EN26: Initiatives to mitigate environmental impacts of products and services, and extent of impact mitigation

We launched TrackMyT.com to educate consumers about how our products are made and how they can care for them responsibly.

As a way to educate consumers on caring for our products responsibly, we launched TrackMyT.com, an interactive website that brings to life the complete journey and environmental impact of a t-shirt, from cotton seed to consumer. The site allows users to input a unique tracking number printed on their shirt, then explore cotton farms, a gin and spinners, as well as Anvil’s textile mill, cut and sew plants, and distribution facility, where it was constructed and shipped. It features surprise pop-up messages and graphics, alongside lesson plans for teachers that focus on the environmental, historical and social aspects of manufacturing, buying and owning a t-shirt. At the end of the journey, users come to what’s called the “You” module, where they can gather information on how to care for and dispose of t-shirts in an earth-friendly way.

As part of our campaign to educate the current generation of students on the benefits of organics, Anvil is now taking the lesson plans from TrackMyT® into the classroom by donating indoor organic gardens to classrooms. The indoor organic school gardens will provide a classroom with a unique learning experience, developed to educate youth about growing food, the nutritional and health benefits of eating healthy, and the environmental benefits of organics.

Our donations will include all amenities that accompany the indoor garden, such as organic soil, organic seeds, AnvilOrganic t-shirt donations, and TrackMyT® aides.

We are partnering with Earth Day New York and New York City’s Department of Education’s Solar-1 Network of environmental schools to launch the pilot of the indoor organic learning experience. Solar-1 is the City’s first “Green Energy, Arts, and Education Center”, which serves more than 25,000 students within the five boroughs. Twenty schools have been signed up, with donations beginning in October 2011.

Earth Day New York selected “Earth Box Education” as the organic garden model for the classrooms. The Earth Box container gardening system engages students with a hands-on organic experience, as the students plant the seeds, monitor growth, and watch a species of plant grown throughout the school year.

For our national donations, we are using an organic garden model by Friends of Burlington Gardens, based in Burlington, Vermont. This is a 2-tier model with individual pots containing a variety of herbs and plants. We have officially signed on three schools throughout the country to partake in the pilot program. Both Stewart Heights Elementary School and Latta Elementary School, located in South Carolina, are neighbor schools to our Distribution Center in Dillon. We are pleased to work with these classes as an on-going effort to support initiatives in the local level. Stewart Heights’ 3rd grade class, with 22 students, and Latta Elementary’s 3rd grade class with 26 students, will receive their indoor gardens in October 2011.

In addition, the YMCA of Kansas City is in the process of selecting an elementary school for us to work with. Why Kansas City? Anvil was the official t-shirt of Farm Aid 2011, which took place in August at the Livstrong Sporting Park in Kansas City. As the official Farm Aid t-shirt for three years, we continue to support the organization by drawing awareness to the importance of domestic organic farming. We’re donating an organic garden to an elementary school in the Kansas City area as a continuation of local efforts for Farm Aid.

All of the schools involved have agreed to share their classroom experiences with us; check out our Facebook and Twitter pages for up-to-date pictures, stories and more about this exciting project.

EN27: Percentage of products sold and their packaging and materials that are reclaimed by category

Anvil uses a minimum of packaging materials when delivering goods. However, we have established sound recycling and reusing practices for the packing mediums in which our raw materials either arrive or are transported within our facilities. While we do not currently employ a formal system by which we quantify the recycling and reusing of these materials, here are a few examples:
• The large plastic palettes, one which yarn cones arrive, are all returned to the yarn spinner for reuse
• Cones themselves are sent to a biomass boiler, which burns them to create steam
• Plastic used to wrap large reams of finished fabric in order to transport them from the textile plant to one of our cut and sew facilities is either sold to a local recycling company, or given away for reuse
• All cardboard is recycled

See our response to EN22 under the Emissions, Effluents and Waste Aspect of the Environment Section to learn about waste by type and disposal method and estimated avoided emissions from certain recycling programs.