Tommy Hilfiger

How sustainable is Tommy Hilfiger?

This scree­ning has been done by Fai­rify on May 18^th 2020

Tommy Hil­fi­ger is an Ame­ri­can clothing brand that’s sold all over the world. The com­pany with the ico­nic logo was foun­ded in 1985 and 35 years and a few acqui­si­tions later, Tommy Hil­fi­ger remains the prin­ci­pal desig­ner at the com­pany. In 2010, Tommy Hil­fi­ger was acqui­red by PVH Cor­po­ra­tion, which now publishes a yearly trans­pa­rency report that covers all of its brands.

PVH Cor­po­ra­tion is a huge Ame­ri­can com­pany with a brand port­fo­lio of about ten brands, of which Tommy Hil­fi­ger and Cal­vin Klein are the big­gest. PVH gene­ra­tes a reve­nue of almost 10 billion USD annually. PVH has ack­now­led­ged the pro­blems in the fashion industry and adop­ted a stra­tegy to do its part, called For­ward Fashion. This con­sists of ambi­tious tar­gets to posi­ti­vely chan­ge the way its clothing is manu­fac­tu­red. For­ward fashion is made up of three pillars: com­ple­tely redu­cing impacts to zero, impro­ving the lives of ever­yo­ne in its supply chain and increa­sing its posi­ti­ve impacts.

To soli­dify its ambi­tion, the com­pany has part­ne­red with nume­rous orga­ni­sa­tions. As a mem­ber of the Sus­tai­na­ble Appa­rel Coali­tion, PVH uses the Higg Index to mea­su­re envi­ron­men­tal per­for­man­ce in its fac­to­ries. With the adop­tion of Scien­ce Based Tar­gets, it aims to redu­ce car­bon emis­sions by 71% for its sco­pe 1 and 2 and supply chain emis­sions by 30% by 2030. It reports yearly emis­sions through the Car­bon Dis­clo­su­re Pro­ject and has made a com­mit­ment with the RE100 initia­ti­ve for 100% rene­wa­ble energy by 2030. PVH’s part­nership with ZDHC helps it eli­mi­na­te harm­ful che­mi­cals in its pro­duc­tion pro­cess.

With no lack of ambi­tion pre­sent at the com­pany, the­se still remain tar­gets and what’s more rele­vant is how the com­pany is doing today. The­re is sig­ni­fi­cant room for impro­ve­ment in terms of trans­pa­rency con­cer­ning mate­rial sour­cing, sin­ce this is gene­rally one of the fac­tors that accounts for the lar­gest cli­ma­te impact. The com­pany does dis­clo­se the amounts of mate­rials, which shows that the main mate­rial is cot­ton, of which 37% was more sus­tai­na­ble like orga­nic or recy­cled cot­ton. Other mate­rials the clothing brand uses are synthe­tic mate­rials like pol­yes­ter, nylon and sili­co­ne. Of its pol­yes­ter use, only 10.5% was recy­cled and use of ani­mal mate­rials outsi­de of down, which is cer­ti­fied, is not men­tio­ned and can be more trans­pa­rent. Without pro­per dis­clo­su­re about which ani­mal mate­rials are being used and whether the com­pany has cer­ti­fi­ca­tions for tho­se mate­rials, the­re remains a subs­tan­tial risk of ani­mal abu­se in the supply chain.

What PVH does well in terms of trans­pa­rency, is dis­clo­sing its envi­ron­men­tal data. Its last known sco­pe 3 emis­sions are 2,713,907 metric ton­nes of CO2 and the com­pany currently uses 28% rene­wa­ble energy to run its offi­ces, warehou­ses and sto­res. For its supply chain this per­cen­ta­ge is 10%. Total water use is currently 92,521,783.5 cubic meters. Num­bers like the­se are pos­si­ble to cal­cu­la­te becau­se they use the Higg Index and it’s great to see them published. PVH has also repor­ted its tier 1 fac­to­ries, which can be found on the Open Appa­rel Registry. The trans­pa­rency is great on the envi­ron­men­tal part, but the­re are a lot of impro­ve­ments to be made here. The num­bers are sig­ni­fi­cant and the com­pany has yet to adopt mea­su­res against poly­bags.

In 2018, the com­pany joi­ned ACT, which is an orga­ni­za­tion that helps com­pa­nies move towards pay­ment of a living wage in their supply chain. PVH is no mem­ber of a lar­ge inde­pen­dent body that con­ducts audits in its fac­to­ries, but does work together with orga­ni­za­tions like Bet­ter Work to impro­ve wor­king con­di­tions. Even though Bet­ter Work con­ducts some audits for the com­pany, most of the audits are done by PVH itself and whi­le the com­pany does offer a map with how the fac­to­ries are rated, reports on the results and the con­duc­tors of the­se audits remains behind clo­sed doors. A mem­bership with an inde­pen­dent orga­ni­za­tion that con­ducts inde­pen­dent third-party audits can subs­tan­tially redu­ce the risks of labor rights being vio­la­ted and would be a first step towards seriously impro­ving the lives of the peo­ple wor­king in the company’s supply chain.

It’s refreshing to see a big com­pany like PVH Cor­po­ra­tion taking mat­ters into its own hands and taking ownership over what hap­pens in its supply chain. Undoub­tedly, it’s reali­sing that the con­su­mer wants to know how its pro­ducts are made and are the­re­fo­re chan­ging for the bet­ter. The com­pany has already made sig­ni­fi­cant gains in terms of trans­pa­rency and shows its ambi­tion in its adop­ted tar­gets. But behind all the­se tar­gets and sty­lish repor­ting, things start to break apart and reveal serious risks in its supply chain. PVH remains a very lar­ge and unsus­tai­na­ble com­pany that pro­du­ces all over the world. We fully sup­port its new mis­sion and have no doubt the com­pany will bet­ter them­sel­ves. But there’s bet­ter brands out the­re, who have been built from the ground up with sus­tai­na­bi­lity in mind.