Diving Into ANTA's Sustainability Achievements & Commitments
From the official sportswear partner of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, to one of the largest sportswear brands in China, ANTA is proactively responding to China's goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2060. As a signatory of the United Nations Global Compact to support the Ten Principles of the UNGC, ANTA established a Sustainability Committee and is responding to issues such as product carbon footprint management, fighting climate change, green production, and sustainable packaging, etc. Let's dive into ANTA's sustainability achievements and commitments.
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ABOUT ANTA
ANTA was established in China in the 1990s. It is positioned as a functional sportswear brand in the mass market and is committed to offering high value-for-money professional sportswear to consumers. By embracing an all-round brand portfolio including ANTA, FILA, DESCENTE, and KOLON SPORT, and by setting up an investor consortium to successfully acquire Amer Sports in 2019, a global sportswear group that has internationally recognized brands including Salomon, Arc’teryx, Wilson, Peak Performance, Atomic, etc. ANTA Sports aims to unlock the potential of both the mass and high-end sportswear markets.
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DIVING INTO
From green product design to green office operations, let’s dive into ANTA’s approach to reaching carbon neutrality by 2050.
Product Carbon Footprint
According to ANTA’s annual report, developing eco-friendly products is of great importance to the group. ANTA Sports has actively replaced non-recyclable raw materials with degradable materials and bio-based materials, and strives to reduce its environmental impacts, such as DuPont SORONA, regenerated cellulose fiber, recycled yarn, and fiber for apparel and shoe production to create sustainable sports products. For instance, below are a few of ANTA's carbon-reduced product collections.
In 2019, ANTA launched A-AWAKE ENERGY series “Train and Recycle”, which used recycled plastic (discarded plastic bottles) as raw materials, marking ANTA a Chinese sportswear brand that meets the RPET inspection standards. Making a piece of A-AWAKE ENERGY sportswear with fabric takes 11 discarded 550ml plastic bottles. In 2019, ANTA collected 7.7 million bottles and turned them into RPET fabric, providing a new and successful solution for recycling plastic waste.
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In 2020, ANTA launched its first recyclable shoe model, “Dominance running shoes”. Some of the materials used were made of recyclable or biodegradable substances, which helped minimize waste and optimize resource allocation. According to ANTA's data, for every 100 pairs of such shoes produced, "it can save 170W of electricity and reduce the release of carbon dioxide by 41.9 kilograms. "
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Last year, ANTA launched the new “EcoCosy” fiber textiles series, which demonstrated sustainable fashion to Chinese consumers. EcoCosy’s high-quality, viscose rayon fibers are sourced from high-quality plantations in the place of origin and are carefully cultivated by researchers for many years from the seed stage. Customized through different spinning processes, EcoCosy fiber textiles are soft and comfortable with excellent color and are 100% biodegradable and recyclable.
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Green Packaging
Throughout the process from production to sales, ANTA is proactively reducing the use of packaging materials by crating for internal circulation in the factories to minimize the use of tags and packaging; reducing the number of tags and isolation paper for apparel packaging, improving in-store displays to reduce the use of packaging material, as well as closing eco-friendly materials for packaging. For instance, ANTA uses degradable paper or recycled paper as shoe packaging and does not use plastic bags for 99.9% of its shoe products.
Emissions Management
According to ANTA, the company formulated relative policies to manage emissions, and conducted regular inspections of its wastewater, exhaust gas, and noise to ensure compliance with emissions regulations. A few effective measures to achieve green production have been implemented:
using fully automatic anti-splashing equipment and replacing manual production with mechanical arms;
electric engraving machines were equipped with a pulse-jet collector to reduce dust pollution;
a new cutting waste recycling device was introduced, which uses innovative liquid nitrogen cryogenic grinding technology, which fully recycles waste and greatly reduces dust in its factories.
ANTA Sports Products Limited ESG Report 2021
During the financial year of 2021, ANTA’s revenue reached RMB49,328 million, representing an increase of 38.9% as compared to that of 2020, while the total greenhouse gas emission intensity (ton of CO2 equivalent/revenue per million RMB) increased by 12.2% to 2.95 tons of CO2 equivalent as compared to 2020.
Biodiversity Conservation
ANTA Sports is working with a few partners to better practice biodiversity conservation throughout the supply chain. For example, ANTA Sports cooperated with the WWF to focus on protecting the two endangered species, the Siberian tiger and the finless porpoise, through continuous promotion and education. As the chief public welfare partner of WWF, ANTA Sports actively engaged in the “Earth Hour” campaign. In addition to switching off unnecessary lights and energy-consuming appliances for an hour, ANTA Sports also partnered with star athletes to promote the sustainable lifestyle of “Live with Nature, Speak for Nature”.
Besides, ANTA Sports continuously attaches importance to and carries out sustainable forest management and natural vegetation restoration. The Group is committed to creating a good environment for the return of wild animals, protecting the earth’s biodiversity, promoting the harmonious coexistence of humans and nature, and achieving global sustainable development. For instance, ANTA launched the “ANTA Forest” forest and landscape recovery project at the Imperial Ming Tombs Forest Farm in Beijing. Forest and landscape restoration work was performed at numerous forest lots in the area to protect biodiversity and offset the greenhouse gas emissions, and provide landscaping for the Beijing 2022 Olympic Winter Games.
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Moreover, ANTA is committed to establishing an RMB10 billion Charity Fund, which listed environmental protection as one of the four fields of focus, actively cooperating with environmental protection organizations, participating in the rescue of endangered species, and contributing to biodiversity.
Green Office Operations
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ANTA Sports formulated the “Office Management Policy” to regulate the use of energy resources in the office areas and promoted a number of green office measures, such as:
Establishing a regular inspection system in public areas and conducting safety hazard inspections to ensure low per-capita energy consumption;
Conducting guidelines on air conditioners and light switches to remind employees to reduce energy consumption whenever possible;
Maintaining our office equipment regularly to extend the service life and improve resource efficiency;
Promoting a paperless office and implementing unified management of office stationery, such as pens, ink, and paper;
Replacing some business trips with video conferences to reduce GHG emissions
Setting double-sided printing as the default setting to reduce office paper consumption
ESG-themed Training
ANTA Sports provides employees with ESG-themed training to boost their knowledge and expertise on environmental, social, and corporate governance, which includes cooperation with the Academy of Arts & Design of Tsinghua University on the use of green materials, sustainable development design courses, and cooperation with the WWF to develop “Living Planet” reports and “Wild Animal Protection” courses to strengthen a talent foundation for sustainable development.
WHAT’S NEXT?
Following China's green development and carbon neutral strategy, ANTA released their commitments "Mutualism with the Environment" to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, which will be based on a “1+3+5” strategic goal:
Besides, ANTA also aims to engage 3,000 upstream and downstream eco-system partners in the industry to improve their level of sustainability, as well as engage 300 million consumers to exert joint efforts in sustainable development initiatives.
GREENEXT'S TAKE
Product development and innovation is no doubt one of the key factors to ANTA's sustainability development. It's a great start for the Chinese sportswear giant to commit to increasing the proportion of sustainable products to 50% by 2030, while still keeping top functionality and affordable prices for consumers and professional athletes. As a mirror of the Olympics spirits of Team China and scoring one of the most influential figures in China - Olympic gold medalist freestyle skier Eileen Gu - as its brand ambassador, we are looking forward to seeing ANTA to take the lead in encouraging the Chinese consumers to embrace a low-carbon and eco-friendly lifestyle linking to sports, physical activities and our health. Sustainability definitely offers a new opportunity to win Chinese consumers in the new era!
For more information on ANTA's sustainability progress and commitments, please visit:
https://ir.anta.com/esg/en/index.php