About You

Oct 19, 2022

About You is a German retailer founded in 2014 in Hamburg by Werner Tarek Muller and Hannes Wiese. The multinational clothing-retail company creates fast fashion for men, women, and children.

About You makes clothing, accessories, shoes, swimwear, eyewear, and jewelry. The Otto Group owns the About You label and brands like Bonprix, Limango, Frankonia, Heine, Lascana, and more.

About You operates as an international e-commerce and fashion retailer within 24 countries in Europe. It sells clothes from many brands as well as its own designer collections.

About You is working with ambitious targets to minimize its ecological footprint. It considers its impact on the climate, ecosystems, and society and has the long-term goal of achieving climate neutrality.

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Sustainability Rating: 6/10

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Category: Clothing, accessories, shoes, bags, jewelry

For: Women, men, children

Type: Basics, denim, knitwear, activewear, underwear, loungewear, swimwear, outerwear, maternity, flats, sandals, sneakers, boots

Style: Casual

Quality: Low

Prices: $

Sizes: petite, 2XS-2XL, 0-14 (US), 2-16 (UK), 32-44 (EU), 4-18 (AU), plus

Fabrics: Cotton, linen, ramie, jute, lyocell, modal, viscose, cupro, acetate, polyester, nylon, spandex, polyethylene, polypropylene, acrylic, neoprene, polyurethane, rubber, leather, wool, silk, down

100% Organic: No

100% Vegan: No

Ethical & Fair: Yes

Recycling: Yes

Producing countries: Turkey, India, China, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Morocco, Pakistan, Vietnam, Tunisia, Egypt, Ethiopia, Uganda, Madagascar, Ukraine, Romania, Moldova, Bulgaria, Serbia, Bosnia, Albania, Macedonia, Greece, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Indonesia

Certifications: GOTS, OCS, BCI, GRS, RCS, FSC, Oeko-Tex, Bluesign, SMETA, BSCI, SA8000

Sustainability Practices

About You takes wide-ranging measures to protect biodiversity, reduce its consumption of water, energy, and other resources, avoid waste, and combat climate change.

It wants to be better and more efficient by looking at every aspect of its value chain to ensure the healthy functioning of our planet. However, the majority of its business remains detrimental to the environment.

About You only uses a tiny proportion of organic materials such as organic cotton or recycled materials such as recycled polyester and regenerated nylon.

Most of the fabrics it uses are either natural without relevant certifications, such as regular cotton or linen, or synthetic petroleum-based fibers, such as polyester, nylon, acrylic, and more.

About You also uses a small proportion of semi-synthetic fibers or regenerated cellulosic fabrics such as Tencel lyocell, modal, acetate, and viscose.

Tencel is an eco-friendly fiber made with wood pulp from certified sustainable forests. But only a tiny proportion of the materials used by About You are environmentally friendly and sustainable.

About You publishes a list of all its manufacturers and processing facilities on its corporate website, the Otto Group. It aims to ensure compliance with social standards and environmental protection.

The 2022 Fashion Transparency Index gave Otto a score of only 18% based on how much the group discloses about its social and environmental policies, practices, and impacts.

About You manufactures its clothes in Turkey and many other East Asian countries, where human rights and labor law violations happen every day.

The German clothing retailer shows some labor certification standards that ensure good working conditions, health, safety, and other human rights for workers in its supply chain.

About You has a code of conduct that applies to all its suppliers and subcontractors based on the regulations set by the International Labor Organization (ILO).

About You assesses compliance with its Code of Conduct by informal visits or third-party audits with or without notice. It works with international and local unions and NGOs to improve the working conditions in its factories.

About You doesn't use exotic animal skin, hair, fur, or angora. But it uses leather, wool, silk, and down feathers to manufacture many of its clothing pieces.

These animal-derived materials are cruel and unethical. They also harm the environment by producing greenhouse gases and waste. More sustainable alternatives exist.

Sustainability Goals

About You has committed to reaching climate neutrality by 2030. It will operate its locations on green electricity and use certified offset projects to align its climate targets with the Paris Climate Agreement.

About You plans to only use FSC-certified wood for its furniture production by 2025. It will also use FSC-certified or EU Ecolabel paper for its catalogs by 2025.