At Arc’teryx, we design for the mountain athlete — climbing sheer rock faces, running rocky alpine trails, or heading deep into the snow-filled backcountry. We know that our very existence and reason for being hinges on our ability to protect and preserve our greatest natural resources.
In 2020 we set climate goals, identifying bold science-based targets (SBTs) to reduce our greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and protect our planet. Driven forward by the passion of our team, we stepped up to the challenge and began working toward transformational change. 2021 saw these first steps start to bear fruit as we began to decouple growth in profits from growth in emissions, align with changemakers throughout the outdoor community, and identify actionable steps to reduce our footprint across all areas of the business.
Our SBT for Scope 3 (our value chain) is an intensity target, meaning we are working towards reducing the amount of emissions in our value chain per dollar of profit. Our business has grown more in recent years than anticipated back when we set the targets in 2020, meaning that our
profit is higher than expected, and getting us very close to achieving our intensity target. Given our accelerated growth, we need to reset our targets. While profit growth is certainly a factor in how we have met our targets so quickly, contributing factors could also be conservative estimates on our 2018 baseline, and/or improvements in data quality since then, amongst others. We are committed to revising our targets to be more ambitious and drive the change that our planet needs.
Supply chain issues challenged businesses across the globe in 2021 and Arc’teryx was no exception. However, this also gave us the opportunity to take stock and consider new ways of working. We redoubled our commitment to circularity, launching our first ReBIRDTM Service Center to keep our products and apparel in use and out of landfills longer, and allow our guests to take responsibility and drive impact individually. We joined 171 partners in the UN Fashion Charter for Climate Change in uplevelling our ambition for climate action, reinvested in our partnership with the Clean Energy Investment Accelerator (CEIA)’s pilot program in Vietnam, and launched a second initiative with a new cohort of suppliers to support a transition to solar power in the country.
This is just the start. Looking ahead, we are building the future of sustainability and circularity at Arc’teryx, ensuring this is the bedrock of every business decision we make, and that sustainability and circularity objectives are inseparable from our core business.
We are already close to achieving some of our targets, but we’re not stopping there; we’re working to set more ambitious goals and look forward to sharing them with you soon. We are committed to finding a better way, together.
Stuart Haselden
Chief Executive Officer – Arc’teryx
To read the full Climate Report for 2021, head over to the Sustainability section of our website.