Jack & Jones – one of Europe’s leading producers of menswear – cooperates with the Cotton made in Africa (CmiA) initiative to combine fashion with sustainability. As first CmiA Demand Alliance partner in Denmark, Jack & Jones now offers clothes carrying the CmiA seal which are completely made in Uganda – from cotton field until finished product. By purchasing textiles with the CmiA sustainability seal consumers can directly support to improve the living conditions of smallholder cotton farmers, protect the environment and create job opportunities within the textile value chain for the local communities in Uganda.
As first Danish textile brand JACK & JONES now offers clothes that carry the Cotton made in Africa sustainability seal. Special about these items are the added values for the people producing them across the complete textile value chain in Uganda. “In JACK & JONES we love cotton and it is our most important raw material. Through our ambitious Cotton Strategy we want to support that cotton is grown under better social and environmental conditions. Our partnership with Cotton Made in Africa supports this goal”, says Dorte Rye-Olsen, Sustainability Manager at JACK & JONES and adds “For our CmiA labelled products we have taken a further decisive step. By partnering with Fine Spinners Ltd. – a vertically integrated textile company based in Kampala – we are establishing a fully integrated textile production chain from field to fashion in Uganda. We can thereby increase the textile value addition within the cotton producing country and take care that all our CmiA labelled products can be completely traced back within our textile value chain from the final product in the store down to the South-Western CmiA growing region in Uganda.”
For Tina Stridde, Managing Director of CmiA, the cooperation with JACK & JONES and the recent development from Cotton to Textiles made in Africa initiates a major shifting point in the history of CmiA and for the textile industry in Uganda: “With JACK & JONES we have won a partner that invests in long-term relationships between the Ugandan cotton and textile industry and the international consumer market. Thereby, CmiA smallholder farmers, workers along the textile production chain in Uganda as well as consumers worldwide can directly profit. We are looking forward to a fruitful cooperation with JACK & JONES where CmiA cotton lays the basis for their engagement in Uganda.”
CmiA labelled products directly support smallholder cotton farmers who stand at the beginning of the textile supply chain to produce a sustainable raw material for the textile supply chain. The farmers profit from fair working conditions and learn how to improve their livelihoods and that of their families. Every purchase of a product bearing the official wine-red CmiA seal furthermore helps to protect the environment as CmiA excludes the utilization of GMO seeds or hazardous pesticides, excludes irrigation and bans cutting of primary forests.
JACK & JONES The story of JACK & JONES begins in 1990 when BESTSELLER sends a young, fiery soul to the Oslo fashion fair with a modest, but carefully chosen collection aimed at young men. The reception exceeds all expectations and the creation of a new menswear brand is a reality. In the following years JACK & JONES manifests itself as one of the strongest jeans brands on the market and within a few years, the brand has several hundred stores. Today JACK & JONES is one of Europe’s leading producers of menswear with more than one thousand stores in 38 countries and thousands of wholesale partners all over the world. Jeans are still regarded the backbone of JACK & JONES’ business. We continue to have a high level of expertise when it comes to the craftsmanship, quality and design of jeans, and JACK & JONES is nowadays defined and represented by seven unique brands: JACK & JONES VINTAGE CLOTHING, PREMIUM by JACK & JONES, ORIGINALS by JACK & JONES, CORE by JACK & JONES and JACK & JONES TECH, JACK & JONES JEANS INTELLIGENCE and JACK & JONES FOOTWEAR The CmiA t-shirts are designed under CORE by JACK & JONES.