The north face by peneadicto abulbasur

12 Sourcing 14

Durable Products

16 Innovation 17

Recycled Content

Renewable Materials

Design Tools

The North Face 2010 Sustainability Report

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SOURCING We work with the bluesign® standard to reduce supply chain impacts. Our rapidly growing engagement with bluesign technologies is the cornerstone of our efforts to drive improvements in our supply chain. The bluesign® standard is a rigorous, independent system to ensure that factories address harmful chemicals at the fabric level and meet demanding requirements for consumer and worker safety, efficient resource use and environmental protection. The bluesign® system also requires that mills meet the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA), the European REACH (Registration, Evaluation, and Authorisation of Chemicals) protocols and all other relevant requirements. We have aggressive goals for increasing the percentage of bluesign® approved fabric we develop each season and aim to convert 65% of our fabric to the bluesign® standard by 2015. Our approach has always been to prioritize our high volume fabrics and our largest suppliers to create the greatest and most immediate impact. “We create shared value by helping our mill partners reduce their environmental impacts and costs, making them more attractive partners to apparel companies demanding sustainable materials. In return, the mills help us provide more environmentally responsible products for our customers and indirectly mitigate price increases through resource efficiency. They also understand that we award our business preferentially to mills that are bluesign® system partners, so they are investing in a long-term relationship with us.” — Adam Mott, Corporate Sustainability Manager In addition to working with our primary suppliers, we aggressively worked to influence additional supply chain partners to engage with the bluesign® system in 2010. These included trim, synthetic insulation, down insulation, buckles, cording, webbing, and seam tape companies. Next, we will work to bring our thread, label, footwear, and equipment materials partners into the bluesign® system.

SOURCING Sourcing with the bluesign standard ®

PRODUCT SUSTAINABILITY

2010

2011*

2015 GOAL

% bluesign approved fabric (apparel)

21%

27%

65%

(10 million yards of fabric)

(almost 16 million yards of fabric) short of 30% goal

* Our 2011 collections are designed and ordered in 2010 so we are able to report 2011 product data in this report.

THE NORTH FACE 2010 SUSTAINABILITY REPORT: Product

The North Face 2010 Sustainability Report

Peter Waeber, CEO, bluesign technologies, describes how the bluesign® standard works: “The apparel industry has a history of very serious environmental problems. When textile manufacturing moved in a short timeframe from Europe and the United States to Asia, the know-how was not transferred along with the orders. Suddenly we had people making the same fabric using twice the amount of water, with poor quality wastewater treatment and air emissions and with a difficult life for their workers. This was often occurring in countries without strong regulatory programs and in water-scarce areas. When I first launched the bluesign® standard ten years ago, we were focused on resource efficiency and optimization but we soon realized we had to start by eliminating harmful chemicals at the earliest stage of the process. To protect workers and consumers, we have developed our own risk-based list of over 900 substances. We prohibit some processes and chemicals (rated black), allow others with special process controls (these are grey — such as for performance fabrics) and allow outright those classified as blue. This is much easier than trying to remove a chemical once it is in a fabric.

“ SUCCESS

came with our partnership with The North Face, one of the biggest companies we work with. They have the big orders and they have the power to make things happen in the supply chain. They are helping us expand into more mills and generate even more improvements.” — Peter Waeber, CEO, bluesign technologies

We give each mill a detailed, individualized assessment that allows them to compare their energy and water use per kilogram of fabric to that of a mill using Best Available Technology. One manufacturer was using 680 liters while another used 30 liters by weight to produce the same shirt. Continuous dyeing uses 4 liters of water instead of 200+ liters. Usually the savings are huge. In places where the owners may not be as sensitive to environmental concerns, the financial savings usually sway them. Sometimes we have trouble getting mills to work with us. We do a very comprehensive assessment with our experts on-site for the screening; the whole process takes approximately two and a half months. Then they do another re-screening once mills have implemented our standards and are ready to certify their articles. The cost of participating varies depending on the complexity and amount of chemicals involved. Even though the payback period for this fee and for any equipment upgrades is usually only three months, there are no guarantees and the initial cost remains a barrier for some.”

THE NORTH FACE 2010 SUSTAINABILITY REPORT: Product

The North Face 2010 Sustainability Report

bluesign® savings While the data gathered from bluesign technologies’ work with textile mills is confidential, we have an agreement that gives us aggregated data from our bluesign® screened suppliers. This allows us to track the impact of the program from year to year. We are extremely proud of the environmental savings we have realized as a result of implementing this system — a testament to our strategy of identifying and addressing our biggest impacts first.

SUPPLY CHAIN ENVIRONMENTAL SAVINGS FOR THE NORTH FACE ® PRODUCTS 2010 and 2011* Savings

Water

2010

2011

’10/11 Total Savings

million gallons

4.8

million gallons

7.8

Equivalencies

million gallons

12.5

million kWh million kWh million kWh

85 Olympic swimming pools of water. pool = 10

1,153 cars off the road for a year** 1 car =10

1,153

Energy

604,480 lbs.

1.6

million lbs.

Chemicals

38 tanker trucks*** 1 tanker = 10

* Our 2011 collections are determined in 2010 and thus this data can be included in our 2010 report. ** Conversion factors per U.S. DOE and U.S. EPA *** Average tanker truck volume = 500 gallons

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DURABLE PRODUCTS We stand by our lifetime warranty. “Sustainable consumption starts by consuming less. At The North Face, we focus on building product that lasts a lifetime so that our consumers buy fewer products over time, thereby reducing impacts on the environment. We find that The North Face can actually be profitable, while driving a very strong sustainability message.” — Philip Hamilton, VP of Global Product “We repair as much as we can and, above all, prevent materials from ending up in a landfill. When an item comes back damaged, the first thing we try to do is fix it. We have a staff of expert seamstresses and tailors whose average tenure with the company is 25 years. They have seen or touched just about everything we have made and are extremely creative solution providers. Anything we can’t repair, we generally scavenge for usable parts. We have drawers of zippers and buttons and fabric pieces in all colors. First, we try to get products back into the sales chain and then donate as many of the remaining items as we can. From 2010 through the first half of 2011, we donated more than 56,000 units to organizations such as Clothes4Souls and to emergency relief situations such as the Haiti earthquake.

THE NORTH FACE 2010 SUSTAINABILITY REPORT: Product

The North Face 2010 Sustainability Report

2010 REPAIR/DONATION PROGRAM Repaired 46,021 units

Donated 25,000 units

Scrap to Waste / Recycled 800 units

We sort through the remaining items that we are unable to fix and recycle as much as we can. Finally, whatever can’t be recycled is incinerated at a waste-to-energy plant. We believe strongly in responsible disposal and feel good every time we avoid throwing something away. As our sales grow, the volume of goods that may require repair keeps pace and it is getting harder to keep up. As fabrics become more technical and cutting-edge, it is more difficult to repair them and sometimes requires new technology such as fabric welding tools. We are currently developing a plan to ensure that our approach to repairs meets the latest advances in product materials and construction.” — Director of Quality, Rick Griffin

“THE RECENT

clothing donation from The North Face was an extremely substantial portion of Clothes4Souls donations. I am very excited about the opportunity to take Clothes4Souls to the next level by partnering with such a powerful brand. Together we can provide hope for a better tomorrow.” — Keith Woodley, Chief Development Officer, Clothes4Souls Inc.

THE NORTH FACE 2010 SUSTAINABILITY REPORT: Product

The North Face 2010 Sustainability Report

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INNOVATION Athlete Tested. Expedition Proven.

We have a unique, collaborative process that propels our designers to innovate high-performance solutions for our consumers. Our elite athletes push their own limits and the limits of our products on expeditions and testing trips covering a range of sports and climate conditions. They return with valuable feedback that challenges us to refine our designs and materials in an iterative process that ensures a high-quality outcome. The best example of this is our Meru collection. Climbers Jimmy Chin, Renan Ozturk and Conrad Anker worked with The North Face to design the Meru Kit specifically for the trio’s second attempt up the unclimbed Shark’s Fin route to the summit of 20,700-foot Mount Meru in the Garhwal Himalaya. On an earlier attempt in 2008, they spent a gruelling 19 days on the wall before turning back just 100 meters from the summit, as featured in Ozturk’s film Samsara. They hadn’t anticipated how cold it would be and upon their return, they suggested specific, high altitude mountaineering features for the Meru line. They tested the Meru collection in their successful second attempt up Shark’s Fin in September 2011. This same willingness to tackle challenges defines our work to develop innovations to improve the environmental profile of our products, an area that presents a great opportunity for us. As an example, we created a design challenge to eliminate waste that produced our Loop Tote bags, made from scrap fabric. Learn more in the Waste section of this report.

CASTOR OIL INTO JACKETS.

Our Venture jacket is a great illustration of innovation going hand-in-hand with environmental sustainability. We reduced the synthetic compounds in the membrane of our Venture product line by 50% by incorporating castor oil, a renewable resource. The castor bean plant, widely grown throughout the tropics, produces oil from its seeds that provides an effective substitute for half of the petroleum-derived materials in the waterproof membrane of our best-selling Venture product line.

THE NORTH FACE 2010 SUSTAINABILITY REPORT: Product

The North Face 2010 Sustainability Report

Redesigned in 2010 to debut in our Spring 2011 collection, the waterproof membrane is now made using our castor oil-based HyVent DT EC material and offers these benefits: • Each new Venture Jacket contains 28 grams of standard waterproof coating, 50 percent of which is castor oil-based. • The 2011 Venture product line will eliminate more than 50,000 lbs. of petroleumbased materials.

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RECYCLED CONTENT Our entire line of products using Polartec® recycled fleece kept over 49,000 plastic bottles from landfills in 2010. “We incorporate recycled content into many of our products to help prevent the flow of waste to landfills and to reduce the need to extract natural resources from the earth. Starting deep in the supply chain, we develop about one thousand materials each year and try to achieve the greatest environmental gains possible. To make the biggest, fastest difference each season, we focus on improvements in our largest volume fabrics. Our entire line of products using led fleece kept over 49,000 plastic bottles from landfills in 2010.” — Adam Mott, Corporate Sustainability Manager Despite cost pressures that affected recycled polyester in 2009 and 2010, we have goals to increase the volume of the recycled fabric we use in each Fall and Spring product season and to bring recycled content into a broader range of materials, focusing on our highest volume products.

Recycled Fabric % Recycled of Total Fabric Yardage

2010

2011

2015 Goal

30%

Here’s a look at how one of our most iconic styles, the Denali fleece jacket, continues to evolve as we introduce improvements each year. In 2010, the fleece in our solid color Denali jacket was comprised of 87% recycled content Polartec® 300 series fleece. The recycled content was derived from 90% post-industrial waste and 10% post-consumer waste.

THE FLEECE

in our 2011 solid color Denali jackets contains 87% recycled content which is comprised of 100% post-consumer waste. For our 2012 collection, the fleece in our solid color Denali products will consist of 100% recycled content and will be constructed entirely from post-consumer recycled waste. We will use an average of 58.5 plastic bottles to create the polyester fibers for each men’s Denali jacket while each women’s jacket will incorporate approximately 47 plastic bottles. THE NORTH FACE 2010 SUSTAINABILITY REPORT: Product

The North Face 2010 Sustainability Report

Footwear While footwear currently represents a small part of our business, the various materials and processes involved in the construction of our shoes and boots bring unique sustainability challenges. We consider a variety of issues including incorporating recycled content, responsibly sourcing renewable materials such as leather, and eliminating potentially harmful chemicals. Our biggest achievement in 2010 was completely eliminating polyvinyl chloride (PVC) in this category. We had used PVC in the straps of our men’s and women’s Slippy flip-flops and in some microinjection labels but were able to substitute rubber for both of these applications. Our footwear meets the following standards: • 100% PVC-free. • 100% recycled PET. • This means that all of the polyethylene terephthalate (PET) polyester in our footwear is recycled. Our popular Nuptse boots feature 100% recycled PET ripstop material uppers and trim. • 100% British Leather Corporation (BLC)-approved leather. • While only a small amount of our footwear is made with leather, leather tanning is a chemical-intensive process demanding strict environmental oversight. All of our leather is audited by the BLC (leather testing experts) against the environmental auditing protocol of the industry-leading Leather Working Group (LWG) and must achieve a silver level or higher.

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RENEWABLE MATERIALS We strive to incorporate renewable alternatives to virgin synthetic materials in our products. In our quest for more environmentally responsible materials and processes, we constantly evaluate renewable alternatives to virgin synthetic materials. We consider wool and cotton and other traditional renewable materials as well as bio-based raw ingredients such as the castor oil used in our Venture jackets and pants. While the majority of our products are made from synthetic materials due to technical performance requirements, we still have a responsibility to address the impacts of our use of cotton and other renewable materials. Rising cotton prices presented sourcing challenges in 2010 and early 2011. We are currently reevaluating our approach to cotton fabric sourcing to improve the overall sustainability attributes rather than focusing exclusively on increasing our organic cotton usage. Through our Sustainable Materials Landscape project, we will examine a variety of sustainable sourcing alternatives that will not be limited to organic cotton. We are also engaging VF’s corporate sustainability team and know-how from other VF brands that use significantly more cotton to determine a comprehensive strategy.

THE NORTH FACE 2010 SUSTAINABILITY REPORT: Product

The North Face 2010 Sustainability Report

Cotton Use 2009

2010

2011*

1,458

1,160

656

Organic Cotton (thousand units)

104

45.5

% Organic of Total Cotton Units

7.1%

3.8%

12.9%

Total Cotton (thousand units)

* Note that 2011 collections are finalized in 2010 and thus this data can be included in our 2010 report.

In facing raw material price spikes or supply constraints, The North Face benefits by being part of VF Corporationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s world-class sourcing structure. VFâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s sourcing organization encompasses offices in over 20 countries and over 600 people dedicated to overseas sourcing management. This allows us to research opportunities, manage supply disruptions, leverage pricing and supply concessions, and ensure that our strict sourcing standards are upheld.

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DESIGN TOOLS New tools drive sustainable design. We strive to provide our product design, development, materials and sourcing teams with cutting-edge tools to allow them to evaluate sustainability considerations in the earliest phases of the design process before inferior choices are deeply embedded. We use our internal Product Rating Tool as well as the results of the life cycle assessment (LCA) studies we completed in 2010 to guide the design process. We are also actively participating with other outdoor and apparel peer companies to develop the Outdoor Industry Association Eco Index, an environmental assessment tool that will define sustainable products for our industry. Life Cycle Assessments. In 2010, we conducted LCA studies in our outerwear, equipment and footwear categories to better understand the environmental hot spots that present the best opportunities for improvement. This holistic process evaluates the effects a product has on multiple environmental endpoints throughout its life cycle from material production all the way through end-of-life. The examination of our Surge backpack, Plasma Thermal jacket, and Hedgehog shoe confirmed that our biggest environmental impacts occur in the materials production and manufacturing stages of the product life cycle. This validated our strategy of working with bluesign technologies in our supply chain.

64%

75%

85%

% of Global Warming Potential impact during material production and manufacturing

THE NORTH FACE 2010 SUSTAINABILITY REPORT: Product

The North Face 2010 Sustainability Report

GLOBAL WARMING POTENTIAL IMPACTS FOR SURGE BACKPACK

Focusing on issues regarding water, energy use and global warming potential, the LCA studies identified six key strategies for achieving the greatest sustainability improvements in our products: • Decrease product material. • Select lower impact materials. • Reduce impacts of dyeing. • Improve performance of Tier 1 Suppliers. • Improve retail resource efficiency. • Minimize washing and drying requirements during consumer use.

Sustainable Materials Landscape All material choices come with trade-offs. Organic cotton can be water-intensive, readily available bamboo requires a chemically-intensive process to turn it into usable fibers, and using merino wool raises questions about animal welfare. To help our designers make informed choices, we are developing an interactive “Sustainable Materials Landscape” tool for all VF brands to use. It will provide the environmental profile for a wide range of materials used in our industry. Work began in 2010 and will be completed in 2011.

THE NORTH FACE 2010 SUSTAINABILITY REPORT: Product

The North Face 2010 Sustainability Report

Internal Product Rating Tool and TNF Sustainability Goals In 2009, we developed our internal Product Rating Tool with binary metrics for bluesign® approved, recycled and organic content. Every product style gets a “yes” or “no” based on whether it meets the thresholds established for each parameter. No credit is given for recycled content, for example, until a 50% threshold is reached. Our Action Sports Product team recently designed cycling shorts with only 49% recycled content — then worked to redesign them until they achieved the 50% threshold. We set the bar for these metrics higher each season. “This tool has been a crucial catalyst in fostering sustainable material development. With every product team responsible for hitting progressive goals each season, the tool encourages collaboration on challenging issues and potential opportunities. When teams have difficulty meeting goals, they engage other associates, partners and vendors on sustainability issues around materials and sourcing to develop solutions.” — Corporate Sustainability Manager Adam Mott “Until this point it has been ‘my sustainable is more sustainable than your sustainable.’ This is not a win-win scenario. It should be about conservation and the environment. It should be about deeply rooted corporate responsibility not market positioning. Once we have a robust set of brand and corporate standards in place, it will drive the whole industry forward.” — Philip Hamilton, VP of Global Product

Outdoor Industry Association Eco Index No company alone can create groundbreaking change across the industry’s supply chain. That’s why we joined with over 200 companies globally to advance sustainability in the outdoor industry by collaborating to develop the Outdoor Industry Association (OIA) Eco Index. This pioneering environmental assessment tool provides companies with a way to measure and benchmark their products’ environmental footprints and identify areas for improvement. The tool informs product design and sourcing decisions addressing the entire length of the supply chain. The framework is broken into product life cycle phases and covers seven critical impact areas: water, waste, biodiversity, energy use/greenhouse gas emissions, land use intensity, and chemistry/toxicity regarding both people and the environment. The Eco Index was spearheaded by the OIA Eco Working Group and the European Outdoor Group (EOG) Sustainability Working Group, which TNF EMEA (Europe, Middle East, and Africa) chaired from its inception in 2008 until spring, 2011. The non-profit organization Zero Waste Alliance was also a valuable partner. The North Face piloted the beta version of the Eco Index in 2010 for three different products (Men’s Paramount Peak Pants, Men’s Short Sleeve Easy Tee, and 100 Glacier 1/4 Zip). Our designers found the framework and content to be robust and helpful in focusing attention on opportunities for improvement they had not considered before. The Eco Index has caught the eye of others in the apparel industry outside of the outdoor sector and was recently combined with Nike’s Material Assessment Tool to create a comprehensive product sustainability evaluation tool for the apparel industry under the Sustainable Apparel Coalition (SAC). VF joined the SAC in mid-2010, piloting a number of programs across its brands in 2011 to test the SAC’s version of the upgraded tool.

THE NORTH FACE 2010 SUSTAINABILITY REPORT: Product