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MATERIALS
Animal Welfare Policy: We are committed to the humane treatment of animals. Our animal welfare policy prohibits the use of fur, angora, and mohair, as well as practices including live plucking and mulesing. For more details, visit gapincsustainability.com/sites/default/files/animal-welfare-policy.pdf
LENZING™ ECOVERO™: LENZING™ECOVERO™ is a wood-based fiber produced using pulp derived from responsibly managed forests and manufactured with significantly lower emissions and less water than generic viscose.
Cotton in Conversion to Organic: Gap is supporting cotton growing communities during the three-year transition toward certified organic farming and away from conventional agricultural practices, which use harmful synthetic pesticides and fertilizers. This effort helps farmers while also increasing the global supply of organically grown cotton.
Organic Cotton: Organic cotton is better for people and the environment because it’s grown without the use of harmful synthetic pesticides and fertilizers.
Organic Farming: Organic farming aims to support robust ecosystems and abundant biodiversity by encouraging practices like crop rotation, prohibiting genetically modified seeds, maintaining healthy soils and applying organic fertilizers and manures instead of manufactured inputs.
Preferred Fibers Toolkit: Our toolkit includes an evaluation of raw material choices that builds upon data inputs from the Sustainable Apparel Coalition’s (SAC) Higg Materials Sustainability Index. It also incorporates other holistic indicators to consider environmental and social considerations. Building on the toolkit, Gap Inc. and Textile Exchange are proud to announce the public release of the Preferred Fiber and Material Matrix, a resource for sourcing and design teams to inform companies on meeting their sustainability goals. Learn more at textileexchange.org
Recycled Materials: Recycled materials are recovered or diverted from the waste stream either during the manufacturing process (pre-consumer) or after consumer use (post-consumer). Using recycled materials helps us minimize our impact on the planet. Compared to virgin materials, recycled materials help keep waste out of landfills while also reducing carbon emissions.
Regenerative Cotton: Regenerative cotton agricultural practices are robust, holistic systems that support healthy soil and communities, and promote biodiversity.
Responsible Down Standard (RDS): RDS aims to ensure that down and feathers come from animals that have not been subjected to any unnecessary harm.
Protocol Verified Cotton (PVC): As members of the U.S. Cotton Trust Protocol, we participate in a program for U.S.-grown cotton that supports best practices and continuous improvement in key areas, including soil health, water management, and Greenhouse Gas Emissions. The Trust Protocol uses verified data to drive impact and brands participate through the Mass Balance System. For more details, visit trustuscotton.org.
TENCEL™ fibers: TENCEL™ fibers are derived from wood, which is a renewable raw material, and produced using pulp from responsibly managed forests.
Wood-Derived Fabric Policy: In partnership with CanopyStyle, a third-party sustainable fashion and forestry initiative, we set this policy to help ensure our suppliers do not use wood from ancient, endangered, high-conservation or high carbon–value forest areas to make cellulose-based textiles, including rayon, modal, viscose, and lyocell.
Mill Sustainability Program: Our Mill Sustainability Program focuses on driving transparency and innovation while reducing compliance risks and contributing to our corporate sustainability goals. By leveraging partnerships, we can analyze and improve the environmental performance of our supply chain. Our suppliers’ involvement is key to our ability to calculate our energy, greenhouse gas emissions, and water baselines, which support progress toward our new science-based target for our indirect, Scope 3 GHG emissions and help us build a more water-resilient supply chain. The program also helps drive improvements in social performance at mills. Learn more at gapincsustainability.com.
Supplier Sustainability Program: Gap Inc. has in place a robust program for assessing and remediating issues in sourcing facilities, as well as a suite of capability building programs focused on women’s empowerment, social dialogue and supervisory skills. With local teams in our key sourcing countries, we are able to partner closely with facilities, as well as local and international stakeholders, allowing us to have thorough, on-the-ground insight into how our suppliers perform and what salient issues workers in our supply chain face.
WATER
Washwell: Developed in 2016, our Washwell program for denim and woven bottoms, like khakis, uses at least 20% less water compared with conventional wash methods.
Water-Quality Program: Developed in 2004, the Gap Inc. Water-Quality Program aims to ensure our jeans are made in a way that protects local waterways and minimizes impact on the planet.
USAID Gap Inc. Women + Water Alliance: The USAID Gap Inc. Women + Water Alliance aims to improve and sustain the health and wellbeing of women and communities touched by the apparel industry in India. We believe access to clean, safe water is a fundamental right, so we are working with key partners to ignite women as water champions to advance lasting solutions for water access. Through this collective action initiative, we aim to empower 2 million people to improve their access to drinking water and sanitation by 2023. Learn more at www.gapinc.com
CHEMICALS
Restricted Substance List (RSL): Our Restricted Substances List prohibits suppliers from using certain chemicals that are harmful to people and the planet. In addition to protecting customers, our policies were put in place to address environmental pollution and protect garment workers from exposure to harmful chemicals. Gap Inc. is a founding member of the Apparel and Footwear International RSL Management (AFIRM) Group. Since 2008, our suppliers have been expected to comply with the AFIRM RSL, which sets limits on chemicals in finished products.
Manufacturing Restricted Substances List (MRSL): We expect our suppliers to comply with the Zero Discharge of Hazardous Chemicals (ZDHC) MRSL, which prohibits use of chemicals of concern in production. We also expect wet processors to comply with the ZDHC Wastewater Guidelines for wastewater testing to monitor adherence to the MRSL.
Perfluorochemicals (PFCs): Gap Inc. is committed and on track to eliminate PFC-based finishes from our supply chain.
EMPOWERING WOMEN
Workplace Cooperation Program (WCP): We believe that improving dialogue and relations between workers and management can help prevent labor disputes, resolve problems, give greater voice to workers, and improve productivity and competitiveness. The Gap Inc. Workplace Cooperation Program (WCP) sets up committees that are comprised of both workers and management representatives who are trained to work together to help address workplace issues, from overtime and worker well-being to washroom sanitation and better quality of food in the canteen. Additionally, we have a goal that by 2025, 100% of workers employed in strategic supplier factories will have their voices heard through representative, gender-equitable workplace committees.
Supervisory Skills Training: Gap Inc. launched the Supervisory Skills Training (SST) program to reach mid-level managers and provide them with the skills to improve communication with workers. SST gives supervisors and middle managers a deeper understanding of important leadership and supervisory concepts. Participants are trained to avoid a passive or authoritarian style of leadership, and to strike a fair balance between the interests of the company and the interests of staff. Through the SST, we have a goal that by 2025, 100% of strategic supplier factories will have achieved gender parity at the supervisor level.
Prevention of Sexual Harassment: Gap Inc.’s Supplier Sustainability team works with our suppliers to help build an environment where they clearly define and implement policies for Prevention of Sexual Harassment (POSH) and create an Internal Complaints Committee to address issues of discrimination and harassment. We aim to help our suppliers raise awareness about this issue and the rights and responsibilities of male and female employees, including managers.
Gap Inc. Code of Vendor Conduct: Since launching our Supplier Sustainability Program in 1994, we transformed our approach to improving facility working conditions by developing innovative, holistic programs that leverage assessments (audits) and remediation of our supply chain to ensure compliance to our Code of Vendor Conduct. We believe that by working together, we can achieve our commitments to improve workers’ well-being, protect human rights, reduce environmental impacts, and improve business performance.
Personal Advancement & Career Enhancement Program (P.A.C.E.): P.A.C.E. is Gap Inc.’s educational program that helps the women who make our clothes build the skills, knowledge, confidence, and resilience needed to advance in work and life. Learn more at www.gapinc.com/en-us/values/sustainability/empowering-women/p-a-c-e-and-empower@work. We continue to share our program curriculum with other retailers via Empower@Work.
Empower@Work: In 2019, Gap Inc. leveraged our P.A.C.E. program to become one of the founding members of Empower@Work, along with Better Work, Business for Social Responsibility’s (BSR) HERproject and CARE, working with support from the International Center for Research and Women (ICRW). Empower@Work harnesses the power of collective action to empower women workers, embed gender equality in business practice and catalyze policy and systems change, by aligning women’s empowerment training and skill-building efforts across the apparel industry. Empower@Work will focus on building and deploying sustainable, systemic and scalable programs that promote gender equality in global supply chains.
WASTE
Circularity: Materials are valuable, and one of the best things we can do is keep those materials in use for as long as possible and help ensure they never become waste. Joining the circular economy means shifting our thinking about design, how we wear and care for products, and where products eventually go, so that they can get reused and recycled. To do so, we are building programs to address product end of life and create circular design systems that reduce waste and increase recycling, upcycling, and reuse.
The Jeans Redesign: The Jeans Redesign is creating solutions for a world where clothes are kept in use. In February 2019, the Ellen MacArthur Foundation gathered insights from more than 80 industry experts from across academia, brands, retailers, manufacturing, collectors, sorters, and non-governmental organizations to collaboratively define design parameters to make jeans fit for a circular economy. By using The Jeans Redesign guidelines, we’ve created a collection of jeans that are made to be used more, made to be made again, and made from safe and recycled, or renewable inputs.
ReGap: ReGap is our way of saying, “Share the good.” We obsess over every stitch and detail, so each Gap piece has the quality to hold up — and pass along. From big kid to little kid, mom to daughter, friend to friend.
Plastic Waste: Gap Inc. is working towards its 2030 commitment through The Fashion Pact to eliminate unnecessary and problematic plastic packaging as defined by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. We aim to achieve this goal through a combination of methods—reducing packaging where possible and converting to bio-based materials. For packaging that can’t be eliminated, we plan to maximize recycled content or divert waste from landfill through recycling.
Upcycling: When materials are re-used in a way that adds value to the product, we call that upcycling. The opposite of upcycling is downcycling — still a form of recycling, but one where the new product has less value than the original.
