Dickies

A slow moving fashion giant

The cor­po­ra­ti­on was foun­ded over a cen­tu­ry ago and has kept cre­a­ting and acqui­ring new brands, which resul­ted into a port­fo­lio of over thirty well-known brands. With its acqui­si­ti­ons of Tim­ber­land in 2011, through a two bil­li­on USD deal, and athle­tic brand Altra in 2018, the com­pa­ny is still gro­wing. VF Cor­po­ra­ti­on sta­tes that it direct­ly employs over 68,000 peo­p­le glo­bally, and near­ly a mil­li­on earn their inco­me by making VF products.

With such a port­fo­lio, it’s no sur­pri­se that the mate­ri­als for the pro­ducts ori­gi­na­te in near­ly six­ty dif­fe­rent coun­tries. Con­si­de­ring all the­se big num­bers, it’s inte­res­ting to see how the com­pa­ny is tac­kling sustai­na­ble devel­op­ment for its ope­ra­ti­ons. Chan­ge comes slow­ly for a giant like VF. In terms of mate­ri­al sour­cing, it still uses uncer­ti­fied lea­ther and a lar­ge chunk of poly­es­ter and nylon are vir­gin mate­ri­als. Out­door appa­rel is not yet PFC-free and there’s a lot of room for impro­ve­ment con­cerning sustai­na­ble cot­ton. The­re are tar­gets for impro­ving the­se sta­tis­tics though. By 2025, the com­pa­ny wants to sour­ce 100% more sustai­na­ble cot­ton and in that same year at least 50% of their nylon and poly­es­ter has to be recy­cled. The­se tar­gets logi­cally indi­ca­te that cur­rent­ly there’s a lar­ge per­cen­ta­ge of unsustai­na­ble mate­ri­als being used for their products.

A start towards climate action

VF’s sup­ply chain is rela­ti­ve­ly transpa­rent. The com­pa­ny has done a pilot in which it publis­hed tra­ce­a­bi­li­ty maps for some of its pro­ducts. We can also find its faci­li­ties on the Open Appa­rel Index, which offers us insight into whe­re its gar­ments are pro­du­ced. VF Cor­po­ra­ti­on sta­tes that it’s wor­king on publis­hing sour­ce maps for its full sup­ply chain, which can be the step­ping sto­ne towards full transpa­ren­cy con­cerning their sco­pe 3 emis­si­ons. The­se cur­rent­ly exclu­de pro­duc­ti­on and mate­ri­al emis­si­ons, which are gener­al­ly the big­gest chunk of emis­si­ons for clothing com­pa­nies. But even though not eve­ry­thing is track­ed and mea­su­red yet, the mul­ti­na­ti­o­nal cor­po­ra­ti­on is taking cli­ma­te acti­on. Cur­rent­ly, it’s wor­king with the Higg Index to mea­su­re envi­ron­men­tal per­for­man­ce in its own faci­li­ties to impro­ve water effi­ci­en­cy and was­te. VF Cor­po­ra­ti­on has also put Sci­en­ce Based Tar­gets in pla­ce, which aim to redu­ce Sco­pe 1 and 2 emis­si­ons by 55% and Sco­pe 3 emis­si­ons by 30% by 2030. There’s a com­mit­ment to pur­cha­sing 100% rene­wa­ble ener­gy across owned and ope­ra­ted faci­li­ties by 2025, which is cur­rent­ly 14%.

An enormous supply chain

Wor­kers’ rights are a very com­plex ele­ment for a com­pa­ny with such a huge num­ber of fac­to­ries and peo­p­le who work on its pro­ducts. Pro­duc­ti­on takes pla­ce in a lot of risk-pro­ne coun­tries whe­re mal­prac­ti­ce is always lur­king around the cor­ner. To tac­kle this issue, VF drew up a Code of Con­duct that covers basic wor­kers’ rights, such as work­pla­ce safe­ty and maxi­mum wee­kly wor­king hours. But defi­ning standards in a Code of Con­duct is the first step to take. What mat­ters more, is actu­al­ly uphol­ding the­se standards. VF Cor­po­ra­ti­on sta­tes that it audi­ted 95% of fac­to­ries in 2018 (2,319 audits). The­se are con­duc­ted either by the com­pa­ny itself or by a third par­ty. Audits con­duc­ted by com­pa­nies them­sel­ves car­ry the risk of being less transpa­rent about actu­al per­for­man­ce and that’s why an audit by a renow­ned third par­ty is gener­al­ly more trust­wort­hy. Whi­le it’s gre­at that VF Cor­po­ra­ti­on con­ducts a lar­ge num­ber of audits, the qua­li­ty of the­se audits and transpa­ren­cy con­cerning who actu­al­ly con­ducts them needs to be impro­ved. Besi­des that, the­re is no proof that VF Cor­po­ra­ti­on pays wor­kers a living wage.

A long road ahead

With gre­at power comes gre­at res­pon­si­bi­li­ty. As one of the lea­ders in the fas­hi­on indu­stry, VF has the pos­si­bi­li­ty to show the enti­re indu­stry that chan­ge is pos­si­ble and rai­se the bar for eve­ry­o­ne invol­ved. The cor­po­ra­ti­on is abso­lu­te­ly chan­ging for the bet­ter and, with some serious tar­gets in pla­ce, the pos­si­ble impact it can make is pret­ty huge. But, as it stands, this is still a com­pa­ny that has pro­du­ced in a very unsustai­na­ble man­ner for many years and has inheri­ted a lot of sys­tems from pre­vious eras. So, whi­le chan­ge is defi­ni­te­ly coming, it’s a long road ahead.