Sae-A Trading, a global apparel manufacturer and exporter, has joined an environmental campaign in Indonesia to help address the country’s plastic waste challenges.
Sae-A Trading’s Indonesian subsidiary, PT. Winners, together with its affiliated fabric mill Win Textile, collaborated with the K-Green Foundation to support the Hyundai Motor Group–sponsored “PlasticEcoCycle” campaign through technology development and production capabilities.
The initiative upcycles plastic bottles collected in Indonesia into new resources—such as T-shirts and teddy bears—which are then donated to local communities.
The raw materials for this campaign came from plastic bottles collected through 89 public facilities across Jakarta, including 20 schools, where Save the Children has operated recycling bins since August 2022. In total, 701.76 kilograms of collected PET bottles were reprocessed into recycled yarn and transformed into T-shirts and teddy bears in partnership with the K-Green Foundation.
Leveraging its vertically integrated production facilities in Indonesia, Sae-A Trading conducted over a year of technical testing to develop a practical process to upcycle PET bottles into apparel. Using only local facilities, PT. Winners and Win Textile carried out the full production process, resulting in 6,200 finished T-shirts. These were distributed to children in Jakarta and provided as campaign giveaways, enabling citizens to directly experience the value of resource recycling.
“Our participation in this campaign reflects our commitment to addressing the urgent issue of plastic waste in Indonesia,” said Debora Moon, CEO of Sae-A Trading. “Beyond simply producing T-shirts, this project highlights the renewed value of discarded resources and serves as an important milestone in demonstrating the potential of sustainable apparel production.”
Moon added, “This initiative is also a clear example of how Sae-A Trading is delivering social value through the synergies of our vertically integrated operations, advanced technology, and global apparel manufacturing network. We will continue to expand localized ESG initiatives across our worldwide operations.”
Sae-A Trading operates manufacturing subsidiaries in 10 countries, including Indonesia, Vietnam, Guatemala, and El Salvador, where it actively develops community-focused ESG initiatives tailored to local needs. Since 2008, the company has operated a dedicated ESG Division, positioning ESG not as a declaration but as a core element of strategic management focused on execution.
In 2023, Sae-A Trading elevated its ESG team to a headquarters-level organization reporting directly to the CEO and became the first company in Korea’s textile industry to receive approval from the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) for its greenhouse gas reduction targets. The company also joined the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) and the FSC’s Fashion Forever Green Pact to advance ESG transformation in the fashion industry.
In 2025, Win Textile, its affiliated fabric mill, completed a full transition from coal to 100% biomass fuel at its Indonesian facility, achieving its “Coal-Zero” goal ahead of schedule. Most recently, Sae-A Trading was named to the 2024 CDP Supplier Engagement “A List,” officially recognized as a global leader in supply chain ESG management.