CHEMICAL RESPONSIBILITY
The
North Face business is built on designing products of unrivaled performance to
allow people to push the limits of what is humanly possible. We focus on this goal each and every day,
while also holding firm to high standards of consumer, environmental and worker
safety.
Certain
chemicals play important roles in helping us deliver products with specific technical
benefits to protect people from the elements and provide durability. When we design these products, we
ensure that the manufacturing processes and procedures exceed or are compliant
with all federal and international regulations. But we don’t stop there.
The
North Face also maintains an industry-leading partnership with bluesign®
technologies to further reduce the environmental impact of our supply chain
through the responsible management and selection of chemicals
Additionally,
our Restricted Substance List (RSL)
identifies the chemical substance restrictions for all The North Face products,
including apparel, footwear, equipment, accessories and others. This list contains chemical substances
that are restricted due to a variety of reasons, including global regulation
and legislation, safety and environmental risk.
We
require our suppliers, business partners and licensees to study the RSL
carefully, we work with them to implement management processes to produce
compliant products, and test products to verify compliance to the RSL. Each of our vendors must certify his or
her compliance with the RSL by executing a RSL Compliance Agreement.
Fluorinated
Chemicals
PFC’s
(perfluorinated chemicals) are a class of chemical substances that belong to
the larger family known as fluorinated chemicals. These are a wide range of
chemical substances that are very different in their composition and
environmental profiles.
The North
Face currently uses fluorinated chemistry to deliver high performance
characteristics in our products including water, stain and oil repellency as
well as durability. Our use of these chemicals is conducted
responsibly and exceeds or is compliant with all federal and international
regulations governing chemical use.
Collaboration
& Transparency
In
addition to our commitment to meeting all regulations, we are always working to
identify new and innovative ways to increase the sustainability of our supply
chain. We are working closely alongside our industry peers to evaluate
commercially available technologies that meet our performance requirements
while having even less impact on the planet we share. One example is our
participation in the Outdoor Industry Association (OIA) Chemical Working Group
(CMWG).
The
CMWG was formed in spring 2011 as a subgroup of the OIA Sustainability Working
Group to establish shared approaches and tools for the assessment and
management of chemicals and their potential impacts on humans and the
environment across product life cycles. We envision and strive to create a
world in which all consumer products are produced using Green Chemistry
practices, ultimately using inherently safer chemicals and reducing or
eliminating hazardous chemicals, in order to preserve human health and a clean
environment.
Through
this collaboration, we are examining the use of Durable Water Repellency
treatments in the outdoor industry, including identifying performance
requirements and exploring potential alternatives to traditional chemistries.
Please visit here
to learn more about the Outdoor Industry Association Chemical Working Group.
We
strongly believe in the power of collaboration to affect change. Our
development of the Eco Index through the OIA Sustainability Working Group is a
testament to this success. The Eco Index became the foundation for the
Sustainable Apparel Coalition Higg Index, a tool used to measure the
environmental and social performance of apparel and footwear products.
In
keeping with our commitment to using collaboration to develop solutions, we are
also active members of the following organizations:
o Bluesign®
o
European Outdoor Group (EOG)
o Sustainable
Apparel Coalition (SAC)
o Apparel
and Footwear International RSL workgroup (AFIRM)
o Leather
Working Group (LWG)
o American
Apparel and Footwear Association (AAFA)
o Global
Apparel, Footwear and Textile Initiative (GAFTI)
o Green
Chemistry and Commerce Council (GC3)
o Better
Cotton Initiative (BCI)
o Textile
Exchange
o Natural
Resources Defense Council (NRDC) Clean by Design program
The Road Ahead
Our commitment to our
customers and the environment is to apply innovative thinking and open
collaboration to develop sustainable long term solutions in product performance
and environmental responsibility. These two factors are, at times, a delicate
balance and we are committed to being transparent about our progress on this
journey to sustainability, please check back for updates.
