Banana Republic

How sustainable is Banana Republic?

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

Bana­na Repu­blic is a glo­bal appa­rel brand of ove­rar­ching Gap Inc. The mother cor­po­ra­tion states that it’s a mis­sion-dri­ven com­pa­ny that prio­ri­tizes sus­tai­na­bi­li­ty and that its brands are a force for good. But with a reve­nue of over 16 bil­lion USD and a serious lack of trans­pa­ren­cy in its repor­ting for all seven of its brands, this is a very bold sta­te­ment.

A lack of ambi­tion
Gap Inc. doesn’t pro­vide any infor­ma­tion on its mate­rial sour­cing. The com­pa­ny states that it’s wor­king on impro­ving the amount of more sus­tai­nable mate­rials and fibers in its clo­thing, but doesn’t pro­vide any rele­vant data on what it actual­ly uses cur­rent­ly. The same goes for its car­bon foot­print. The com­pa­ny has not yet mea­su­red or publi­shed the car­bon foot­print of its sup­ply chain, which makes it impos­sible to set a Science Based Reduc­tion tar­get for its full ope­ra­tions. For Gap Inc.’s own ope­ra­tions, which include their 3,345 stores world­wide, it does have a 50% reduc­tion tar­get by 2020 in place, but the com­pa­ny states its not on track to achieve this tar­get.

Unfair sup­ply chain
The first signs of impro­ve­ment are there though. Gap Inc. is repor­ting through the Car­bon Dis­clo­sure Pro­ject and has imple­men­ted the Higg Index to col­lect envi­ron­men­tal per­for­mance data in its sup­ply chain. Tra­cking and publi­shing envi­ron­men­tal per­for­mance in its sup­ply chain is the first step towards reduc­tion of its car­bon emis­sions, ener­gy use and water consump­tion. The com­pa­ny has also publi­shed a list of fac­to­ries in its sup­ply chain, which offers us insight into where its fac­to­ries are loca­ted. While the com­pa­ny has been connec­ted to severe labor vio­la­tions in its sup­ply chain in the past, wor­kers’ rights seem to be impro­ving. Gap Inc. is a mem­ber of the Ethi­cal Tra­ding Ini­tia­tive, which moni­tors its sup­ply chain inde­pen­dent­ly and ensures that the ETI Base Code, inclu­ding fac­tors like decent wages and wor­king hours, is lived up to. Howe­ver, there is no proof that an actual living wage is being paid.

Risk of ani­mal abuse
Ani­mal wel­fare is not being ensu­red either. The infor­ma­tion Gap Inc. pro­vides in its ani­mal wel­fare poli­cy and sus­tai­na­bi­li­ty report offers lit­tle to no data on the actual ori­gins of the mate­rials the com­pa­ny uses in its clo­thing, which leaves us to conclude it lar­ge­ly uses ani­mal mate­rials from uncer­ti­fied sources.