fair and safe working environment, using planet friendly fabrics and techniques.  Everything Boden makes is made to last.

     

    The measure of the true environmental cost of an item of clothing should be determined by the impact of its production divided by the number of times it is worn. True financial value can be determined similarly by the purchase price of an item divided by the number of times it is worn. Boden aims to deliver outstanding value on both these measures.

     

    The three most significant environmental and social issues in the fashion industry are the conditions of production workers, waste produced in the manufacturing process and the reckless wastage of huge quantities of clothing which end up in landfill each year. 

     

    We aim to minimise these issues and, to balance our impact, we make clothes that last and last.  We aim to do more than other businesses to make sure Boden clothes are worn for longer and don’t end up in landfill.  In addition to our ‘Care, Repair and Re-wear’ programme to extend the life of our products we work with charities to re-purpose and/or recycle
    any clothing that has reached the end of its natural life. Because we make clothes that last, we believe the more people wearing them the better it is for the planet.

     

    The story of a Boden product is not complete until it is totally worn out and recycled after providing many, many happy years of enjoyment – often for multiple owner.

Core Pillars

Our sustainability goals are split into two main pillars, Environmental and Social. Within these we then have 7 high level goals to make sure that we continue to improve on reducing our impact on the planet. They are detailed below along with our targets for them.

Environmental Pillar

  • Carbon

    To be carbon neutral by 2025 for Scope 1 and 2.

  • Product

    To transition to 90% preferred fibres by 2028.

  • Packaging

    For 90% our packaging to be recycled and recyclable by 2025.

  • Landfill

    To avoid product and waste being sent to landfill, we are aiming for 100% of product and over 90% of our waste to have routes that avoid landfill by 2025.

Social Pillar

  • Supply Chain

    Our aim is that over 90% of people working at our manufacturers will have access to either the HER project or &Wider by 2030.

  • People

    We inspire our staff to live their best lives with an amazing onboarding experience, engagement and wellbeing activities and access to development.

  • Community

    We’ll donate 0.5 to 0.75% of our yearly profit to charity.

2024 Achievements

  • Carbon

    In 2024 we continued our commitment to renewable energy production of both Gas and Electricity at our London Head office and Leicester Warehouse. We are using both Wind and Biofuel to counteract the traditional grid-based approach. For 2024 our SECR report showed a further reduction in our carbon emissions, year on year, down to 486 tonnes across our 4 sites. As in previous years we have offset those numbers in wind farm projects in India using gold accredited schemes as some of our clothing is produced in this country.

    Further investigations into our Scope 3 emissions have been taking place and we are currently accessing carbon accounting systems to help us move forward. Collating and tracking the data required by this type of software is a challenge, but once completed the data will be re-used time and time again to highlight hot spots of heavy carbon emissions in our value chain.

    Knowing the highest carbon intensive aspects of our business will enable us to target them individually and employ emission-reducing actions to help our partners to remove carbon, reducing our overall output of scope 3. We also completed our ESOS Phase 3 assessment and are currently working on an action plan with our partners in line with the recommendations made in the report to reduce our Scope 1 and 2 emissions. Carbon reduction aspirations and milestones will be produced in 2026 alongside our sustainability commitment to Net Zero.

  • Product


    In 2024, Boden continued to support the Better Cotton Initiative and the Leather Working Group and the work they are doing to reduce the environmental impact of Cotton and Leather within their respective supply chains.

    All our cashmere knitwear remains certified with the Good Cashmere Standard, while we increased the number of products we certified with Responsible Wool and Mohair Standards. We added the Responsible Alpaca Standard to our growing list of certifications and RAS products will be seen online in 2025.

    At the end of 2024, Boden joined the Canopy Style initiative. Canopy is a not-for-profit organisation, dedicated to protecting the world's Ancient and Endangered forests, climate and species. Together with Canopy, Boden is working to ensure we can trace all our man-made cellulosic fibres, like viscose, to renewable sources. Lenzing is a top-ranking supplier of Canopy’s Hot Button Report, due to its sourcing practises, sustainability commitments and innovation. We have been using Lenzing EcoVero and Lenzing Tencel fibres in Boden products since 2020.

    Boden has continued its use of Recycled Fibres, including wool, linen, cotton and synthetics through use of branded materials such as Thermore Wadding and Reeco Linen. All of our swimwear linings and outers are currently made from recycled polyamide and polyester.

    In 2025, Boden aims to achieve Global Recycling Certification, ensuring transparency and independent verification to tracing this recycled material back to its origin.

Preferred Material Achievements Roadmap

  • Packaging

    We continue our sustainable journey in the UK with a focus on removal of material from packaging. In 2023 we successfully trialled a new size of pack tissue and since introducing this in April 2024, we have used 40% less packing paper in our parcel dispatches (2.5 tonnes). Each sheet has 19% less paper and we have reduced the sheets per parcel from 2 to 1. This has also provided monetary savings as well as improving packing efficiency at our warehouse.

    We made a slight design change to our larger dispatch boxes, which reduced the cardboard wastage in production. This allowed for the boxes to be made in a stronger board grade and easier to assemble. In five months, we have removed 19.5km2 of cardboard (which would cover 2.7 Wembley football pitches) weighing 3.7 tonnes.

    In the US, we started sourcing all dispatch boxes and returns shoe boxes locally, to reduce the carbon footprint of our deliveries. The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) has allowed us to add the FSC recycle stamp to our boxes, as all our dispatch and shoe boxes contain between 85% - 100% recycled content.

    In the US we switched to a Shurtape packing tape, which gives better adhesion to boxes as it specifically designed for use on 100% recycled corrugate. This has led to a 50% reduction in tape usage as less is required per box, as well as providing cost savings.

    In the UK we continued to operate our closed loop recycling for cardboard and polythene. Since we started, we have recycled 95 tonnes of polythene waste, to make 550K medium dispatch bags (14 weeks usage). On cardboard waste, we have recycled 496 tonnes, which is easily sufficient to cover our annual box usage. The amount of recycled paper would cover the football pitch at Wembley 683 times or would make 1.07m of our most used dispatch box (last year’s usage was 175k).

  • Landfill

    Our aim is to avoid our product or our waste going to landfill. 

    For our product we already design and manufacture them to make them last. We then look to extend their life with our Care, Repair and Re-wear programme. This was launched in 2021 for the UK and in 2023 400 items were sent to us to repair. The oldest item returned to us for repair this year was bought from Boden in 2004. It was a wrap coat. The lining had degraded overtime, so we replaced it and sent it back to the customer to carry on wearing.

    For end of line stock we work with charities to make sure none of it is sent to landfill and we also run a Pass It On programme for our customers, whereby they can send items back that they no longer want, for an account credit. We then include these in our donations to charities or have the products recycled. We had nearly 3,000 items returned to us by customers in the year.

    Of the waste that we generate across our three sites we either recycle it, send it to be used for power generation or send it to landfill. In 2023 we manage to reduce our waste by over 10% to 571 tonnes.  For the waste we generated it was split out as:

    - 92% Recycled (vs 89% in 22)

    - 2% for Power Generation

    - 6% to Landfill


    We continue to look at ways to reduce our waste across our sites.

  • Supply Chain

    Boden makes products in manufacturing regions all around the world. The Responsible Sourcing team at Boden work with our suppliers to ensure that the people who are making our products are protected and respected. Our expectations are laid out in our Responsible Sourcing Commitment (RSC).

    In 2024, we continued working with our supplier and factories on claiming themselves on the Open Supply Hub (OSH). This is part of our plan to increase traceability and transparency within our supply chain.

    We maintained the number of factories on &Wider, which gives workers an avenue to anonymously raise issue, and rolled out another RISE project in India.

    As the need for data has increased, we have been working on a couple of projects that we hope will be used to standardise information gathering from the supply chain. One of these projects is an environmental impact sheet which factories can use to track their energy and water usage among other things. The sheet is also able to provide a breakdown of usage per customer which should reduce the need for multiple sheets or systems.

  • Community

    We are committed to giving between 0.5-0.75% of our profit to charity. After two years of making no profit we were back in the black in 2024, which means we will be able to distribute £150,000 to charities in early 2025.

    Our other major charitable contribution is the end of line clothing we donate. We gave approximately 110,000 items of clothing to charity. Over 2,400 of these were items of clothing sent in by UK customers as they were no longer needed.

    In the UK the main charities we support with our end of line clothing are:
    - The National Police Aid Charity
    - Scope
    - New Life
    - British Humanitarian Aid
    - Sense
    - Peaceful Trust
    - Planet Aid

  • People

    Our organisational culture remains strong, and employees continue to be positive with many expressing pride in working at Boden. Despite the challenges we have faced, our people have shown remarkable resilience and dedication, coming together to support the business through a clearly defined strategy. This collective effort has been integral in navigating the complexities of 2023 / 2024 and positioning us for future success.We have successfully increased our Learning and Development offerings across the business, making significant strides in upskilling our people. These sessions provided valuable opportunities for knowledge sharing, skill development and cross functional collaboration.


    We launched two internal development initiatives: LEAD and the Product Academy. LEAD focussed on entry level leadership skills and providing strong foundation for future growth within the company. The Product Academy covered core topics such as Critical Path and How to Influence With Impact. These modules were tailored to deepen product knowledge, improve project management skills and encourage cross collaboration in our product teams.

    In 2024 we delivered a calendar of engagement initiatives, including a panel discussion for Earth Day, our Christmas Market and Happy Hours on the bus, as well as initiatives to recognise key calendar moments in the diversity & inclusion calendar, including International Women’s Day, World Cultural Diversity Day, World Menopause Day and Black History Month.

    We continue to hold bi-monthly meetings with our employee forum to discuss and share ideas and information across all areas of the business. The discussion and questions are open and provide an alternative route of communication for our employees.

2023 Achievements

Our sustainability goals are split into two main pillars – Environmental and Social. Within these, we have seven high-level goals
to improve reducing our impact on the planet. They are detailed below, along with our targets for each one.

Environmental Pillar

  • Carbon

    In 2023 we continued to be carbon neutral for Scope 1 and 2 three years earlier than planned. It was done by reducing our carbon footprint and off-setting the remainder, using gold accredited projects to do so.


    Our footprint in 2023 was under 800 tonnes of carbon, down from 2400 when we first measured it in 2019. We off-set the 800 tonnes by investing in a windfarm in India. India was chosen as some of our clothes are manufactured in this country.

    We also finished the measurement of our Scope 3 footprint. This came out as 84,000 tonnes. We are working out a plan for how best to work with our partners to reduce this. Two things worth noting on our total carbon footprint:

    • -Firstly 40% of the footprint is due to the growing and making of the raw materials and is difficult to get away from. This very much supports our long-held approach of designing and making product that last and can be worn again and again.

    • - Secondly, in some cases we are having to balance the challenges of biodiversity, carbon footprint and the impact on the local people. There can often be a tension between these three elements, and we are trying to make decisions based on doing the right thing overall, rather than just one factor.

     

  • Product

    In 2023 we consolidated the gains we had made in 2022 and continued to make progress in many other areas. Our pieces are certified by 6 of the industry’s most reliable certifications: GCS, RWS, RMS, Lenzing, BCI, and LWG.


    The major areas we consolidated on were:

    • - All of our 100% Cashmere fabric was to the Good Cashmere Standard certified.
    • - Boden is now Responsible Animal Fibre Standard certified. This covers Responsible Wool and Responsible Mohair.
    • - All of the Nylon and polyester in our swimwear outers and linings was recycled

      New areas of progress were:
    • - All of our 100% Linen Fabric is made from 20% Recycled Linen, which is a great new initiative and Boden is one of the first to implement this.
    • - We have doubled our use of Lenzing EcoVero Viscose within our overall viscose use from 6.7% to 12% which we are very proud of, as well as increasing our use of the more sustainable wood pulp fibres such as Modal and Lyocell from 0.4% to 5% of our overall fabric use.
    • - All of our children’s polyester outerwear style outers and lining are made from Recycled Polyester.
    • - We are using recycled polyester where possible and hope to expand this into new categories. We are also continuing to have 20% recycled cotton in all our Women’s Denim styles
    • - Cotton is our most used fabric, and we continue to be part of the Better Cotton Initiative. Currently, we are improving the reporting processes both internally and within our supply base.
    • - We are members of the LWG (Leather Working Group) for our leather goods, who help combat deforestation and improve traceability. Over 95% of leather sourced in 2023 was from a LWG Tannery.

  • Landfill

    Our aim is to avoid our product or our waste going to landfill. 

    For our product we already design and manufacture them to make them last. We then look to extend their life with our Care, Repair and Re-wear programme. This was launched in 2021 for the UK and in 2023 400 items were sent to us to repair. The oldest item returned to us for repair this year was bought from Boden in 2004. It was a wrap coat. The lining had degraded overtime, so we replaced it and sent it back to the customer to carry on wearing.

    For end of line stock we work with charities to make sure none of it is sent to landfill and we also run a Pass It On programme for our customers, whereby they can send items back that they no longer want, for an account credit. We then include these in our donations to charities or have the products recycled. We had nearly 3,000 items returned to us by customers in the year.

    Of the waste that we generate across our three sites we either recycle it, send it to be used for power generation or send it to landfill. In 2023 we manage to reduce our waste by over 10% to 571 tonnes.  For the waste we generated it was split out as:

    - 92% Recycled (vs 89% in 22)

    - 2% for Power Generation

    - 6% to Landfill


    We continue to look at ways to reduce our waste across our sites.

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Social Pillar

  • Supply chain

    Boden has products made in countries around the world. The Responsible Sourcing team at Boden work with our suppliers to ensure that the people who are making our products are protected and respected.  The standards we expect are laid out in our Responsible Sourcing Commitment. 

    In 2023 we successfully completed mapping of our tier 2 and 3 supply chain and have started to ask the tier 1 factories we work with to claim their facilities on the Open Supply Hub. This helps make our supply chain more transparent and gives factory management ownership over their data.

    With the data from the supply chain, we have been able to identify commonalities between factories which has helped us to prioritise resource.  We made reasonable progress on this but fell short of our target.  For our tier 1 factories we were hoping to get 70% onto the Open Supply Hub, but only hit 43%.

    We have continued the rollout of supplier projects focused on worker voice through &Wider and female empowerment through RISE (formerly called the HERproject).  We increased the number of projects to 33% out of all of our factories, up from 27% in 2022.  We have been looking at other projects to improve the supplier/customer relationship and will report on progress in 2024.

    In addition to the work we have been doing within our supply chain we have also been working with our peers to standardise information gathering from suppliers.  An issue for suppliers has been multiple partners asking for similar data in slightly different formats. This can cause some push back from them on completing this work.

    Finally, the team started looking at Boden’s environmental impact within the factories we use by creating a sheet that looks at energy and water usage based on number of products made. Our next steps will be looking how we use this data in a more product specific way.

  • People

    We have continued to embed our new approach to performance management to give our people greater attention to their performance and achievements. We set goals, have regular 1-1s, and encourage everyone to seek peer feedback. Our Workday system supports us in this process. Every month, we communicate to our people about business priorities, celebrate career moves and long service.  We also give out regular awards to our staff through all of our sites, recognising outstanding achievements.

    We are proud of the development initiatives we have in place. We have launched a 12-month training programme for our middle level managers to cover areas such as Leading at Boden, Setting Expectations and Difficult Conversations. Around 50 people leaders are taking part in the training.

    In 2023 we continued the success of our apprenticeship scheme in Leicester. We saw 26 Warehouse Operatives completing and passing their Level 2 qualification and 4 Customer Service Advisors passing their Level 2 with distinctions.

    The above work has all been positive, but there is no getting away from the fact that it has been a tough year for Boden.  Our financial loss in 2023 was our largest ever.  This led to a tough year of cost cutting, a lot of hard work and no bonuses.  The team fared well overall, but we are looking for a more positive environment in 2024.

    Throughout the year, we have a full calendar of events that support engagement, community, and education with internal and external speakers. For example, we dedicated October to a month of well-being with different themes each week. We have employee-led groups such as Belonging at Boden and the Green Team.

  • Community

    We are committed to giving between 0.5-0.75% of our profit to charity. Unfortunately we made no profit in 2022 so we had little money to give away in 2023. What we did give was some vouchers to support small charities that our customers were working with.

    This meant our main charitable contributions were our end of line clothing donations. We gave approximately 90,000 items of clothing to charity.  Of this over 3000 items of clothing were sent to us by our UK customers that they no longer needed.

    In the UK the main charities we support with our end of line clothing are:

    • - The National Police Aid Charity
    • - Scope
    • - New Life
    • - British Humanitarian Aid
    • - Matthew 25 Ministries
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