SANE STANDARD

SANE STANDARD is a set of requirements and characteristics that a product needs to fulfill to be certified SANE.

PRINCIPLES

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.

SANE REQUIREMENTS

1.

MATERIAL CHOICE

CONTEXT

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 REQUIREMENTS
GARMENTS AND ACCESSORIES:
FOOTWEAR:

2.

CHEMICAL CONTENT

CONTEXT

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.

SANE REQUIREMENTS

In addition to the Material Requirements, SANE Standard includes environmental and social requirements throughout the production of the materials and the final product.

  • The different components of the product shall be manufactured in facilities holding a SANE Scope certificate or an accepted certification.
  • The final product needs to be manufactured in a facility holding a SANE Scope certificate.
  • The following requirements apply to both the facilities involved in material manufacturing and those involved in the final product manufacturing, with the exception of Requirement 7., which applies exclusively to the final product manufacturing.

3.

CHEMICAL INPUT & OUTPUT

CONTEXT

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.

SANE REQUIREMENTS
CHEMICAL INPUT
WASTEWATERS

4.

DECENT WORKING CONDITIONS

CONTEXT

” 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.

SANE REQUIREMENTS

5.

MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

CONTEXT

SANE requirements and certification process are rigorous in order to be credible. The involvement of key company personnel is a critical success factor.

SANE REQUIREMENTS

6.

TRACEABILITY

CONTEXT

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 REQUIREMENTS
CHAIN OF CUSTODY
TRANSPARENCY

7.

PAYMENT OF A LIVING WAGE
(FINAL PRODUCT MANUFACTURER ONLY)​

CONTEXT

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.”

SANE REQUIREMENTS

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