SANE STANDARD is a set of requirements and characteristics that a product needs to fulfill to be certified SANE.
SANE is a holistic certification for sustainable fashion products.
Its purpose is to enable conscious fashion brands to communicate their sustainable commitment in a verified, credible, and desirable manner. Parallelly, it allows consumers to instantly recognize ethically made products and show their positive engagement to their peers.
Sustainability does not have a universal and established definition. In fact, producing clothes or footwear will never be 100% sustainable because it will always require the use of water and energy along with other resources and will inevitably generate some waste.
The baseline to set up this standard was to define the threshold under which a production process causes irrevocable damage to the environment, the workers, or the consumers’ health.
Certified products must meet this threshold in all areas covered by the standard because it would be inSANE only to protect the planet while exploiting people or vice versa.
SANE requirements cover the life cycle phases of a product where the environmental or human impacts are the most harmful and where single brands or production facilities are technically able to implement more sustainable processing methods.
The standard focuses, in particular, on the choice of low-impact materials, the chemical content of final products, the environmental footprint of the processing stages, and the working conditions and remuneration of workers.
The requirements are high but also realistic and achievable for large-scale fashion brands. Such production standards are already implemented by many successful companies.
The standard is designed for products made and sold around the world.
The final certified products can be garments, fashion accessories, footwear, and home textiles. This list might be extended in the future.
SANE certification is suitable for small, medium, and large companies from both a practical and financial point of view.
Companies can certify only a part of their collections/production if not all of their products fulfill SANE’s requirements.
To ensure the credibility of the standard, production facilities need to be certified by an accredited third-party certifier unless they can prove compliance with SANE requirements upfront.
When local regulations in place have higher sustainability standards, those shall prevail, in other cases, SANE requirements apply.
To avoid unnecessary duplication of audits, SANE recognizes and accepts selected credible existing standards (see Accepted Certification).
It has taken 5 years of research and consultations with hundreds of the industry’s stakeholders to set the first standard version. This third version was released after learning from the past year’s certifications.
The standard will be reviewed on a regular basis in order to meet the highest achievable level of sustainability consistently.
1.
Material choice accounts for a large part of a fashion brand’s environmental footprint. The production of material can have severe impacts in terms of water, energy, and land use, as well as air emissions and waste. Choosing sustainable material significantly reduces the environmental footprint of a product.
SANE is also mindful of the market reality and technical constraints. Products might need specific components which don’t yet have an environmental-friendly equivalent to meet market standards for quality, elasticity, strength, or aesthetics.
SANE-certified products must be made of SANE Approved Material.
Depending on the type of product, the following minimum percentages of Approved Material apply:
At least 90% of the total product weight, including accessories, must be made of Approved Material.
Part A – includes the upper, toe box, vamp, tongue, laces, eyelets, counter, as well as any other material making up the upper part of the shoe: a minimum of 80% of the weight of the whole part A must be made of Approved Material.
Part B – includes the outsole, midsole, insole, heel, as well as any other material making up the sole of the shoe: a minimum of 50% of the weight of the whole part B, must be made of Approved Material.
2.
Chemicals are used extensively in the production of garments and footwear, and when they reach the stores, they still contain harmful substances. Consumers can be exposed to these hazardous substances through skin contact, inhalation, or unintentional ingestion of dust released from the textile.
The substances in the Candidate List of Substances of Very High Concern (SVHC) published by the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) are considered harmful to human or environmental health.
To be certified SANE, product materials, as well as the final product, shall be free of substances listed on the ECHA Candidate List in concentrations above the threshold specified by the REACH regulation.
In addition to the Material Requirements, SANE Standard includes environmental and social requirements throughout the production of the materials and the final product.
3.
Chemicals are used in almost every step throughout the production of a garment and can be extremely harmful to consumers, workers, and the environment.
Water pollution from the fashion industry is a significant environmental issue. Textiles treatment plants alone contribute to around 20% of industrial water pollution. SANE ensures that the production of certified items does not add to this harmful pollution, which negatively impacts aquatic life and the health of millions living near affected river banks.
The substances listed in the ZDHC’s Manufacturing Restricted Substance List have been proven to be dangerous and should not be used during the processing stages, including printing and finishing.
Wastewater from all wet processing facilities shall be treated before being released into the environment.
The applicable local regulations shall be fulfilled. Where local requirements are lower, and effluent water treatment is not managed collectively by local authorities, the limit values of the Foundational Level of ZDHC’s Wastewater Guidelines shall prevail.
4.
” There is no beauty in the finest cloth if it makes hunger and unhappiness,” said Mahatma Gandhi.
Unfortunately, the fashion industry has long been infamous for its abuse of worker rights. In addition to addressing environmental concerns, it is crucial for SANE also to guarantee fair labour practices and ensure the well-being and rights of workers involved in the production of certified articles.
SANE requirements for working conditions follow the International Labour Organization conventions and recommendations.
The facilities involved in the production of certified products must respect the rights and dignity of the workers by fulfilling the below requirements:
5.
SANE requirements and certification process are rigorous in order to be credible. The involvement of key company personnel is a critical success factor.
There should be a system in place to monitor performance to ensure compliance with SANE requirements or equivalent accepted standards and corrective action when necessary.
The management should identify the risks related to the unit operations and the subcontractors.
The employees and subcontractors should be informed of SANE requirements or equivalent accepted standards.
Sufficient documentation should be available to prove compliance.
At least one employee of the company shall be designated as a contact person for SANE compliance-related matters.
6.
Traceability, transparency, and a clear chain of custody are important components of SANE requirements to ensure the credibility of the claim on final products.
SANE uses a segregated chain of custody:
SANE Approved Materials and/or certified products must be identified and stored separately in all production facilities.
Facilities must keep comprehensive documentation and records of the origin, type, incoming quantities, processing, flow within the unit, outgoing quantities, and destination of Approved Material or certified products.
Facilities must be able to provide material traceability documentation proving compliance with SANE Material Requirements.
All subcontractors involved in the manufacturing of SANE Approved Materials and/or certified products shall be disclosed and shall comply with SANE requirements and be audited if required.
7.
Fair working conditions are a crucial component of SANE Standard, and it takes it one step further. Decent working conditions only make sense if the remuneration of labour allows workers to fulfill their basic needs. The concept of a Living Wage is the most widely accepted definition for “a remuneration covering basic needs.”
Manufacturers of final SANE-certified products must comply with the following requirements in addition to the previous ones:
Wages and benefits paid should always be sufficient to meet the basic needs of workers and their families, including some discretionary income.
The local living wage shall be calculated based on the Anker Methodology to quantify the basic needs in remuneration equivalence.
Any gap between the living wage and the workers’ remuneration will have to be compensated to fill the Wage Gap. This compensation cannot lead to the reduction of workers’ remuneration.
In some regions, the Market Wage for apparel and footwear workers is far below the Living Wage. Where it is not economically viable for an employer to pay a Living Wage to the workers, a compensation mechanism can be accepted.
