In 2015, the ALDI SOUTH Group and ALDI Nord joined 80 international fashion retailers by signing up to the Greenpeace Detox Commitment, a campaign focused on eliminating hazardous chemicals from textile and shoe supply chains. The recently published “ALDI Detox Report 2020” summarises ALDI’s five-year detox journey and gives comprehensive insight into the actions taken to meet their commitment.
ALDI’s detox strategy focuses on six areas: Chemical Management, Supply Chain Management, Data Management, Training, Stakeholder Dialogue, and Systemic Change. By significantly increasing transparency, ALDI has driven improvements across all tiers in the supply chain, and fast-tracked systemic changes to reduce the environmental footprint of textiles and shoes. Major achievements include implementing a successful system to eliminate hazardous chemicals from supply chains, aligning the parameters for wastewater and sludge with industry-wide standards, and switching to more sustainable materials such as waterborne polyurethane (PU) and sustainable cotton.
Building on solid achievements and a wealth of experience, ALDI is implementing further standards and increasing collaborations to achieve new goals. The key areas for 2020 and beyond are to use 100% sustainable cotton by 2025, to focus on countries and production facilities with the highest risks and to expand capacity-building programmes to help suppliers become more self-reliant. Internal and external trainings, webinars and workshop are already being implemented, such as the “Advanced Chemical Management Trainings” in Bangladesh and China.