The fashion industry contributes approximately 3% of global carbon emissions. As “green, low-carbon, and sustainable” become increasingly popular, consumers’ trust in brands’ green claims is being put to the test. For JIANGNANBUYI, telling an appealing green story is not difficult. But as a company that has embedded sustainability into its brand DNA, JIANGNANBUYI hopes to go beyond sustainability-focused PR copy and turn sustainability into an everyday choice across every production process, every departmental role, and every garment—so that consumers can truly understand that this green commitment is real and traceable.
As a Chinese designer fashion brand company with more than 30 years of deep engagement in the fashion industry, JIANGNANBUYI has not used green concepts as a marketing gimmick. Instead, it has developed an endogenous low-carbon pathway that is bottom-up, traceable, and circular: embedding sustainability into KPIs, offering transparency to consumers, and building long-termism into the supply chain. It is precisely this sustainable fashion model unique to JIANGNANBUYI that helped the company stand out in the selection for “2026 Shanghai Climate Week · 100 Products Leading the Way,” where it was named an “Annual Leading Enterprise,” presenting a warm, actionable, and verifiable sustainability case for Chinese fashion.
In this in-depth interview, Zheng Dandan, General Manager of Corporate Public Relations at JIANGNANBUYI, who is also responsible for the company’s sustainable development strategy, shared JIANGNANBUYI’s “green story” with us—from a pair of “zero-waste recycled jeans” to the green transformation of the company as a whole and even its entire value chain. What has JIANGNANBUYI done for consumers?
Interview Q&A
Carbon Newture & JIANGNANBUYI
Q: Recently, JIANGNANBUYI launched its first recycled denim product to receive carbon footprint certification. What is the carbon reduction story behind it?
Zheng Dandan: This pair of “extra-long denim pants” is a typical outcome of our T2T, or Textile-to-Textile, closed-loop recycling model. The original idea behind this product was simple: offcuts are inevitably generated during production. Rather than letting them go to waste, we wanted to give them a “second life.”
From an environmental data perspective, this recycled fabric reduces carbon emissions by 4% compared with virgin fabric. Calculated by Carbon Newture and certified by BV, an authoritative third-party certification body, the full life-cycle carbon footprint of this pair of jeans is 14.1119 kgCO₂e. Based on the annual production volume, the total carbon reduction achieved by this product is equivalent to the annual CO₂ absorption of 145 elm trees.
Behind this pair of jeans is in fact one of JIANGNANBUYI’s key environmental KPI targets: by 2025, sustainable raw materials should account for 30% of its procurement. In reality, we achieved 30.6%.
Q: How difficult is a 30.6% target in the textile industry? Is sustainable procurement a cost burden?
Zheng Dandan: Reaching 30% is in fact extremely challenging. It took us about five years to establish a closely coordinated cross-functional mechanism across design, R&D, production, and procurement, gradually increasing the proportion of sustainable raw material procurement to 30.6%.
We have always firmly believed that the greener a product is, the greater its development value. Sustainability is never an additional cost. It is a core strategy for restructuring business logic and strengthening long-term resilience.
On the one hand, sustainability reinforces the brand’s foundation. JIANGNANBUYI is a designer fashion brand company, and our consumers value aesthetics, quality, and responsibility. Sustainability naturally aligns with our brand identity and helps bring our philosophy of “humanity + nature” into more concrete practice.
On the other hand, sustainability can also create business value. For example, through RE;RE;RE;LAB and Sesame Lab, we redesign inventory fabrics and offcuts, turning them into limited-edition new products and member-exclusive items, thereby enhancing product value and repeat purchase rates.
In the long run, a sustainable development model can optimize efficiency, reduce risks, and strengthen the brand. It is a true investment in long-termism.
Q: It is easy to tell a green story, but difficult to build lasting consumer trust. How does JIANGNANBUYI communicate sustainability to consumers? What is the carbon reduction story behind this communication?
Zheng Dandan: Consumers are discerning. Our core logic is straightforward: tell fewer stories and provide more evidence. The more transparent we are, the more trust we build.
We let our products speak for themselves. Take this pair of jeans as an example. First, it genuinely addresses the waste of fabric scraps and the related environmental issues. Second, this product also serves as concrete proof that JIANGNANBUYI has successfully implemented a “raw material recycling” model. We started with a zero-waste wool coat and have now expanded to recycled jeans. These are visible, tangible sustainable products. In fact, we do not need to tell too many stories—consumers can see them and purchase them directly.
In addition, the negative impacts of climate change are also quietly changing the role of consumers. Consumers are no longer merely buyers; they are also co-bearers of the “environmental bill.” From scrutinizing the sustainability of fabrics to questioning whether a brand is truly low-carbon, consumers are increasingly casting their “climate votes” through purchasing decisions.
We are also using digital tools to allow consumers to check this “environmental bill” at any time. In addition to the jeans, JIANGNANBUYI has also completed product carbon footprint certification for a dress. The carbon information of both products has already been disclosed on theI International Carbon Disclosure Platform for Textile and Apparel. By scanning a QR code, consumers can trace the basic information of the product and the carbon emissions at each stage. Only true openness and transparency can genuinely guide green consumption.
The two JNBY products that received carbon footprint certification this time
Making sustainability visible through iconic products, and building a contract of trust through carbon labels and transparent disclosure—this is the communication philosophy that JIANGNANBUYI firmly believes in and consistently practices.
Q: Beyond measures that consumers can directly see, how does JIANGNANBUYI plan its green transformation at the corporate strategy level?
Zheng Dandan: Making our green achievements open and transparent to consumers is actually the final step in our broader sustainability work. Upstream, this must be supported by a long-term and clearly defined low-carbon strategy.
To this end, we have developed our “30·50” carbon neutrality strategy and carbon reduction pathway. Using fiscal year 2025 as the base year, we aim to achieve a 20% absolute reduction in Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions by fiscal year 2030; a 40% absolute reduction in Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions by fiscal year 2035; and carbon neutrality within our own operations before fiscal year 2050.
To support the implementation of our carbon neutrality goals, we have already started taking action within our own operations. These actions include replacing fuel vehicles, upgrading to energy-saving lighting, promoting low-carbon renovations in office areas, and exploring the development of zero-waste office spaces. Carbon reduction has already been broken down and integrated into JIANGNANBUYI’s day-to-day operating system.
Q: What difficulties have you encountered in advancing these sustainability goals, and how have you overcome them?
Zheng Dandan: The greatest challenges lie in cross-departmental coordination and implementation, as well as deep collaboration across the supply chain.
Internally, the difficulty is breaking down barriers between departments. Low-carbon transformation can never be achieved by relying on the procurement department alone. The creation of a low-carbon product involves full-process collaboration across design, R&D, fabric planning, production, manufacturing, and other functions. In response, we have established an internal “cross-functional green KPI mechanism”, directly breaking down and embedding sustainability indicators into the performance evaluation of core business departments. At the same time, guided by the philosophy of “everyone participates, everyone creates”, the company has built a bottom-up ESG culture. As a result, many low-carbon innovations have emerged from different departments.
Driven by both mechanisms and culture, “sustainability” is no longer a passively assigned task. It has become a business objective that each department is willing to actively take on and explore. This also enabled us to exceed our target in fiscal year 2025, ultimately raising the proportion of sustainable raw materials to 30.6%.
Externally, the pain point lies in smooth supply chain communication. In reality, achieving a carbon neutrality strategy cannot rely on operational emissions reductions alone. For fashion brands, the vast majority of carbon emissions come from Scope 3, or indirect emissions across upstream and downstream activities in the value chain. This is also the hardest part of carbon reduction to control.
JIANGNANBUYI is very willing, and also has the responsibility, to assume the role of a supply chain leader and drive the green transformation of the entire value chain. This year, we officially launched carbon inventory work for Scope 3 OEM factories to map the emissions structure of the upstream and downstream supply chain and accurately identify opportunities for carbon reduction. At the same time, by setting clear green procurement thresholds, we prioritize suppliers with sustainability certifications and those that use clean energy, thereby pushing the supply chain toward low-carbon transformation.
Q: What are JIANGNANBUYI’s key priorities for the next stage? What actions will the company continue to advance in terms of products, supply chain, consumer communication, and industry ecosystem development?
Zheng Dandan: Looking ahead, JIANGNANBUYI will continue to advance its sustainability work in three directions: deeper, broader, and more transparent.
On the product side, we will go deeper. Building on our experience in completing carbon footprint certification for two products this year, we will continue expanding our portfolio of carbon-footprint-certified products and launch more items featuring recycled materials, low-carbon attributes, and long-lasting design. At the same time, we will further deepen our existing T2T closed-loop model and replicate the “zero-waste” recycling model that has already been validated in wool and denim across a wider range of fabric categories.
Across the supply chain, we will extend our work more broadly. We will continue to deepen Scope 3 carbon inventory and emissions reduction efforts, encourage more suppliers to join the green transformation, and further increase the proportion of sustainable raw material procurement, strengthening the climate resilience of the entire supply chain from the source.
On the consumer side, we will communicate with greater transparency. We will expand the coverage of carbon labels and environmental information disclosure, making “transparency” a standard feature of the JIANGNANBUYI brand. In addition, by leveraging our membership ecosystem and offline store network, we will enrich interactive consumer experiences, enabling customers to participate more deeply in co-creating the brand’s sustainability practices. Climate change is everyone’s responsibility, and brands and consumers are inherently on the same side.
Finally, we will also contribute to building a green ecosystem at the industry level. The green upgrading of China’s fashion industry cannot be accomplished by any single company alone. It requires coordinated progress across the entire industrial chain. As a local designer fashion brand company with more than three decades of deep engagement in the fashion industry, JIANGNANBUYI is willing to openly share the green experience it has already validated and work together with upstream and downstream partners to drive systematic carbon reduction across the industrial chain.
Our goal is simple and clear: we do not engage in greenwashing; we focus on real results. JIANGNANBUYI has already integrated green and low-carbon principles into the underlying logic of its business, embedding sustainability into every stage of design, production, and consumption. We are not only refining every garment, but also using restraint and innovation at every step to create low-carbon certainty across the supply chain—shaping a predictable green future in harmony with nature and developing a sustainable fashion model unique to JIANGNANBUYI.
