Global Sustainability Report 2019
Our Strategy Mainstreaming sustainability through #WearTheChange
At C&A, we want to bring sustainability to the mainstream. We want our customers to trust us to do the right thing, so they can buy our products confident that they were made transparently and with respect for people and the environment. Ultimately, we want our customers to join our call to action through #WearTheChange.
We are coming to the end of our first 5-year sustainability strategy, which will close the end of February 2021. This initial strategy was developed with an aim of embedding sustainability across our business and increasing our sustainability leadership in retail markets. Along with creating this global alignment throughout C&A on our top-level aspirational goals, we also provided flexibility in how the goals are achieved in our retail markets, to meet local needs and to drive innovation. Over 2019 and 2020, we have been working on our next sustainability strategy, which will focus even more on connecting with our customers and engaging our employees.
Global goals create alignment
To make sustainable fashion the new normal, we focus on the most relevant areas for our business as well as those where we can have the largest positive impact. We then align our approaches across our four retail markets. For a closer look at our strategy, view this video.
2020 global sustainability framework
Sustainable Products
We don’t want our customers to have to choose between what’s sustainable and what’s not. To achieve this, we are making sustainability an integral part of how we design and source our clothing. We focus on sustainable materials – especially cotton, one of our largest volume raw materials – and ensure that our clothing has been sourced and made in a way that respects people, the environment, and animals.
We also collaborate across the industry to create a collective movement towards doing more good and creating innovative and open-source circular models for garment production.
Learn more about how we're building sustainable products and working in collaboration
Sustainable Supply
The apparel supply chain is complex. C&A’s encompasses around 1 million people, employed through 635 global suppliers, with more than 1,700 production units. That means our supply chain — beginning with agriculture — accounts for a significant proportion of our footprint: for example, 90% of our water footprint. This is why our emphasis on the supply chain is so important. We focus many of our efforts on sustainable agriculture, drive social and environmental performance in our supply chain, and apply innovation to revolutionise the production system.
Learn more about how we're developing sustainable supply chains
Sustainable Lives
C&A is a global retail fashion company that touches the lives of about 51,000 employees, 1 million apparel workers, and millions of customers each year. What we do and the way we do it has a large impact on many different groups of people. That is why we focus on empowering our customers to make more sustainable shopping decisions, support the livelihoods of workers in our supply chain, and engage our employees as sustainability ambassadors.
Learn more about how we're promoting sustainable lives
Learn how we are impacting the lives of the workers in our supply chain
Developing our strategy
Defining our material issues
Each year we evaluate the material sustainability issues and impacts of our business to ensure we remain focused on the most important issues and impacts of our company, value chain, and industry. This process involves a detailed assessment and prioritisation, summarised below. This year, through our evaluation, three issues increased in both importance and impact — circular fashion, labour practices, and waste management and recycling. Notably, in 2020, working closely with our suppliers to address both the initial and ongoing effects of the pandemic throughout the supply chain has become an important issue and one we continue to focus on.
- Research: When we started, we interviewed 40 key stakeholders, including development experts, researchers, and business leaders. We reviewed our historical sustainability performance, data from our life cycle assessment (LCA), and research generated by customer interviews and focus groups. In our subsequent updates, we review our experience and consider external developments (e.g., regulatory changes, stakeholder feedback, industry trends, consumer insights, etc.) from the previous year and recalculate our rankings in the matrix.
- Value chain environmental impacts: We worked with external experts to develop a hybrid LCA model that helped us more fully understand the water and carbon footprints of our value chain. We also determined our social impacts through our Sustainable Supply Chain programmes and our human rights impact assessment.
- Future trends: To determine those areas where we could make the largest positive impact, we worked with Forum for the Future to evaluate future apparel industry trends over a 15-year period
- Global frameworks: Key initiatives like the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the UN Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights inform our strategic and continual improvement process.
2019 materiality assessment update
Since our initial materiality assessment in 2013, we have continued to review our material issues in the context of stakeholder input and importance to our business. In 2019, we again updated our materiality assessment and consulted four important categories of input:
- Our corporate identity, including C&A values, vision, and mission
- Consumer insights, including consumer trends and viewpoints (including our annual customer survey in concert with GlobeScan), market intelligence, and future trends
- Sustainability trends, including industry intelligence, market intelligence, competitor analysis, stakeholder trends, and future trends
- Our impacts, including key impact areas and future trends
Drawing from this input, we refreshed our materiality assessment to identify the top material issues — those deemed most important by our stakeholders and for our business. The results, as shown in the chart below, reflect this review and the ways in which the most material issues have been incorporated into our 2020 sustainability goals. Other material issues — such as quality, product safety, and responsible marketing — remain part of our ongoing business approach.
Over the reporting period, several developments influenced our evaluation of the impact on our business and the level of concern to stakeholders. These include:
- Rohingya crisis in Myanmar and Bangladesh: We continue to express concern for the refugees of the northern Rakhine State of Myanmar who are located in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh. A delegation from C&A and C&A Foundation [1] visited the refugee camps to further strengthen our collaboration with Save the Children on projects that support the refugees and host communities. We also engaged UNHCR, Tent Foundation, and the Center for Global Development to further define ways for collaborating amongst brands to support the refugees and host communities. In addition, after carrying out an in-depth due diligence process to assess all potential risks and their consequences, we have decided to continue to source from Myanmar for the time being. This decision could be revised in the future depending on how the situation in that country evolves and on our ability, as a responsible company, to continue carrying out due diligence and identify evolving risks. We will continue to closely monitor the developments in Myanmar and reserve the right to reassess our approach.
Read more about how we protect vulnerable workers - Increased focus on the circular economy: In 2019, the European Union developed the European Green Deal, where circular economy in the apparel and textile industry will be defined as a Directive. In addition, the European Green Deal recognises the central role of consumers. C&A has become involved in the EU policy arena and is focused on sharing our learnings from our current circular economy approach, including our ongoing efforts to engage customers through Wear The Change.
Read more about our approach to the circular economy - Science-based climate targets: To contribute to the commitments of the Paris Agreement on climate change, C&A has created science-based climate targets for our value chain, including our Scope 3 emissions. These targets were approved in 2019 and we are working towards achieving them by 2030. Our progress to date has been positive.
Read more about how we combat climate change - Eliminating plastics: Regulation and consumer interest in single-use plastic use has created more focus on the elimination of unnecessary plastics in our value chain. C&A Europe has banned single-use plastics for shopping bags and has started a pilot with other brands, led by Fashion for Good, to eliminate the use of single-use plastics or find alternatives in the distribution networks.
- Forced labour allegations in Xinjiang, China: In 2019, C&A has started to work with other brands to conduct due diligence in the region. In the interim, we have banned production in the region and have asked our fabric suppliers to suspend sourcing of cotton and other fibres in Xinjiang.
Read more about how we protect the most vulnerable
[1] In January 2020, C&A Foundation became part of Laudes Foundation.
Material issues mapping
Click or tap a plot point to see the associated goals.
and auditing
(and no discrimination)
& safety/COVID-19 safety
(including anti-corruption)
material reuse
materials and products
and recycling
management
empowerment
and human rights
