The North Face

The North Face doesn't share its full material breakdown, but it reports that less than half of its garments are made with lowest emissions materials. It uses a mix of lower emissions materials, including recycled wool, organic cotton, and regenerative rubber, as well as high emissions materials such as virgin polyester and nylon. It also uses materials certified by RWS and LWG. It has a goal to reduce its reliance on high emissions materials by 2025, but it's unclear what proportion of its overall materials mix this covers. It has reported on progress towards this goal within the last year.

The North Face's parent company, VF Corp, utilizes renewable energy and energy efficiency measures in an unknown portion of its production. It has plans to expand renewable energy to 100% across owned-or-leased facilities by 2026. The North Face sources and manufactures its materials globally, which is standard practice in the fashion industry.

The North Face has worked to reduce its packaging materials overall. It's also made efforts to reduce virgin plastic in its packaging by moving towards recycled plastics, but its progress reporting could be improved. Its parent company, VF Corp, is working to reduce its shipping emissions by incorporating biofuels into its ocean shipping.

The North Face has a free repair program for items under warranty. Its warranty extends for 2 years and covers manufacturer defects. It gives detailed care instructions to extend garment lifespan.

The North Face has a take back program, Renewed, that accepts its own brand's items for resale, recycling, or donation. It provides general reporting on the efficacy of this program.

The North Face offers a core evergreen collection, but also has frequent new releases and limited editions.

Commons is still evaluating this brand's marketing emails.

The North Face has a prominent sustainability page, with details on circularity, materials, packaging, and emissions measurement. It is unclear how often this page or information is kept up to date. Its parent company, VF Corp, has a detailed annual report, with a clear, impact driven strategy and progress reporting. Its latest annual report is from 2023.

The North Face's parent company, VF Corp, internally measures its overall emissions and reports them on an organization-wide level. However, it doesn't transparently report its actual CO2e numbers by scope, or provide the top drivers of its emissions.

The North Face's parent company, VF Corp, has medium and long-term SBTi-approved emissions reductions targets for Scope 1, 2, and 3. In its last progress report it was on track for all targets. VF Corp offsets emissions from business travel, employee commuting, and sponsored athlete trips.

The North Face publishes information about its Tier 1-3 supply chain partners through its parent company VF Corp. VF Corp has a supplier code of conduct, which includes provisions for banning forced and child labor, requiring regular audits of partners, restricting subcontracting, and allowing collective bargaining. Its code of conduct doesn't address paying living wages.