{"id":26265,"date":"2022-11-12T02:05:00","date_gmt":"2022-11-12T10:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aiinewstg.local\/?p=26265"},"modified":"2025-03-08T20:37:49","modified_gmt":"2025-03-09T04:37:49","slug":"case-study-gap-inc-exceeding-energy-efficiency-goals-with-supplier-participation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/apparelimpact.org\/resources\/case-study-gap-inc-exceeding-energy-efficiency-goals-with-supplier-participation\/","title":{"rendered":"Gap Inc. Exceeding Energy-Efficiency Goals with Supplier Participation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Exceeding Energy-Efficiency Goals with Supplier Participation <\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

In 2017, Gap Inc. pledged to save 10 billion liters of water by 2020. Taking its 2014 usage as a baseline, the retailer became involved with the Clean by Design program as a way to meet this considerable goal. Because Clean by Design consists of 10 best practices, it is proven and yields measurable impact results and return on investment to the mills, while being easy to understand, adopt and execute. Gap Inc. recognized that Clean by Design would be low-hanging fruit for its suppliers to save water, so the company started proactively nominating its strategic facilities to participate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fast forward to Earth Day 2020 \u2013 Gap announced that it had exceeded its goal by saving 11.2 billion liters of water since 2014 \u2013 10.2 billion with resource energy-efficiency programs and 1 billion through processing and product innovation. Without question, the Clean by Design program played a significant role in Gap\u2019s outstanding figures.<\/p>\n\n\n

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How Gap Did It<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gap had been working with Clean by Design, which was first administered by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), since 2013 and had nominated facilities for each Clean by Design cohort. During the years of implementing Clean by Design, Gap intensified its involvement in sustainability, later serving as one of the founding members of Aii. In the early years, a unified approach to sustainability programming was missing from the industry. Aii\u2019s management of the Clean by Design program changed that by promoting partnership, collaboration and transparency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Between 2013 and 2021, Gap has nominated 52 facilities to participate in programs, including Clean by Design, Clean by Design Plus, Chemistry & Wastewater Management (in India) and Carbon Leadership. These facilities, which are responsible for Tier 1 (finished product assembly) and Tier 2 (material production) of the supply chain, have been located in Mainland China, Vietnam, India, Pakistan and Taiwan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thanks to these broad-reaching efforts, Gap has reported significant reduction in carbon, energy and water. Even better, the results provided the company with multiple synergistic benefits. While Gap had entered the Clean by Design program as a way to save water, the company soon realized that it was also saving energy, making it well positioned when setting science-based targets for Scope 3 GHG reduction<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGap understands that efficiency programs are a win-win, good for the brand and good for our suppliers because saving energy and water results in cost-savings,\u201d said Agata Smeets, Director of Global Sustainability at Gap. <\/p>\n\n\n

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Development for Aii<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Implementing the Clean by Design program didn\u2019t just benefit Gap\u2019s efficiency efforts and suppliers\u2019 bottom lines. The company\u2019s work has supported the industry\u2019s expansion of standardized impact programs globally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact, Gap has taken a leadership role, along with Aii, in piloting the initiatives for program expansion to India, Vietnam and Taiwan.\u00a0 Gap also championed and drove the development of Aii\u2019s Clean by Design+ program, which supports wet processing facilities ready for more advanced-level programming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Clean by Design partnership is flexible and focused on always improving and expanding,\u201d said Aaron Tam, Senior Manager of Gap\u2019s Environmental Capability Building team. \u201cWe understood that some facilities were ready for more and just needed support, so we were excited to be able to offer that. Likewise, we knew that meeting our ambitions SBTs would take more than just going after that low-hanging fruit.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

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The Future<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gap\u2019s priorities remain focused on water, climate and waste, and Aii\u2019s programs are vital for meeting the brand\u2019s climate goals. The company has been working along with Aii on strategies to meet its Scope 3 SBTs (30% of GHG emissions from 2017 baseline by 2030).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe are driving all of our efficiency work through Aii and are super excited that Aii is now also expanding their programs to include additional impact initiatives to aggregate renewable energy procurement and  coal phase-out projects \u2013 key levers in our climate strategy,\u201d said Smeets. \u201cOur advice would be to just start. When we started, we were flying by the seat of our pants, and Clean by Design was a credible program that helped us structure our supply chain strategies.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, launching and joining collective impact programs in different geographies is a lot easier than it once was. When Gap first started doing this environmental work, the company had to develop and run its own programs because none were available in certain geographies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWith Aii, we were able to fold these programs into one another,\u201d said Smeets. \u201cWe created an aligned approach, invited other brands to participate and introduced Aii to additional service providers like environmental consultants who could help put Aii\u2019s objectives into action on the ground.\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thanks to convenors like Aii, standardized metrics and aligned methodologies are more available and transparent, making results more predictable and replicable. Collective action  is now recognized as the way to reach climate goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s important to not underestimate communication channels with your suppliers that you\u2019re nominating for these programs,\u201d said Tam. \u201cA supplier\u2019s mindset is key to achieving success and results, and provides great programs through which to approach suppliers to urge them to undertake this work.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gap\u2019s purpose is to be \u201cinclusive by design.\u201d What consumers may not realize is, it\u2019s also to be \u201cclean by design.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 2017, Gap Inc. pledged to save 10 billion liters of water by 2020. Taking its 2014 usage as a baseline, the retailer became involved with the Clean by Design program as a way to meet this considerable goal. Because Clean by Design consists of 10 best practices, it is\u00a0proven and yields measurable impact results and return on investment to the mills, while being\u00a0easy to understand, adopt and execute.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":true,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"%%post_title%% %%sep%% %%sitetitle%%","_seopress_titles_desc":"%%post_excerpt%%","_seopress_robots_index":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[],"media-types":[54],"class_list":["post-26265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aii-programs-category","media-types-case-study"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/apparelimpact.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26265","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/apparelimpact.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/apparelimpact.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apparelimpact.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apparelimpact.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26265"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/apparelimpact.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26265\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/apparelimpact.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apparelimpact.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apparelimpact.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26265"},{"taxonomy":"media-types","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apparelimpact.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media-types?post=26265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}