International apparel and footwear company VF corporation (click here) has reduced its global carbon emissions by 12% from 2011 to 2015 - exceeding its original 5% goal for the five-year period.
The parent company of the Timberland and The North Face brands – both of which have made fresh sustainability commitments it recent months – announced today (15 November) that it prevented more than 38,000 tonnes of carbon emissions from entering the atmosphere, equivalent to the electricity needed to power 5,710 homes for a year.
VF achieved these reductions whilst seeing vast expanses to its business, adding more than 500 sites to its global operations within the five-year period – a 40% increase driven mainly by retail store expansion.
VF’s chairman Eric Wiseman said: “Surpassing our carbon reduction goal by such a large margin is further proof that VF is serious about sustainability and addressing the issue of climate change. I’m extremely proud of the many individuals across VF whose actions – big and small – contributed to these exceptional results.”
The reduction efforts focused on four areas of operation; manufacturing, distribution, retail, offices and facilities. From this, VF’s offices, facilities and distribution sites saw the highest carbon reductions, with a 30% and 25% drop respectively.
VF achieved half of this 12% reduction from increasing its use of clean energy, renewable energy credits and carbon offsets. The other 6% came from smaller initiatives such as employee behaviour change programmes and various energy efficiency measures such as installing LED lighting in retail stores, technology upgrades in distribution centres and the construction of energy efficient facilities – some of which achieved a LEED certification....
