Sustainable Development Goal 15: Life on Land

As part of our commitment to being a business for good, we're working towards 10 of the UN's Sustainable Development Goals. Today, we’re diving into Goal 15: Life on Land.

What are the Sustainable Development Goals?

The Sustainable Development Goals (or SDGs) are a set of environmental and social areas of focus set out by the United Nations General Assembly, 7 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 Focusing on?

Last year, we delved into 5 SDGs which you can read more about here.

When measuring our Q1 Impact, we assessed our alignment and performance towards the SDGs using B Lab's SDG Action Manager framework. We have a baseline score of 67.2% and scored 50% on Goal 4, Goal 5, Goal 6 and Goal 12. We were pleasantly surprised to score 50% on three goals we hadn’t yet considered, one of them being Goal 15, the focus of today’s blog!

We have since identified a further 3 goals that align with us - No Poverty, Decent Work and Economic Growth, and Climate Action - and are aiming to reach a score of > 50% in those by the end of 2022. 

What is Sustainable Development Goal 15?

Goal 15 is: Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss.

It’s no secret that the fashion industry is killing our earth. From driving global deforestation and desertification to polluting the local environment, garment production is undeniably impacting life on land. We’re constantly working to ensure that the production of our undies leaves as small a footprint as possible.

What is Y.O.U Doing to Support Goal 15?

We only use Fairtrade and GOTS certified organic cotton that is PETA-Approved vegan. Why? Because it has a number of benefits for the planet and people, including:

• Fairtrade works with cotton farmers to ensure they are farming sustainably and are paid the premium market rate.
• GOTS certified organic cotton is grown without pesticides and insecticides, which contaminate local waterways and pose a risk to farmers’ health  - learn more about organic cotton’s water footprint here.
• Organic cotton is better for the soil, creating 98% less soil pollution than conventional cotton
• Organic cotton promotes biodiversity, and helps farmers to move away from monocultural farming practices

We plant a tree for every newsletter signup and planted 174 trees in collaboration with Ecologi and Treedom in 2021. Tree planting is a simple and effective way to offset carbon emissions alongside active efforts to minimise our footprint wherever possible. If you’re not signed up to our newsletter, you can join the positive pants club here for weekly sustainability tips. 

As part of our commitment to be a regenerative business and reach Net Zero by 2030, we’re continually reviewing, measuring, reducing and offsetting our footprint. You can read about our future plans here.