Athleta

How sustainable is Athleta?

This screening has been done by Fairify on March 31^st 2020

Ath­le­ta is Gap Inc.’s women’s ath­le­tic wear brand. Unlike other Gap Inc. brands, Ath­le­ta does offer more infor­ma­tion about its ope­ra­tions on its web­site. It pro­vides trans­pa­ren­cy concer­ning the mate­rials it uses for its pro­duc­tion, which include recy­cled mate­rials, orga­nic cot­ton and res­pon­sible down. The total per­cen­tage of its more sus­tai­nable mate­rials is 60%, with a tar­get for 80% in 2020. The com­pa­ny offers life­time gua­ran­tees on its clo­thing, which is tru­ly ama­zing. Ath­le­ta is a B‑Corporation and pro­vides more infor­ma­tion about its water and waste reduc­tion. Concer­ning wor­kers’ rights, it’s paving the way to social res­pon­si­bi­li­ty of the mother com­pa­ny by get­ting two of its fac­to­ries Fair Trade Certified.

More ethi­cal than its parent, but not there yet

Though it’s very clear that Ath­le­ta stands out in the Gap Inc. port­fo­lio, the brand is still a part of the ove­rar­ching cor­po­ra­tion, which means that most of what goes for Gap Inc. also goes for Ath­le­ta. Its car­bon foot­print remains unmea­su­red and even though it’s impro­ving wor­king condi­tions in its own faci­li­ties, we’re still not sure if some of these high stan­dards also hold up in the rest of its sup­ply chain.