Today, we released our fiscal year (FY) 2023 Environmental & Social Responsibility report, “Purpose. Driven.” The new report shares progress against our aspirations for topics including environmental sustainability, traceability and human rights, as well as our Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Action commitments.

At VF Corporation (VF), our Purpose is to power movements of sustainable and active lifestyles for the betterment of people and our planet. In bringing the world’s leading portfolio of active-lifestyle brands to millions of consumers, we strive to be a force for good to improve our collective future. Despite ongoing challenges impacting the global business community, we continue to demonstrate resilience and determination to advance our Purpose.

Below are selected highlights from our primary areas of focus. We hope you take some time to read more about our work found in the full report.

Read the FY23 Environmental & Social Responsibility report

Putting Our Purpose into Action

Embedding Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Action throughout VF: We are committed to creating an organization where everyone can be themselves and where the diversity of our employees is celebrated. In FY23, we launched several new initiatives and program enhancements around the globe to foster belonging, advocacy and allyship within VF.

• Progress Includes: In the U.S., we increased representation of Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) to 19.0% (up from 18.1% in FY22), continuing progress toward our aspiration to have 25% BIPOC representation at the director level and above in the U.S. by 2030. Globally, women represented 42.3% of VF’s leadership community (up from 41.8% in FY22), with an aspiration of gender parity by 2030.

Uplifting Human Rights: VF is committed to championing the fundamental human rights of everyone involved in our business operations and supply chain. Our vision is to foster inclusive and sustained economic growth and development that offers decent work opportunities to workers throughout our value chain.

• Progress Includes: Our Worker & Community Development (WCD) program achieved over 80% of the near-team goal to improve the lives of 1 million workers and their communities by FY26 and 2 million people by FY31. As of FY23, VF’s WCD program reached more than 823,000 people in 11 countries.

Sourcing More Sustainable Materials: Sourcing more sustainable materials represents a significant opportunity to lessen our environmental impact and is a critical lever to meeting our climate targets. Our sustainable materials vision sets forth our aspiration to have our top materials originate from regenerative, responsibly sourced renewable and recycled sources.

• Progress Includes: Sourcing of recycled polyester by VF increased to 40% in FY22. This is an improvement from 36% in FY21 and puts VF 80% of the way toward achieving our target to use 50% recycled polyester by FY26.

Investing in Traceability Across the Supply Chain: As materials move through our complex global supply chain, traceability of our materials is essential to achieving our environmental sustainability goals and our vision of responsible production. Our monitoring uses commodity volume data, country-level risk maps, supplier surveys and environmental and social risk data to identify areas of concern and deliver actionable insights for our business and stakeholders.

• Progress Includes: We traced 72% of our wool supply chain from farm to finished product in FY23, marking continued progress against our goal to trace five key materials through all supply chain tiers by FY28.

At VF, our brands are integral to our success and key to bringing our Purpose to life. In the report you can learn about how:

• The Smartwool® brand invested in inclusive sizing with their first plus-size base layers apparel line;
• The Vans® brand championed the LGBTQ+ community with its Off The Wall Pride Gallery Collection and donations to LGBTQ+ advocacy organizations;
• Nearly half (48%) of the icebreaker® brand’s wool is sourced from growers implementing regenerative practices;
• The North Face® brand launched its first Circular Design products; and
• The Timberland®, The North Face® and the Vans® brands are launching products featuring regeneratively-grown natural rubber.

We continue to use our scale and influence to make significant progress against society’s toughest challenges. Together with our brands, we’re proud of our work to advance our Purpose. We invite you to explore our report and learn more.

Download the FY23 Environmental & Social Responsibility report