The North Face

Nov 27, 2020

The North Face is an American outerwear manufacturer founded in 1966 and headquartered in Alameda, California. It creates activewear and outdoor recreation products, including clothing, shoes, and accessories for consumers around the world.

VF Corporation owns The North Face, along with JanSport, Timberland, Vans, Dickies, Eastpak, Eagle Creek among others (more than 30 outdoor, activity-based lifestyle, and workwear brands in total).

The North Face specializes in technical clothing for skiing, climbing, and other outdoor adventures. It's built on a love for the outdoors and the desire to enable all types of exploration.

The North Face is committed to improving its environmental performance and social responsibility in the supply chain. Together with its parent company and other corporate siblings, it uses skills, experience, and scale, to make the world a better place.

The North Face aims to preserve the world, the people, and environments through collaboration and innovation. It wants to inspire everyone to live active and sustainable lifestyles for the betterment of people and our planet.

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Sustainability Rating: 6/10

Rating FAQ

Category: Clothing, shoes, bags, accessories

For: Women, men, children

Type: Sportswear, basics, loungewear, outerwear, sneakers, boots, sandals, slippers

Style: Casual

Quality: Medium

Price: $$

Sizes: XS-XL, 4-12 (US), 6-14 (UK), 34-42 (EU), 6-14(AU), plus size

Fabrics: Cotton, linen, hemp, jute, lyocell, modal, viscose, acetate, aramid, polyester, nylon, spandex, acrylic, polyethylene, polypropylene, polyurethane, rubber, leather, wool, down

100% Organic: No

100% Vegan: No

Ethical & Fair: Yes

Recycling: Yes

Producing country: Albania, Bangladesh, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Canada, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, France, Georgia, Greece, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Keny, Mauritius, Mexico, Republic Of Moldova, Morocco, Nicaragua, North Macedonia, Pakistan, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine, United States, Vietnam

Certifications: Bluesign, GRS, FSC, RWS, RDS, LWG

Sustainability Practices

"The North Face is committed to reducing its carbon footprint. From the solar installations at our facilities to the energy-saving practices in our textile mills, we are constantly looking for ways to reduce our impact. It is more than ‘doing the right thing’ - it is our brand heritage."

- Conrad Anker, Alpinist, and The North Face Athlete

The North Face is one of the biggest outdoor retailers in the world. It believes it has a responsibility to make the world a better place. It leverages its scale and impact to protect people and the planet.

The brand wants to help limit climate change by dramatically reducing the impact of its carbon footprint. It also wants to shift from a traditional, linear model to a circular model where people share, resell, repair, and recycle clothing.

The company offers The North Face Renewed, a collection of refurbished clothing from previously worn, returned, damaged, or defective items. Everything that can't be renewed is upcycled through the REMADE collection, donated, or recycled.

The North Face uses a medium proportion of sustainable materials such as natural material, including better cotton (BCI), linen, hemp, and jute. It also uses a fair amount of recycled polyester and regenerated nylon.

The North Face still makes plenty of its clothes from highly polluting fabrics and synthetic petroleum-based fibers such as polyester, nylon, spandex, acrylic, polyethylene, polypropylene, and polyurethane.

The North Face also creates some garments with semi-synthetic fibers or man-made regenerated cellulosic fabrics such as lyocell, modal, acetate, and viscose.

The apparel brand has a Code of Business Conduct and Global Compliance Principles that apply to all its suppliers and subcontractors and sets a clear minimum standard for supply chain partners.

As part of VF Corporation, The North Face uses the same supply chain as its parent company. It publishes a list of its manufacturing and processing facilities and makes it available publicly on its corporate website.

It also monitors most of its supply chain and all its main production sites to ensure compliance with social and labor standards.

The company is expanding its traceability and transparency efforts as well as collaborating with human rights experts, governments, international organizations, and non-profits to conduct ongoing human rights due diligence.

The 2020 Fashion Transparency Index gave VF Corporation a score of 59% based on how much the group discloses about its social and environmental policies, practices, and impacts. VF Corporation earned 7th place in the top 10 most transparent brands.

The North Face doesn't use any exotic animal skin, or hair, fur, angora. But it uses leather, wool, and down feathers to manufacture some of its clothing.

These animal-derived materials are cruel and unethical. They also harm the environment by producing greenhouse gases and wastes. More sustainable alternatives exist.

Sustainability Goals

Together with VF Corporation, The North Face commits to being a leader in the large-scale commercialization of circular business models by 2030.

It wants to contribute to local communities and empower consumers to live more active and sustainable lifestyles.

The North Face has greenhouse gas emission reduction targets in line with meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement.

It partners with global consultancy the Carbon Trust to gather data from its suppliers and plans an absolute reduction of Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions by 55% by 2030 (2017 baseline).

The North Face also plans an absolute reduction of Scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions by 30% by 2030 (2017 baseline) through a focus on farm-to-retail materials, sourcing operations, and logistics.

The North Face aims to halve its upstream environmental impact, farm-to-front door by 2050. It has a system in place to improve the lives of 2 million workers and their communities by 2025.

Buy Here

Discover The North Face sustainable collections at thenorthface.com.

Reviews And Experiences With The North Face

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