Goals and progress
Environment | Footprint assessment
Some of our best ideas and biggest advances begin with acknowledging what we don’t know.
In executing our environmental strategy, we’ve realized that we need a better understanding of the impact we make across our company's operations.
So in 2008, we launched an environmental footprint assessment — a detailed accounting of how our business affects the environment. This analysis will give us the information to set long-term environmental goals, direct our resources to operate more efficiently and better address climate and regulatory risks.
The first phase of our environmental footprint assessment focuses on regions and facilities where we control operations and can make changes most easily. It includes our 11 headquarters (HQ) buildings, five design studios, seven distribution center campuses, and more than 2,800 stores in our North American fleet. Scheduled to be completed in 2009, this first phase will examine energy, water usage, effluents and waste (including wastewater, solid waste and hazardous waste).
The second phase of our assessment will focus further into our supply chain, where we have less direct influence but greater opportunity for impact. We expect to begin the second phase to begin in early 2010.
As this work unfolds, we’re also assessing the various links between our environmental and social goals. For example, how can our environmental commitments support the work we do on human rights in our supply chain, our employee programs, and our foundation’s community investments?
