Client Overview
About Eastman Exports:
- HQ: Tiruppur, Tamil Nadu, India
- Total Employees: 18,000
- Business Type: Apparel Manufacturing
Founded in 1983 as a small dye house by Mr. N. Chandran, Eastman Exports is one of India’s largest apparel manufacturers, supplying global brands across Europe, the USA, Canada, Mexico, and Brazil. They’re renowned in the industry for their innovative, sustainable, and ethical manufacturing practices.
- Vertically integrated, with in-house capabilities for designing, dyeing, printing, embroidery, garment manufacturing, and finishing.
- Specialises in knitwear, high-end apparel, accessories, babywear, sportswear, and more.
- Operates 35 manufacturing units, producing 8+ million garments per month, and 50,400 spindles, generating 11,700 tonnes of high-quality multi-count cotton grey yarn annually.
- Science-Based Targets initiative (SBTi) approval for reducing Scope 1, 2 & 3 emissions and Higg Index verification for 12 Tier-1 facilities.
Eastman’s Sustainability Goals:
As a company rooted in ethical manufacturing, Eastman has set ambitious sustainability targets to align itself with global climate goals, aiming to create a future where fashion is both responsible and regenerative.
Every initiative is designed to minimise environmental impact while fostering innovation in sustainable manufacturing.
Science-Based Climate Targets
- Reducing Scope 1 & 2 emissions by 45% by 2030 (from a 2020 baseline).
- Aiming for a 25% reduction in Scope 3 emissions by 2030, focusing on supplier accountability and sustainable raw material sourcing.
Sustainable Materials & Circularity
- Prioritising low-impact materials, including organic cotton, BCI cotton, and recycled polyester.
- Reducing and repurposing textile waste through platforms like Reverse Resource.
Supply Chain Transparency & ESG Compliance
- Implementing Digital Product Passports to improve traceability across the value chain.
- Strengthening ESG compliance to align with global sustainability regulations such as CSRD, CSDDD, and CBAM.
With each milestone, Eastman reaffirms its commitment to a circular, low-carbon, and responsible future—one where fashion serves both people and the planet.
Challenges Before GreenStitch:
Eastman Exports had set bold sustainability goals—targets that would fundamentally reshape how they operated. From cutting Scope 1 & 2 emissions to collecting data for activity-based emissions calculations to ensuring supply chain transparency, their roadmap was ambitious, urgent, and non-negotiable.
But setting targets was one thing—achieving them was another.
As they moved from strategy to execution, gaps began to surface. Their decarbonisation roadmap depended on accurate carbon accounting and data-driven insights to build robust reduction strategies.
Yet, measuring, tracking, and reducing emissions across their vast operations and supplier network proved far more complex than anticipated. They faced several roadblocks that threatened to slow down their progress:
Key Challenges
- Lack of Accurate Carbon Accounting: Eastman’s spend-based approach to emissions tracking lacked precision, making it difficult to generate audit-ready, verifiable sustainability data across plants and processes. They needed activity-based calculations for better accuracy and visibility of hotspots, but lacked automation and the ability to process large volumes of data.
- Data Fragmentation: Sustainability data was collected manually, spread across different sources, and was often incomplete or inconsistent. This messy, unstructured data collection delayed reporting, reduced transparency, and made it difficult to track emission reductions.
- Specialised Knowledge: Eastman had committed to SBTi, but meeting these goals required precise Scope 3 emissions tracking. Their team needed someone who had specialised knowledge in selecting the right emissions factors from large granular data to calculate indirect emissions accurately.
- No Centralised System: Even when data was gathered, it remained unstructured and scattered across multiple platforms, and a lack of a centralised system made data compilation difficult. This made it difficult to pinpoint high-emission hotspots, model reduction strategies, and generate real-time sustainability insights and reports.
- Rising Compliance Pressures: With tightening global regulations like CSRD and CBAM, Eastman needed a system that could ensure audit-ready compliance and adapt to evolving regulatory requirements. Their existing sustainability reporting process was not equipped to keep pace with evolving demands.
- Difficulty Tracking Progress: Sustainability is a long-term commitment, but without a system to track progress and evaluate reduction initiatives, Eastman was operating in the dark. They needed tools to assess the effectiveness of their strategies, measure progress toward their goals, and refine their approach with data-backed decisions.
Finding the Right Solution:
With ambitious sustainability targets in place, Eastman Exports knew their existing approach wasn’t enough. Accurate carbon accounting was critical, yet their manual, fragmented data collection process made tracking emissions, especially Scope 3, an ongoing challenge. The pressure to comply with evolving regulations like CSRD and CBAM only added to the urgency.
Determined to find the right technology partner, Eastman explored multiple carbon accounting platforms, including Carbon Trail.
However, many tools lacked the customisation, industry-specific data, and advanced Scope 3 calculation capabilities and local support they required.
Why Eastman Chose GreenStitch
After meeting GreenStitch at an industry event, Eastman quickly saw the difference. Unlike other platforms, GreenStitch was built with deep expertise in the textile industry, providing:
- Customisability– GreenStitch could be tailored to fit Eastman’s specific manufacturing and supply chain complexities.
- Granular Scope 3 calculation – With the largest proprietary emissions factor database, GreenStitch could ensure precise Scope 3 calculations, filling data gaps with accurate, reliable data.
- Seamless System Integration – Unlike other solutions, GreenStitch integrated smoothly into Eastman’s existing sustainability and ERP systems.
- Localised Data & Strong Support – As a company familiar with South Asia’s textile sector, GreenStitch could provide hands-on and capacity-building support.
The Implementation Process
Implementing GreenStitch was faster and smoother than Eastman had anticipated, drastically reducing the manual effort required for emissions tracking.
Sustainability reporting became more transparent, and Eastman could now track their progress toward SBTi targets with real-time, accurate insights.
With a centralised system, automated workflows, and enhanced data accuracy, Eastman was finally equipped with the right tools to achieve their net-zero goals and drive real sustainability impact.
Transformation & Impact:
With GreenStitch, Eastman Exports redefined how it tracked, managed, and acted on its sustainability data. What was once a manual, time-consuming process became a streamlined, data-driven system, allowing them to make informed decisions faster, reduce emissions more effectively, and ensure compliance with evolving regulations.
- Accurate Carbon Accounting: With real-time, activity-based carbon accounting, Eastman was able to measure Scope 1, 2 & 3 emissions with greater accuracy.
- Automated & Centralised Data Collection: GreenStitch’s automated data workflow streamlined the process, eliminating the need for manual follow-ups, emails, and fragmented spreadsheets, ensuring transparency and accountability at every stage.
- Data-Driven Insight: High-emission suppliers were easily identified, allowing Eastman to prioritise reduction efforts where they mattered most.
- Building Better Strategies: Scenario modelling enabled Eastman to test strategies before implementing them for data-backed sustainability decisions.
- Time Saving: Integration with Eastman’s ERP system meant consistent, automated sustainability tracking, reducing manual workload while improving reporting accuracy.
- Improved Transparency & Compliance: GreenStitch helped identify and resolve data gaps, ensuring Eastman’s sustainability reports were not only accurate but also met evolving regulatory and customer requirements.
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