PVH Corp.’s 2019 Corporate Responsibility (CR) Report details the company’s commitment and achievements in accountability and transparency in the most sensitive and tenuous of times.
The CR report is also the first published since last year’s launch of PVH’s ambitious CR strategy, Forward Fashion, that sets new goals and aspirations to drive transformational change across PVH, its businesses and the fashion industry. Specifically, the company emphasizes transparent reporting against the 15 priorities of its Forward Fashion CR strategy.
PVH stressed that the report is being published during the COVID-19 pandemic and the global movement against systemic racism and social inequality. While the company–with a portfolio of brands that includes Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger, Van Heusen, Izod, Arrow, Warner’s, Olga and Geoffrey Beene–has had to adapt much of its CR work to the current environment, PVH said it remains committed to delivering on its long-term strategy and its focus on reducing the company’s negative impacts to zero, increasing positive impacts to 100 percent, and improving the lives of the more than 1 million people across its value chain.
“While the apparel industry will be uniquely transformed post-pandemic, we have a responsibility to help shape this ‘new normal’ for the benefit of all stakeholders,” Manny Chirico, chairman and CEO of PVH, said. “We are steadfast in our commitments to prioritize climate action, to build tighter, more resilient supply chains, to fight for social justice and to deliver more sustainable products to our consumers.”
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This year’s report increases the company’s data disclosure and expands transparency around workforce inclusion and diversity (I&D) information. PVH said it sees this as an important first step in meaningful progress to ensure all people and communities are represented, and in “creating a workplace environment where every individual is valued and every voice is heard.”
“Within this report, we have been transparent about representation and diversity across our company,” Chirico said. “We have a lot more to do and we are fully committed to doing the work. Over the next few months, we will be publishing a set of targets focused on racial equality, representation and advancement, and we commit to disclosing the actions being taken across our organization to meet these targets.”
On the road to reduce negative impacts to zero, PVH received approval of its absolute greenhouse gas emission (GHG) emission reduction targets from the Science Based Target initiative. PVH’s targets are also in line with the most ambitious level of decarbonization set by the Paris Agreement at 1.5 degrees Celsius.
The report noted that PVH’s offices, warehouses and stores will be powered by 100 percent renewable electricity by 2030 and will drive a 30 percent reduction in supply-chain emissions by 2030. All PVH offices, distribution centers and stores will also achieve zero waste and eliminate single-use plastics by 2030, and water leaving its wet processors will have zero hazardous chemicals and be filtered for harmful microfibers by 2025.
The company ran programming through the Apparel Impact Institute to reduce the environmental footprint of its suppliers that use the most energy, implemented its forest protection policy and commenced its partnership with Canopy, a leading NGO in protecting the world’s forests. It has also conducted waste audits to inform its first global waste baselining exercise and guide its approach toward achieving zero waste for PVH offices, distribution centers and stores by 2030.
On the path toward increasing positive impacts to 100 percent, PVH shared living wage data for the first time. The data directly compares workers’ average hourly wages in PVH supplier factories to legal minimum hourly wages and average hourly wages in the apparel sector across sourcing countries that make up 75 percent of PVH’s global Free on Board (FOB) value in 2019.
In addition, PVH has sourced approximately 50 percent of its cotton footprint sustainably, including Better Cotton, and organic and recycled cotton, bringing it halfway toward its target to sustainably source 100 percent of its cotton by 2025.
The CR commitment also includes expanding I&D data disclosing gender and racial and ethnicity representation breakdowns across PVH’s corporate offices, and retail and warehouse facilities. PVH said it has reached its goal and CR target of achieving gender parity in leadership positions and going forward, will focus on achieving gender parity at the most senior leadership levels.
The company also announced a $3 million, three-year grant extension between the PVH Foundation with Save the Children. Total giving by the PVH Foundation, its philanthropic fund specifically dedicated to nonprofit donations and volunteer programs, was more than $15 million.
“I’m proud of the progress we have made in the last year as we work to achieve our Forward Fashion goals, and we recognize it also highlights just how much more we need to do,” Chirico said. “Next year, this report will look different again, as we keep making positive impacts and holding ourselves accountable to the highest standards. We will do more, do better, and share our progress along the way.”
PVH has more than 40,000 associates operating in over 40 countries and $9.9 billion in annual revenues.