A local consultancy helps us make our impact explicit

De Bondt B.V. is Europe’s leading wholesaler in haberdashery, knitting and crochet yarns. From our warehouses in Tynaarlo, we supply the global retail trade, wholesalers and the garment industry. Project Manager Franca Krijnsen is responsible, among other things, for De Bondt’s CSR and sustainability strategy. Together with a local consultancy, she is working on making De Bondt’s impact in the field of CSR and sustainability more concrete and transparent.

As a family-owned company, De Bondt employs around 75 people. For more than 50 years we have been dedicated to the crafting community, and since 2019 our CSR team has been in place. The team consists of five colleagues from different departments and is led by Franca Krijnsen. Its mission is to measure our impact and develop sustainable initiatives. As a wholesaler, we operate within a value chain that carries significant impact, and we aim to inspire others and act as a role model within this chain.

Franca explains: “We want to be a sustainable partner – but how do you define that? To be a role model, you need to be transparent about your choices, why you make them, and what your company’s impact is in terms of CSR and sustainability.”

Until recently, our efforts in CSR and sustainability were largely invisible, even though much was already happening. For instance, every new Scheepjes yarn comes with official certifications, but we rarely highlighted this fact. We also lacked concrete figures, such as our CO₂ footprint. That is why we have now started working on an official sustainability report. We want to avoid greenwashing and communicate in a concrete, fact-based way.”

As a wholesaler, our largest impact lies in purchasing. We source products from various brands worldwide and of course develop our own Scheepjes brand. Our range includes, for example, fully recycled wool, sustainably produced cotton yarns, and a new wool/acrylic blend with biodegradable components that contain no microplastics. Wool production has a large impact, but wool itself is highly sustainable – it is one of the few raw materials that can be endlessly recycled without any loss in fibre quality.

The CSR team is currently gathering all the relevant data, including CO₂ footprint and supply chain impact. Our aim is to publish our first sustainability report for the year 2025, based on recognised standards. This will enable us to communicate our CSR and sustainability impact in a clear, factual and transparent way.