Comment in response to media scrutiny of sustainability initiatives

Today, a review of one of Gina Tricot's small-scale sustainability initiatives was published in SVT Nyheter. Gina Tricot has continuously provided the requested information to SVT via email and also agreed to an interview.

In the campaign, which ran from May to June 2022, Gina Tricot, together with several other parties, was part of an initiative, conducted by the Danish forestry company EcoTree, to restore nature, place beehives and plant forests. Gina Tricot's campaign aimed to highlight an important issue (biodiversity). During the period customers were encouraged to make contributions (SEK 10/purchase) towards the purchase of beehives. The contributions resulted in two beehives, which was less than expected. Gina Tricot also donated money for the planting of 503 oak trees.

Gina Tricot planned its investment in Kalundborg, Denmark, in consultation with EcoTree's experts, who considered it to be at a reasonable level, medium-sized in relation to other participants' investments in the forest. EcoTree reports that the oaks are continuing to grow as expected and that the beehives are in place with full activity. The agreement for maintenance of the beehives was signed for two years, and subsequently extended.

The campaign used the phrase “Gina Tricot Forest”. Retrospectively, we understand that the number of trees funded by Gina Tricot do not meet the scientific definition of a forest however we could have said “part of a forest” or “contribution to a forest” instead. The initiative contributes to carbon binding and not to the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions as mentioned in the campaign. Gina Tricot takes full responsibility for how the campaign was communicated and would also like to emphasize that the influencer who fronted the campaign bears no responsibility for the information supplied.

We share the scientific assessment that activities to increase biodiversity are good, but we can see that the initiative did not have the impact we hoped for. This initiative to highlight biodiversity was a limited part of a bigger one-and-a-half-year collaboration with the influencer. The initiative was also limited in relation to other sustainability efforts carried out in 2022. Today, our sustainability efforts focus, among others, on initiatives that contribute to reducing emissions from our operations in accordance with our SBTi-approved target (-50% greenhouse gas emissions by 2030). Simultaneously we continue to support various smaller and limited initiatives.

Read more in our sustainability report for 2023 here https://www.ginatricot.com/se/hallbarhet/hallbarhetsredovisning