06 Aug Columbia Sportswear Releases 2019 Corporate Responsibility Report
Columbia Sportswear Company released its 2019 Corporate Responsibility Report which includes highlights from the progress made throughout 2019 in the three main areas of focus in its corporate responsibility strategy – empowering people, sustaining places and responsible practices.
The report assesses work accomplished in 2019 by its four primary brands – Columbia, SOREL, Mountain Hardwear, and Prana including:
- Pledging to support 150,000 women in their participation in the HERproject by 2025;
- Built seven water towers in 2019 in its manufacturing partners’ communities, for a total of 15, which provides approximately 15,000 people a day with clean water through the Columbia Clean Drinking Water Program;
- Donated $2,037,098 by CSC to charitable causes or organizations;
- Connected approximately 8,058 students to the outdoors through Columbia’s support of The National Park Foundation’s “Open OutDoors for Kids” campaign;
- Launched product collections with sustainable attributes across its brands;
- Used 100 percent Responsible Down Standard certified down across all of its brands;
- Reduced absolute emissions in North American operations by 9 percent since 2018;
- 6th year of Higg Index annual supply chain assessments; and
- Completed 390-plus unannounced audits conducted at its manufacturing partner facilities with more than 40 percent of manufacturing partner facilities independently audited by third-party auditors.
A key element of this year’s report is the addition of Human Resources data capturing highlights from the global workforce in 2019 including workforce statistics, employee well-being programs and employee-driven initiatives.
The corporate responsibility efforts can we read here. The company has also released a Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) Index which discloses its corporate responsibility efforts in accordance with SASB industry-specific standards and can be read here.