Together in Good Company, Heritage Brands’ Corporate Responsibility (CR) program, reinforces our commitments to increase positive impacts to 100%, reduce negative impacts to zero, and improver over 1 million lives across our value chain. It is inspired and powered by the PVH Corporate Responsibility Strategy, Forward Fashion.
The new program focuses on five key areas: using sustainable materials, reducing plastic waste, innovating for circularity, the Heritage Hawassa project, and community commitments. Check out how we are bringing this program to life below.
Sustainable materials: From a product perspective, Heritage Brands has pledged to use 100% sustainable cotton and 100% recycled polyester and nylon by 2025 in all of their products. These materials were chosen because they are the top three fabrics used to make Heritage Brand products, and they all require resource-intensive processes, such as large amounts of water with high concentration of chemicals and long processing times which leads to high energy consumption and waste. From a packaging perspective, Heritage Brands has committed to use 100% Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified paper by 2025.
Reduce single use plastics: Heritage Brands is working towards eliminating single use plastics in their packaging by 2024 and to make sure that 100% of the trim on their garments will include recycled content by 2025. Single-use plastics include hangers, collar stays and polybags, while trim on garments include buttons and thread. To achieve these goals, the team partnered cross-functionally, including working closely with the PVH Supply team, to find alternative solutions and materials to make up packaging and trim.
Innovating for circularity: Heritage Brands has committed to changing the production paradigm, one which focused on a linear method of production and consumption, where we take, make and dispose of garments, to one that is circular, which focuses on creating products that can become resources again. Through manufacturing garments from lower impact materials, to designing garments that can be deconstructed at end of use to create new products, and to investigating new business models to extend the use and life of a garment, Heritage Brands is exploring all avenues to making themselves, and the apparel industry, more circular.
The Heritage Hawassa Project: 100% of apparel made for PVH at the Hawassa Industrial Park in Ethiopia is for Heritage Brands. In 2018, PVH launched the Protecting Lake Hawassa Initiative in partnership with the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit’s (GIZ) to identify water risks and engage in collective efforts to advance water conservation activities for local communities in Ethiopia. The partnership with GIZ leverages existing collaborative efforts with WWF, to make positive impacts on water sustainability beyond the park fences, with a focus on stopping waste from ending up in the lake, preventing soil degradation and increasing community awareness around environmental issues in Hawassa water basin. To date, we have helped to facilitate the installation of 300 waste bins in an area previously deprived of any public waste disposal mechanisms and have supported the planting of approximately 115,000 seedlings in the communities surrounding the lake, to aid in the decrease of water and soil flow towards the lake.
Community engagement: In partnership with the PVH Foundation, Heritage Brands has prioritized the opportunities for their associates to give back to our communities through financial donations, time, and service. Specifically, the Heritage Brand Community Involvement Committee (CIC) was created, to streamline and focus our collective efforts toward company-sponsored charitable organizations close to the PVH offices. Additionally, each Heritage brand has created a sub CR community engagement message, in line with the Together in Good Company platform, to further drive community commitment efforts. For example, “Work Better. Do Better,” is the Van Heusen mission to promote opportunity for everyone, while building a sustainable future. “Good Times. Good Vibes. Good All Around,” is the IZOD mission to promote optimism, to enjoy life while treading lightly, and to never sacrifice feeling good to do good. “Real Women. Real Solutions,” is the Warner’s and Warner’s by Olga mission to lean into conversations with women, discussing how we design and produce our products celebrating women’s empowerment.
Since its creation, Heritage Brands has already made great strides in working toward these goals and continues to prioritize our long-standing commitment to sustainable business. We look forward to sharing updates with our PVH community on new CR initiatives in the coming months.