We are pleased to announce that House of Baukjen, with its womenswear brand Baukjen and maternity brand Isabella Oliver, has been named as a winner of the prestigious 2021 United Nations Global Climate Action Awards under the Climate Neutral Now category. We are incredibly honoured to be recognised as a carbon-negative circular leader in the fashion industry ahead of the landmark event of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP26). The UN Climate Change will bestow House of Baukjen among others with this prestigious award at a ceremony during the second week of COP26 in this Scottish city of Glasgow.

We carry with us the understanding that change is needed now for future generations to inherit a living planet. As a maternity brand, understanding just how high the stakes are for our children gives perspective to our work and motivates us to do better every day.

The UN Global Climate Action Awards are organised by UN Climate Change to acknowledge the best of the innovative, scalable, and replicable activities underway across the globe that are focused towards creating a highly resilient and low-carbon future.

UN Climate Change executive secretary Patricia Espinosa said in a statement: “This past year, we have seen deadly wildfires and floods in many parts of the world,” said UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Patricia Espinosa. “We urgently require solutions and actions from everyone: public and private sectors, civil society, academia, investors, cities and regions, etc. The winners of the 2021 UN Global Climate Action Awards provide tangible proof that solutions to tackle the climate crisis exist and that they can be replicated and quickly scaled up. This is what inspiring leadership looks like.”

2021 marks the 10th anniversary of these awards where 11 game-changing initiatives were selected by an international advisory panel as the winners of the awards. According to the UN Climate Change, these projects fall within three focus areas: Climate Neutral Now, Financing for Climate Friendly Investment and Climate Leaders. We are immensely proud and honoured to be one of the winners in the ‘Climate Neutral Now’ category, along with Microsoft, ICA Gruppen, and Taylors of Harrogate.

It has taken a lot of hard work to reach where we are today as a business. With sustainability as our core value, we have worked passionately towards making changes to our use of materials and logistics in recent years. Our efforts have resulted in an average saving of 1.19kg of CO2e (CO2 equivalent) and 830 litres of water for every garment we produced between Q2’19 to Q2’21. These figures represent a total saving of 99 tonnes of carbon equivalent emissions and 74 million litres of water in just the first half of the year 2021. This recognition belongs to the company, not as a faceless entity but to our team and manufacturers who have made conscious efforts to analyse and reduce emissions at every stage of operations.

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We have already been rated the best fashion B Corp in the UK and second best in the Europe. Having been recognized as a carbon-negative circular leader in the fashion industry by the UN and receiving this prestigious award has positioned us as a leading Planet-Friendly Maternity Brand.

In this journey to become a low carbon brand, we have made transformational efforts to minimize our emissions, some of which include choosing fibres and fabrics with lower environmental footprint, shortening our supply chains, becoming a Zero Waste company, and moving our office to a Green Building. We’re also increasingly circular, with a growing percentage of recycled fibres in our collection (mostly natural), Rental and Pre-Loved collections.
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As of 2020, we became carbon-negative across our entire supply chain by analysing, reducing, restoring, and offsetting our carbon emissions through Gold Standard CER and VER offsets. We are working collaboratively with suppliers to help them become more sustainable, tackling inefficiencies, and switching to 100 percent renewable energy. Carbon Negative means that the impact goes beyond achieving net zero carbon emissions to create an environmental benefit by removing additional carbon dioxide from the atmosphere

So, we’re actually Climate Positive!
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“Everyone has a role to play when it comes to confronting the climate crisis,” said Gabrielle Ginér, Chair of the Advisory Panel. “The recipients of the UN Global Climate Action Awards are stepping up with the kind of bold and courageous leadership we need to see much more of, to avoid the ever-worsening impacts of climate change.”

As one of the Best for the World B Corps, people and planet are at the heart of everything we do at Isabella Oliver, so we are thrilled that our work in this area has been recognised by the United Nations. We will not be resting on our laurels though! We feel even more motivated now and we are continuing to work as hard as ever to reduce emissions and the environmental impact of our business in every environmental SDG (Sustainable Development Goals), whilst striving to have a positive impact on all the people we impact, directly or indirectly.

We use our business as a force for good and want to encourage other companies to follow our lead and take action to combat climate change together. We will campaign to create a more sustainable fashion industry and lead the way as much as possible, sharing our path along the way.

“Everyone has a role to play when it comes to confronting the climate crisis,” said Gabrielle Ginér, Chair of the Advisory Panel. “The recipients of the UN Global Climate Action Awards are stepping up with the kind of bold and courageous leadership we need to see much more of to avoid the ever-worsening impacts of climate change.”

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