Hirdaramani Group recently strengthened its sustainability pledge by joining the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s Make Fashion Circular initiative. With this, the company joins with influential fashion industry stakeholders including brands, cities, philanthropists, NGOs, and innovators to collaborate around the initiative’s aim to create a new textiles economy, aligned with the principles of the circular economy.

The Make Fashion Circular initiative was launched in 2017 at the Copenhagen Fashion Summit. Its aim is to stimulate the level of collaboration and innovation necessary to create a textiles economy fit for the 21st century. The initiative is based on the idea that the fashion industry needs to radically redesign its operating model. Industry leaders including Burberry, Gap Inc., H&M, NIKE Inc. and Stella McCartney are core partners of the initiative.

Hirdaramani joins this coterie of designers and leading brands as Sri Lanka’s own powerhouse apparel conglomerate. A pioneer in the industry, Hirdaramani’s infrastructure powers end-to-end supply chain solutions to the industry via factories in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Vietnam and Ethiopia. The Group is one of the largest manufacturers of jeans globally and is committed to reduce the usage of water, energy and chemicals in its manufacturing process through product re-design, technology and innovation. The design team is focussed on closed loop fashion and the Group continues to invest on creating more sustainable product.

A conviction that ‘doing the right thing makes good business sense’ has provided the foundation for the company’s sustainability strategy which is aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals and guided by a triple bottom line approach accounting for people, planet and profit. Hirdaramani’s ambitious sustainability strategy and actionable framework makes it even easier for the company to comfortably align itself with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s Make Fashion Circular initiative. “Circularity is one of our key sustainable initiatives and we are delighted to be joining Ellen MacArthur Foundation as a participant of the Make Fashion Circular initiative. We are extremely confident that through this collaboration, we will be able to develop further solutions to reduce waste and pollution throughout our operations and within the total fashion industry,” says Nikhil Hirdaramani, Director, Hirdaramani Group.

The Ellen MacArthur Foundation in a statement welcoming its newest member “Hirdaramani has become a leader in innovating towards a circular economy for fashion. We are delighted to welcome them as a participant of Make Fashion Circular and excited to see what we can achieve together.” said Francois Souchet - Lead, Make Fashion Circular.

Through the initiative, Hirdaramani Group has committed to the development of clothes designed to last longer and be worn more. No toxic substances or pollutants will be released when the clothes are produced and used. This way, the textiles and the fashion industries are entering the circular economy that looks beyond the current take-make-waste extractive industrial model. As the first Sri Lankan manufacturer to join, Hirdaramani hopes to set a positive precedent for the industry as a whole.