With the start of the Forever Better platform, our sustainability journey accelerated further in 2021.
While our strategy to move the most important materials of all our products to more sustainable sources continued, for example with nearly 100% (99.9%) LWG certified leather, we also launched some exciting sustainability focused collections in 2021.
Our Exhale collection in collaboration with Cara Delevingne also uses recycled input materials. In addition, we also calculated the carbon footprint of the collection and offset all CO2e emissions, making the collection effectively carbon-neutral.
Our Re.gen collection is inspired by the principles of circularity and maximizes the usage of recycled input materials and contains products made from recycled cotton, polyester and leather scraps.
To expand on circularity, we started our Circular Lab and announced the RE:SUEDE, an experiment for a biodegradable version of our iconic suede sneaker.
We also started working on garment-to-garment recycling and transformed 3 tons of unsellable garments into new fabrics using an innovative chemical recycling process.
Our takeback scheme in Hong Kong continued, and together with a Swop Shop event, we collected 660kg of secondhand garments. Our Soles 4 Souls program in the USA was able to collect another 522kg of footwear. The expansion of our takeback scheme to Ecom was prepared laying the foundation for further expansions in line with our 10FOR25 target to have takeback schemes ready in all major markets by 2025.
During the UN Climate Conference in Glasgow, our CEO Bjørn Gulden reiterated PUMA’s full support of the UN Fashion Charter for Climate Action and the ambitious new commitments set by this industry-led coalition under the umbrella of the UN Climate Secretariat.
We live our climate commitment by using 100% renewable energy for our owned and operated offices, stores and warehouses worldwide, mainly through the purchase of renewable energy attribute certificates.
In addition, we have also started to transition our car fleet to zero emission vehicles. As of December 2021, our fleet includes 24 electric vehicles and 7 hydrogen vehicles, which make up 15% of our cars used in our home country Germany. Globally, 108 cars in our fleet are already classified as low or zero emission cars.
At the supply chain level, we continued and expanded our efforts to enroll more suppliers in cleaner production programs, feasibility studies to install rooftop solar panels and to phase out coal fired boilers, and engaged lifecycle experts from Sphera to calculate our supply chain emissions more precisely.
To reduce CO2 emissions at material stage, we focused on increasing the usage of recycled polyester in all product divisions, 43% among polyester usage is recycled in 2021.
To support our Human Rights goals, we commissioned a risk assessment on forced labor management in our supply chain and used the results to upgrade our due diligence process by implementing stricter standards.
An important element of Human Rights is fair compensation. During 2021 our People and Organization Team (HR department) used the Living Wage Database provided by the Fair Wage Network to screen [and confirm] the payment of living wages for all PUMA staff globally.
At the supplier level we used the Fair Wage Benchmark tools of our long-term partner Fair Labor Association to assess the wage levels paid by our core suppliers in 7 major sourcing countries. While we see that our suppliers are paying above industry average in the countries, China, Cambodia, Turkey, Bangladesh and Vietnam, we also realized that in Bangladesh and Pakistan our manufacturing partners still need to improve wages.
In terms of new regulations, 2021 saw the introduction of the EU Green Taxonomy Delegated Act. As part of the EU Green Deal, this regulation will enable investors to have clarity on the sustainability of their investment portfolios. For publicly listed companies like PUMA, this means the tracking and publishing of Taxonomy aligned sales, capital expenditure and operational expenditure.
The first two topics targeted by the Taxonomy (Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation) focus on major greenhouse gas emitting industries such as utilities, the car industry or heavy industries. The manufacturing and sale of Apparel and Footwear were excluded in this first round.
Nevertheless, we screened our owned and operated buildings and car fleet for taxonomy eligibility and share first numbers in this report. We anticipate a more detailed reporting once the other taxonomy criteria, such as circularity, are published.
Finally, we are happy to report that our long-term sustainability engagement continues to be recognized with an increasing number of awards and recognitions. Highlights during 2021 include our first ever A- rating from the Carbon Disclosure Project, a Triple A rating from MSCI, a leading rating agency for sustainability topics, our continued inclusion in the FTSE4Good and ISS Prime Rating, as well as our first inclusion in the Corporate Knights 100 most sustainable companies worldwide.
We are well aware that our sustainability journey is ongoing, and much remains to be done to transition our company on the path towards being Forever Better.
There is only one Forever. Let’s make it Better!
