The subject of the impact of our activity on the planet is a major one. To fully understand this and identify our action levers we carried out our first carbon assessment in 2018 starting with our textile brand Okaïdi, the largest, and therefore the most impactful. It has enabled us to accelerate projects already in place, such as organic cotton, and to identify other projects to be launched.
In addition, in partnership with EDF, we have launched a programme to reduce our energy consumption in stores and offices. We have opted for the use of energy from renewable resources, and we are working to optimize our flows to improve the impact of transporting our goods.
A company’s carbon assessment measures the greenhouse gases (GHG) it generates in its activities. All human activities emit greenhouse gases: fossil fuel combustion (for heating, transportation, air conditioning…), construction, production, farming, deforestation… The unit of measurement and expression is the tonne of CO2 equivalent (teCo2). It includes all GHG.
The scope of the IDKIDS Group’s carbon assessment
1/ GHGs directly emitted by the company (heating, vehicle fuel),
2/ GHGs indirectly emitted by electricity and heating or air conditioning of sites (headquarters, warehouses, stores),
3/ Indirect emissions upstream and downstream of the company (purchases and waste).
The IDKIDS Group carried out its carbon assessment in 2018, by brand (Okaïdi, Jacadi, Oxybul) and by activity (Headquarters, Warehouse, Stores and Products). Here are the focus areas for the Okaïdi brand and its activities:
Key figures:
What should we learn from these figures? If we take the case of a pair of jeans:
The more material a product requires (e.g., a pair of jeans consumes more cotton than a T-shirt), the greater its carbon impact.
Our 3 commitments to measure and reduce the impact of our purchases in the products we offer:
It is also important to specify that simply observing the carbon impact of cotton production is insufficient in terms of CSR criteria. As a consumer of water and pesticides, cotton cultivation must of course evolve towards more responsible practices, such as organic farming – without pesticides or GMOs – to reduce the overall impact of the sector on water and soil. But the conditions of production and in particular respect for the people who grow cotton in the producing countries is a related subject of vital importance.
Our 3 commitments to limit the impact of transporting our products:
In collaboration with EDF, for the last two year 500 of our sales outlets, warehouses and offices have been equipped with a data monitoring system for our electrical consumption. The aim? To reduce our environmental impact and the cost of our energy consumption at the same time.
This project, which is complicated to implement, now makes it very easy to detect over-consumption of electricity. As soon as over-consumption is spotted, it is reported by e-mail to raise awareness. Corrective action is quickly taken by the teams on site, who are highly mobilised with regard to these issues. In addition, interventions by the works department are sometimes necessary to adjust the air conditioning or to insulate a store room, for example.
This detailed analysis is accompanied by changing lighting to LEDs (known as “relamping”) and the systematic installation of timers in the storerooms of the new stores, and as a replacement over time in the old ones.
In 2 years, more than 5 GWh/year have been saved thanks to these corrective measures, going from an overall Group consumption of more than 25GWh/year in 2017 to less than 20GWh/year in 2019!
What next? Alerts will soon be automated, allowing the project team to focus on corrective actions to help the teams locally.
In addition to optimizing our energy consumption, we have chosen – with our service provider EDF – to use green energy wherever possible. This is the case for our headquarters, all our warehouses and our French stores.
Our ultimate goal: 100% of stores internationally using green energy!