Welcome to the new

Impact Report 2024

At Organic Basics, we put a lot of effort into being the best versions of ourselves. We don’t always get it right, but we’re always focused on improving, reducing our impact, and staying true to our values of transparency. We’re grateful that 2024 was another exciting year at Organic Basics — we released a capsule collection with actress Antonia Gentry in New York, we launched The Organic Basics Club, and we settled into a new office in the heart of Copenhagen. We had the best time hosting events and building our community, and can’t wait to do more in 2025. We’re really proud of some of the steps we’ve taken to live up to our commitments. We definitely made a few mistakes (who hasn’t), but we’re trying to learn from them.

By now, we’re all aware that the fashion industry is one of the most polluting industries globally. It has also remained largely unregulated and unchecked for decades — but that’s finally starting to change. In 2024, the EU took major steps by adopting the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation. We won’t go into too much detail, but in a nutshell, this will force companies to consider durability, reusability, and reparability in their design and be more transparent in their communication. Although updating some of our processes can be a bit tricky, we’re excited about these new rules because, ultimately, we want everyone to be held to the high standards we hold ourselves to.

Spoiler alert — the big news coming out of 2024 is that we are finally ready to launch our takeback program: ReOB. After years of talking about making our business more circular, we’re ready to take the next step. But more on that later.

2024 highlights: — 2024 highlights:

The data

Before we get into it, we have to give a quick shout out to two partners that we’ve relied on once again to help us collect accurate data on our impact — Made2Flow and One Carbon World.

Made2Flow carries out Life Cycle Assessments (LCAs) on each product we produce — read more here. In 2024, we increased the scope of our LCAs to cover cradle-to-grave emissions, meaning the full lifecycle of the product is calculated from raw material to the end of its life. In 2023, we only had gate-to-site data i.e. up to the product arriving at our warehouses.

One Carbon World calculates and offsets the overall carbon footprint of our business. Some of this is estimated based on financial spend, but all is done according to the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Protocol Corporate Standard. The product LCA data has been applied to sales data for the 2024 measurement period of 01/01/2024 to 31/12/2024.

For 2024, we’ve offset our Scope 1, 2 and partial Scope 3 emissions via the ‘La Pitanga Afforestation’ Project - a Verified Emission Reductions (VERs) project, in Uruguay.

In 2024, we did something amazing — we reduced our transport emissions per product by 65%, from gate-to-site (i.e. from supplier to warehouse). We achieved this by shipping 79% of our products by land and sea, to our warehouses in Denmark and Mexico. That means we hit our goal of reducing transport emissions per product by 50% in 2024, from supplier to warehouse.

Back in 2021, we set an ambitious goal to reduce our emissions intensity by 50%, using 2020 as a baseline. Carbon intensity refers to our carbon emissions relative to our revenue growth. We know that, lately, many brands have silently removed their emissions targets because they were never going to meet them in the first place. We really don’t want to be bunched into that group — but we need to set a new target. Let us explain why.

First, we sold almost triple the units of clothing in 2024 compared to the previous year. As a relatively young and growing company, this growth in sales is essential to keep us on our feet but it is the main reason why we’re not going to hit our carbon intensity goal in 2025. This year, the average impact of our clothes produced was 3.3kgCO2e.

Our data is also getting better and more accurate, making it impossible to compare our carbon emissions in 2024 to previous years. In 2024, we’ve included the impact of the use of our products and the end of their life. This means that the impact of washing, wearing, and disposing of a product over its lifecycle has been estimated, included in our emissions, and offset via One Carbon World. This is something we haven’t consistently included in previous years, and it makes up 38% of our overall emissions for 2024! We also estimated the impact of our deliveries to customers, which added an additional 16% to our total carbon emissions. As a result, over half of our emissions in 2024 stem from factors we didn’t properly calculate in the past.

This means we have a lot of work to do in 2025. We need to create a new goal to reduce our carbon emissions, and plan exactly how to do it. Check out Our Commitments to know more.

Materials

At Organic Basics, we’re very selective about the materials we use to make our products. Our design and sourcing teams put a lot of effort into choosing fabrics that are soft, comfortable, and durable. Their job is even more challenging due to our strict requirement to choose certified materials that have a lower impact than their conventional alternatives. According to the Textile Exchange’s latest Organic Cotton Market Report from 2022 — less than 2% of cotton grown worldwide is organic. This makes it both expensive and difficult to source, but also highlights the importance for brands and consumers to demand organic cotton, so it can eventually become the norm.

We’re going to pat ourselves on the back and admit that this is one area we’re doing really well in. In 2024, 95.5% of our collections (by fiber weight) were made with organic cotton, and for the second year in a row, 98% of our collections were made with “preferred materials” — as categorized by the Textile Exchange’s Preferred Fiber and Materials Matrix. While we’re unlikely to reach 100% until we find an alternative to conventional elastane, we’re actively exploring options because there is always room for improvement.

The fiber breakdown refers to the garments’ main material, excluding accessories e.g. bra padding.

Get to know our materials: — Get to know our materials:

Organic Cotton
There is a reason why organic cotton is our most used material. Organic Cotton has the potential to sustain the land, by naturally building soil health through crop rotation, and growing crops without artificial fertilizers or hazardous synthetic pesticides. Using organic cotton instead of regular cotton can benefit the fashion industry and planet, by helping protect the health of people and the land.
TENCEL™ Lyocell
These wood-based fibers are created through a closed-loop process that transforms wood chips into cellulosic fibers, with more than 99% of the process water and solvent being recycled. Due to these reasons, the long-lasting and silky-smooth fabric used has a low environmental impact. TENCEL™ is a trademark of Lenzing AG.
LENZING™ ECOVERO™ Viscose
Derived from controlled or certified wood sources, LENZING™ ECOVERO™ fibers are made with at least 50% less carbon emissions and water consumption compared to generic viscose^. LENZING™ ECOVERO™ Viscose fibers are certified with the EU Ecolabel for environmental excellence*. LENZING™ and ECOVERO™ are trademarks of Lenzing AG.
* EU Ecolabel for textile products (license no. AT/016/001)
^ Results based on LCA standards (ISO 14040/44) and available via Higg MSI (Version 3.7)
Recycled Nylon
Recycling nylon helps reduce the environmental impact of its production by conserving resources and diverting waste from landfills. Our recycled nylon is typically made with pre-consumer fabric waste. Known for its durability, nylon can withstand frequent washing and wear without losing its shape. Additionally, its flexible, and compressive properties make it an excellent choice for activewear.

Social Impact

Joining the 1% for the Planet community (again) was a highlight of our year. We committed to donate 1% of our annual sales to support environmental causes around the world — and we did it, with your help. In 2025, we’re excited to continue supporting local and global non-profits that are doing such incredible work to protect our planet.

What our impact looks like: — What our impact looks like:

The Or Foundation
Conscious Alliance
Big Blue Ocean Cleanup
Pollinator Partnership

Here’s how we’re doing on the commitments we made for 2024.

Radical transparency

This is an ongoing commitment — not something isolated to one year. As part of our dedication to transparency, we committed to The Or Foundation’s Speak Volumes! campaign back in 2023. For the third year in a row, here are our production numbers: In 2024, we produced 1593888 pieces of clothing.

For the past few years, we’ve shown the carbon footprint of our products on our website, which we think is pretty cool! This data comes from LCAs, which can be a bit complicated to understand because, let’s be honest — no one really knows what 1 kg of CO2e actually means. In 2024, we took big steps towards even greater transparency into our supply chain. To help you make informed decisions, we’ve been working on showing you the impact of our products compared to industry benchmarks (calculated using LCAs). We’ve also been working on showing where in the world your OB pieces are made — not just our Tier 1 suppliers (where the clothes are actually sewn), but all the way to Tier 4 (where the raw materials are grown or made). Stay tuned for this launch in early 2025!

The next step is to turn this into a full Digital Product Passport. More on that in Our Commitments.

Reducing transport emissions

As a global brand working with suppliers around the world, how we transport our products has a major impact on the overall carbon footprint of our products. In 2024, we committed to reducing our transport emissions by 50% per product because, in all honesty, we f**ked up the year before.

Guess what? We smashed our goal by reducing our transport emissions by not 50%, but 65% per product! In 2024, we shipped 79% of our new products to the warehouse by sea. This is an enormous improvement and we are over the moon about it. This is an enormous improvement that was made possible by the crucial work from our executive and production teams — big kudos to them for getting it so right. This good work won’t stop here — we have more goals for 2025.

Circular strategy

We’ve finally done it! After, let’s face it, years of talk, we’re ready to launch our new takeback program in the EU. We’re beyond excited that we can now offer you the chance to responsibly recycle our products at the end of their (hopefully) long lives.

As part of our new take back program, ReOB, our community in the EU can now send their old Organic Basics products to be recycled once they’re sure the products are no longer of use. We found the perfect partner in Spain, who can not only handle our old products responsibly, but also provide us with full visibility into the data: how much water is saved, CO2 produced, and what percentage of products are textile-to-textile recycled or downcycled.

During our Black Friday sale, we also worked with The Or Foundation, an incredible non-profit that works primarily in Ghana to combat the global fashion waste crisis. If you’re not familiar with their work, we recommend following @theorispresent on Instagram. As part of our Black Friday campaign, we were able to donate $18,000 with our community’s help, to help fund the removal of textile and other plastic waste from beaches in Accra. Some in our community raised justified concerns about the tricky balance of supporting the removal of textile waste while also selling new clothing. With our new recycling partner, we’re hoping to take a step closer to circularity, to try and make sure that the clothes we make don’t contribute to the global waste crisis.

Inclusivity

We’ve continued to make improvements in our size offering throughout our 2024 collections — finally offering XXL consistently across all styles, including bras. Our biggest improvement has been in the designs created throughout 2024, which will launch during 2025. For Spring/Summer 2025, we’ll finally offer 3XL across all styles in both men’s and women’s collections. We’re proud of every step we’re taking toward becoming more inclusive, but we know we’re still not where we want to be. Our goal is to create clothing that anyone can feel comfortable and confident wearing.

Green claims

New regulation coming from the EU is finally forcing brands to be really clear about why a product is a better option for the planet than an alternative — by showing the data and having the proof. This will hopefully help people make more informed purchasing decisions, empowering everyone to filter through greenwashing BS. We’re proud of the products we make, so we can’t help but shout about the good we’re doing from the rooftops. But we’re a small team, and unfortunately, some things slip through the cracks. It took us longer than it should have to realise that our advertisements weren’t always detailed enough to explain why our products are a more sustainable option than conventional alternatives. With the help of some experts, we’ve made changes to our communications and marketing approach. We’re now taking extra steps to ensure that the proof is in the claim – and not buried in a messy folder somewhere in the Cloud.

Delayed deliveries = bad news

Working seasonally with the fashion calendar requires meeting strict deadlines, and delayed deliveries can cause some big issues. Towards the end of 2024, we had not one, not two, but three collections arrive at the same time. Pieces that should’ve been sold in January didn’t arrive until October. Our summer collection arrived in the fall, and our Spring/Summer 2025 collection arrived right on time, at the end of the year.

As a small brand, we cannot overstate how big a problem this was. We work with a great forecasting tool and an amazing team to produce just the right amount of stock that we actually will sell based on our sales projections. But selling three seasons’ worth of clothing at once, when we only expected to be selling one, was nearly impossible. We struggled to move the inventory, so we did something we usually try to avoid. We sold extra stock to off-pricing outlets. We design basics and limit our seasonal color offerings to avoid this type of situation, but this time we couldn’t find another way out. From our point of view, it’s better to have our products out of the warehouse collecting dust, and into wardrobes where they can be worn and loved again and again.

Too many ads

You may not know this, but online advertisements have a surprisingly high emissions impact. In 2024, we increased our investment in online advertising to help grow our brand. In all honesty, we didn’t stop to think about the environmental impact of that decision. According to Good-Loop, the UK based ad experts, every 100,000 impressions an ad serves releases 110kg of CO2e, the equivalent to approximately 500km of driving.

As a primarily online business, this isn’t very likely to change. However, we can do better by actually considering this type of impact across the entire business and collecting the necessary data. This way, we can better understand its effects and create a responsible plan moving forward. It’s easy to forget that our impact goes beyond clothing production. In 2025, we plan to introduce ‘sustainability ambassadors’ across all internal teams, so that every department will have an advocate to encourage mindful consideration of the environmental impact of their projects.

We’ve decided to look a bit further in the future, and have set a number of goals that we want to achieve in both 2025 and 2026.

Digital Product Passport

In 2025, we plan to launch a Digital Product Passport, giving our customers full access to information about where their Organic Basics pieces were produced — not just assembled, but also where the cotton was grown, where the fabric was dyed, and more. This will be a requirement in the EU in the coming years, but we want to get ahead of the curve and make sure our customers have full insight into our production process. This project has been in motion for a while, as we’ve been working hard to launch the 1.0 version on our website. This year, we want to go the next step and equip all of our clothing with QR codes that give you full visibility into the carbon footprint, traceability and environmental impact.

Carbon reduction strategy

As we mentioned in The Data, we need to set a new carbon reduction goal. Our emissions calculations are more thorough, and include more data points than before, so we can’t accurately compare our impact to previous years any more. We don’t want to set another blind goal without considering the risks or fleshing out an actual plan to reach it. It’s going to take a lot of work to set the goal, let alone to hit it, so in 2025 we’re committed to making a proper carbon reduction strategy — one that is actionable and achievable.

Our Commitments for 2025 and 2026 — Our Commitments for 2025 and 2026

Please reach out to hello@organicbasics.com if you have any questions or feedback about our Impact Report.