Jack Wolfskin

The other area that the com­pa­ny excels in, is the mana­ge­ment of hazar­dous che­mi­cals in its sup­ply chain. Jack Wolf­skin has alrea­dy com­ple­te­ly eli­mi­na­ted PFCs from all of its pro­ducts, and is a mem­ber of the Zero Discharge of Hazar­dous Che­mi­cals Group. It also men­tions that the lion’s share of its pro­ducts are blue­si­gn cer­ti­fied. But while blue­si­gn manages and opti­mizes envi­ron­men­tal per­for­mance, there is impro­ve­ment to be made. The com­pa­ny hasn’t tra­cked its sup­ply chain emis­sions and cur­rent­ly doesn’t report on envi­ron­men­tal per­for­mance in its fac­to­ries in terms of water and ener­gy consump­tion and waste mana­ge­ment. A more science-based approach of mea­su­ring eve­ry ele­ment in its sup­ply chain, like the one of the Higg Envi­ron­men­tal Module, would open the door to more control over these fac­tors and the adop­tion of a car­bon reduc­tion tar­get.

That the com­pa­ny has no abso­lute tar­get for impro­ving its sup­ply chain, doesn’t mean that it’s not taking cli­mate action. Jack Wolf­skin is alrea­dy doing great on che­mi­cals and mate­rials, but is also redu­cing its ship­ping emis­sions by favo­ring trans­port over­seas over air car­go, and it has repla­ced all plas­tic packa­ging in its stores with more sus­tai­nable alter­na­tives. Jack Wolf­skin also creates durable pro­ducts, and offers a repair ser­vice.

Ano­ther area in which more trans­pa­ren­cy is nee­ded, lies in its mate­rial sour­cing. The com­pa­ny doesn’t publish an over­view of the quan­ti­ty of the mate­rials it uses, but most­ly reports on com­po­nents or mate­rials spe­ci­fi­cal­ly. The com­pa­ny uses 100% orga­nic cot­ton, and down is cer­ti­fied with the Res­pon­sible Down Stan­dard. Howe­ver, it does use meri­no wool and lea­ther without cer­ti­fi­ca­tions. The outer­wear brand men­tions that it most­ly uses recy­cled mate­rials for the syn­the­tics, but the amount of poly­es­ter it uses is unk­nown. Conclu­si­ve­ly, the com­pa­ny excels in sup­ply chain trans­pa­ren­cy, che­mi­cals and labor stan­dards, but can improve its envi­ron­men­tal foot­print and trans­pa­ren­cy concer­ning the mate­rials it uses.