Salomon

How sustainable is Salomon?

This scree­ning has been done by Fai­ri­fy on Octo­ber 26^th 2020

Salo­mon, a French out­door brand, was foun­ded in 1947 and is cur­rent­ly part of Amer Sports, a Chi­ne­se-Fin­nish spor­ting goods com­pa­ny. Amer Sports publis­hes one sustai­na­bi­li­ty report for all of its sub-brands. This appro­ach is gener­al­ly not that transpa­rent and pro­ne to cher­ry-pic­king.

A lack of transpa­ren­cy on sustai­na­bi­li­ty
Amer Sports claims that it is acti­ve­ly enga­ged in cli­ma­te acti­on and emis­si­on reduc­ti­on, but acti­ons speak lou­der than words. The com­pa­ny has adop­ted the Higg Index and is transpa­rent about its sco­pe 1 and 2 emis­si­ons, but sco­pe 3 hasn’t been map­ped yet. And alt­hough it uses some rene­wa­ble ener­gy, the vast majo­ri­ty of its ener­gy use comes from non-rene­wa­ble sour­ces. Besi­des that, there’s a lack of transpa­ren­cy con­cerning the envi­ron­men­tal impact of its mate­ri­al, water and land use.

Under­re­gu­la­ted audits and uncer­ti­fied ani­mal mate­ri­als
When it comes to wor­kers’ rights, the infor­ma­ti­on that Amer Sports publis­hes is ambi­guous at best. The com­pa­ny itself adhe­res to the poli­cies of the Fair Labor Asso­ci­a­ti­on, but it’s unclear whe­ther wor­kers’ rights and living wages are res­pec­ted throug­hout the sup­ply chain. Besi­des that, it sta­tes that its audits are con­duc­ted by glo­bally-recog­ni­zed third par­ties, but it’s not at all obvious to what extent the­se audits hap­pen unan­noun­ced and whe­ther they are pro­per­ly exe­cu­ted. Alt­hough its down is cer­ti­fied by the Res­pon­si­ble Down Standard, the lea­ther and wool the com­pa­ny uses are uncer­ti­fied, which is defi­ni­te­ly cau­se for con­cern.

Ambi­tious cli­ma­te tar­gets aren’t enough
Amer Sports’ goals are ambi­tious, which is a good sign. It has set Sci­en­ce Based Tar­gets to achie­ve its goals, it’s com­mit­ted to using 100% rene­wa­ble ener­gy in its owned ope­ra­ti­ons by the end of 2020, and aims to set up rene­wa­ble ener­gy pro­jects throug­hout its sup­ply chain. On top of that, Amer Sports wants to redu­ce its abso­lu­te Sco­pe 1, 2 and 3 GHG emis­si­ons by 65% by 2030. The com­pa­ny has big plans for the futu­re, but is cur­rent­ly under­per­for­ming in terms of acti­on and transpa­ren­cy. It sta­tes that peo­p­le, pla­net and ani­mals are of para­mount impor­tan­ce, but a clo­ser look reve­a­led that, for now, few of the cri­te­ria are met.