Sustainable Development Goal 5: Gender Equality

As part of our commitment to being a business for good, we're working towards 5 of the UN's Sustainable Development Goals. This World Environment Day, we're partnering with Treedom to further our commitment and raise awareness of the issues that women are facing globally. 

What are the Sustainable Development Goals? 

The Sustainable Development Goals are a set of environmental and social areas of focus set out by the United Nations General Assembly, 6 years ago in 2015.  . There are 17 goals in total, which focus on everything from inequality to education, climate action to peace and justice and are intended to be achieved by 2030.

Which Goals Are Y.O.U Underwear Focusing On?

We've selected 5 of the most relevant goals to focus on, and have outlined what we're doing for each one, in this blog post about the Sustainable Development Goals.  Today, we're focusing on one in particular: Goal 5.

What is Sustainable Development Goal 5? 

Goal 5 is: Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls.

Women and girls are at the heart of what we do - so it's no shock that we've chosen this as a goal to work towards. Y.O.U Underwear started when our founder met many young women and girls who didn't have access to something we take for granted - underwear.

In some communities it is estimated that 1 in 10 girls miss school on their periods due to a lack of underwear and sanitary products. Without proper period protection, they’re left with no choice but to miss school – up to 12 weeks a year! This translates into a considerable divergence in educational progress and access to opportunities.

What are you Doing to Promote Gender Equality and Female Empowerment?

We're glad you asked! Here are 4 of the things that we're doing to tackle this goal:

• Donating 2 pairs of underwear for every 1 sold.

Our underwear is sold on a buy one give two promise. This means that we donate 2 pairs of underwear for every one sold. We work with the charity Smalls For All to distribute underwear to vulnerable women and girls across Africa. Read more about our giving back scheme. 

• We work with India's leading ethical and sustainable manufacturer to ensure nobody is exploited in our supply chain.

Did you know that 80% of garment workers are women? We think that the exploitative practises of fast fashion must stop and are actively working to protest against unfair pay and harmful working conditions. From our cotton to our factories, we know that the people who make our clothes are paid well and work in good conditions. Read more about female garment workers in the fast fashion industry.

• By adopting the principles of ethical marketing, we're empowering women to feel confident and comfortable in their underwear. 
  

Certain marketing tactics are manipulative, full-stop. We recently signed The Ethical Move Pledge to commit to ethical marketing! As an underwear business, we feel an extra responsibility to say ciao, au revoir and auf wiedersehen to insecurity based marketing. Everyone is worth of stylish and comfy underwear - no matter their gender, body type, skin tone, abilities and age!

• We're supporting AMKA, a charity focused on female empowerment by donating £1 for every sale this weekend (5-6th June 2021).

For World Environment Day, Treedom have partnered with AMKA to plant lime trees in Guatemala - a project which has been specially created to involve as many women as possible throughout the growing process. 

AMKA is focused on reducing injustice for women, combating social discrimination and providing opportunities for growth for local communities.

As well as donating £1 per sale to AMKA, we will be gifting every customer one of the lime trees from the project in Guatemala!

Shop Organic Cotton Underwear here to donate £1 to AMKA, plant a tree with Treedom and donate 2 pairs of underwear for every 1 bought!