The basics of life
We live on a crazy colourful planet with an amazing abundance of life. In fact, we're all part of the same ecosystem. We depend on it. So let's celebrate the basics of life. Take care of it. Make happy, conscious choices every time you buy a new piece of clothing. Because with every little purchase, you're making a big difference to all life. How big? Get ready for some numbers!
Kicking bad habits
The clothing industry is one of the most polluting, cruel and unfair businesses in the world. Most of the world's clothing contains water spill, pollution, pesticides, animal cruelty, sweatshops, child labour and unfair trade. All these things don't feel good on your skin. So why do we allow it, or even buy it? It's time to kick some bad habits. Luckily, you can!
Last year you saved
Our goal is to improve these numbers by 10%
1. From each of our products, we know its environmental impact.
We know the same about conventional products, so we can calculate the difference.
2. We multiply the impact of our products with the number of products actually sold.
Now, we know the positive impact that our products are having in the real world. Day by day, hour by hour.
3. So our impact doesn't count until you have made a purchase.
Because we don't make a difference just by having products in our warehouse. Only when you choose them over other products in your life, we're making an impact together.
Why water counts
With our planet heating up, fresh water is becoming scarse. Rivers dry up, the land withers and large forest fires rage in many places. Still, cotton is the most used material for clothing. Why is this bad? Because on average, 1 kg of cotton absorbs 10,000L of water*. Every year, a tiny country like the Netherlands uses 2,912 sextillion** liters of water in clothing alone. Luckily, we have a solution!
**) 2,912 sextillion liters of water =
olympic swimming pools
You can save up to 95% of water
Apart from cotton, there are several innovative, water-efficient fabrics for clothing. Like eucalyptus, which has been our main material since 2015 and makes for about 85% of our sales. Eucalyptus saves about 95% of water during cultivation and yarn production. The trees grow on wetlands and don't need irrigation or fertilisation. And recently we added recycled polyamide which hardly uses water at all. On top of that, we save 36% water in our dyeing process.
6x more renewables
Relatively, we use about just as much energy as most other brands. The difference is in the energy source. In our processes, we use 68% solar power and wind energy, which is over 6x more than the world average (11%). We also use around 60% less fossil energy like coal or gas. Our suppliers reuse their process heat to save power.
| Our enegy mix | Renewable | Conventional |
|---|---|---|
| Eucalyptus | 87.3% | 12.7% |
| Organic cotton | 51.2% | 48.8% |
| Manufacturing | 65.9% | 34.1% |
| Average | 68.1% | 31.9% |
Our fossil footprint
If we add up the fossil part of our energy consumption for all our products combined, we get a total of 64.8 KWh. If we would make the exact same products from conventional cotton, the total of fossil energy would be 167.8 KWh. This means we're reducing the fossil footprint of our combined products by over 60%.
How we're CO2 negative
In our process, we save 86% on CO2 emissions. You can read about that next. But the really good news is: we're CO2 negative! Together with our customers, we have bought trees at a small forest In Nepal. These trees compensate for 75400kg CO2 each year. This is a lot more than the 8000kg we emit in our process. In fact, we are 67400kg CO2 negative. You can fly 35 times back and forth between Amsterdam and New York for this amount of CO2, but we urge you not to do that.
How we calculate our savings
Our CO2 footprint consists of emissions at fabric production, manufacturing, packaging and transport. If we add up all these emissions for our products (one of each style), we get a total of 23.6 kg. If we would make the exact same products from conventional cotton, the total would be 168.8 kg. This means we save 86% on CO2 emissions.
Farm land for farmers
For cotton cultivation, a lot of land is needed. And its intensive use is depleting the earth. Our eucalyptus only needs 23% of the land for the same yield. And since it grows on wetlands that cannot be used for anything else, we actually don't use agricultural land. In this way, we save space for farmers to grow wheat, rice or corn. In fact, in one year it adds up to 1871 hectares. That is the equivalent of 3741 football fields.
Our organic cotton (15% of our products) saves 62% of land. And our newly introduced 100% recycled PA uses no land at all.
Plastic fantastic
In this report, we have compared the impact of our products to that of conventional cotton. But at least 49% of underwear, and most sexy lingerie, is entirely made of new plastics like polyester, polyamide or nylon. It's soft, stretchy and durable, but made in a massively polluting process.
Plastic fantastic
If we were to make 49% of our underwear entirely out of plastics, we would need 1157 kg per year. But since we use only 5% elastan, we actually use 114 kg per year. This means we are making similar products with 90% less plastics. To give you an idea how much that is: with the amount of saved plastics, around 20,000 bath duckies could be made!
Our mailing bags
Currently, we use a biodegradable mailer bag. During production the 'normal' plastic gets mixed with a small portion of pro-degradant additive. This means that when the plastic comes into contact with light, water, heat or pressure, it will start to biodegrade. The micro particles are eaten by bacteria and do not end up in the environment.
What's in your clothes
Textile production processes make use of a large amount and variety of chemicals. The production of 1 kg of cotton T-shirts, for example, requires about 3 kg of chemicals (KEMI, 2014).
These include cyanide, dicofol, naled, propargite, and trifluralin which are known cancer-causing chemicals. Chinese studies have found pesticide residues in cotton textiles – of nine different organochlorine pesticides at levels of 0.5 to 2 mg/kg.
What we do different
None of these harmful chemicals will be found in our clothing. No pesticides or fertilizers are used at the growing stage. Our eucalyptus fibre production takes place in a zero-waste process, our organic cotton is made in or a GOTS-certified process. Fabric production and confection is done using sustainably certified and controlled processes, completely eliminating the use of harmful chemicals. The OEKO-TEX certificate on all our products ensures that you will have no toxins on your skin.
Made by happy hands
Our basics are 100% made in a happy, healthy and safe workplace in Portugal. All people in our process are paid a fair living wage. There is an on-site fitness programme and the children of the workers are offered scholarships and internships.
A zero-waste process
Our eucalyptus fibre is made at Lenzing, Austria in a zero waste process:
from FSC certified wood chips
in a closed-loop system
99.5% of the solvent is re-used
with 88% renewable energy
No agressive chemicals like sulphuric acid are used (as is the case with bamboo and other rayons).
No animals harmed
We respect all life on our planet. So naturally, all our products are made without animal ingredients. Very occasionally we use wool, but only recycled. So no sheep are sheared for that. All our basics are animal friendly and thus PETA approved.
Be a Saint. It's easy!
Do what a Saint does best: spread the word
tell a friend - send your friends a 20% discount
show your Saintly self on Instagram
like, share and follow us on social media
sell us in your shop, promote us on your blog or channel
There's a handsome reward for all of these things, but first and foremost we need to reach our mission goals. Will you help us do that? Thanks for being a Saint!
Global water footprint
We get the average water footprint of cotton from the Water Footprint Report by Prof. A.Y. Hoekstra et al. of Twente University in the Netherlands. This a comprehensive study into the water footprint of many crops in different parts of the world. We discussed the Saint Basics water footprint with Prof. Hoekstra personally.
| Water footprint CONVENTIONAL cotton | ||
|---|---|---|
| Finished product | 10.850 | page 23- table 4.4 |
| Containing: | ||
| fertiliser dilution | 622 | page 22 - table 4.1 |
| bleaching | 30 | page 19 |
| dyeing | -140 | page 19 |
| printing | -190 | page 19 (N/A) |
| finishing | -140 | page 19 |
| Average | 10520 | |
Our energy footprint
Our energy mix is made up of fabric production, manufacturing, packaging and transport. About 85% of our fabric is sourced at Lenzing AG in Austria:
| Energy ratio at Lenzing | |
|---|---|
| Renewables | 87.3% |
| - Oil | 0.8% |
| - Coal | 5.7% |
| - Gas | 6.2% |
| Conventional | 12.7% |
Our manufacturer Impetus in Portugal reports 25% use of solar panels and 75% use of the Portuguese power grid. This grid delivers 54.6% power from renewable sources (Eurostat). The weighed average of renewable energy use is 65.9%.
We estimate the renewable energy part of our organic cotton, which is a small part of our production, at 51% (based on CO2 emission data).
Global water footprint
We get Lenzing's energy and CO2 footprint from a study by the Universities of Utrecht and Geneva. Since this study dates from 2012 and Lenzing has announced zero CO2 emissions by 2030, we use the 'future' projections from table 4.4:
| TENCEL™ Lyocell CO2 footprint | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MJ | KWh | KWh | kg CO2 | |
| Energy per kg fibre | 21 | 5.09 | 0.74 | |
| CO2 per kg fibre | 0.05 | |||
The Cool Cotton report gives us the CO2 emissions (page 2) and energy consumption (page 6) for organic and conventional cotton fibre production. An American study estimates the energy consumption at the ginning stage at 35 KWH per bale of 200 kg.
| Cotton energy and CO2 footprint | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Process | Conv. KWh | Conv. CO2 | Organic KWh | Organic CO2 |
| Crop production | 4.17 | 1.80 | 1.61 | 0.99 |
| Ginning | 0.175 | 0.18 | 0.175 | 0.08 |
| Total | 4.34 | 1.98 | 1.79 | 1.07 |
Manufacturing footprint
| Process | supplier | conventional | unit |
|---|---|---|---|
| confection | 0.42 | 3.26 | kg/style |
| fabric knitting | 0.01 | 1.22 | kg |
| elastic knitting | 0.004 | 0.03 | kg/m |
| dyeing | 0.08 | 0.67 | kg |
We estimate the CO2 impact of our mailer bags at 0,026 kg per product. Transport from Portugal to our warehouse in the Netherlands is calculated at 0.19 kg per kg of clothing.
Packaging & transport: Plastic bags & bottles CO2, LDPE bags energy, Carboncare emissions calculator
Our land use
The Lenzing sustainability report compares the required acreage of agricultural land for TENCEL™ Lyocell and conventional cotton. The Textile Exchange report gives us numbers for certified organic acreage and the yield per hectare.
| Required acreage for fibre production | |
|---|---|
| The Lenzing sustainability report (p 36) number for TENCEL™ Lyocell | 0.24 |
| The Lenzing sustainability report (p 36) number for conventional cotton | 1.07 |
| Textile Exchange: 249153 tonnes organic cotton produced on 588425 ha | 0.42 |
Eucalyptus water footprint
We get the water footprint of our eucalyptus (TENCEL™) fibre production from the Lenzing sustainability report 2015 (page 37). To the 263 L/kg process water, we have added 90L/kg for dyeing. Also, we have added 20% as a safety margin for fibre-to-fabric inefficiency. This adds up to 424 L/kg.
Organic cotton water footprint
According to the Soil Association, organic cotton is approx. 91% more water efficient due to being grown in rain-fed areas and better soil efficiency. This percentage is widely quoted. However, Prof. A.Y. Hoekstra of the Water Footprint report, found this percentage highly overrated. In a personal call with Saint Basics, he estimated the efficiency between 30-70% depending on the producing country. We're going to be conservative and use 30% water savings as a more accurate percentage.