What you’ll find in our new Social and Environmental Responsibility Report
We believe in communicating openly about our work in social and environmental responsibility. This site covers our efforts company-wide, both in the U.S. and around the world, at all of our brands: Gap, Old Navy, Banana Republic, Piperlime and Athleta. To make it easy to navigate, we’ve organized information about the four main areas of our program under the goals and progress section of the site: Supply Chain, Employees, Environment and Community Investment. Data on the site relates to Gap Inc.’s fiscal years 2009 and 2010, which ran from February 1, 2009 until January 31, 2010, unless otherwise noted.
Why we are online
We wanted to protect natural resources. Not printing a report saves trees — and is more aligned with our environmental strategy. What’s more, moving online helps us:
- Reach more people, including employees and customers.
- Share a more detailed picture of our work throughout the world.
- Update information more often.
When you go to our site, you’ll be able to build your own customized report and turn it into a PDF. We’re trying to make it as easy as possible to access what interests you most. We have also archived past reports as PDFs to provide documentation of how our commitments and program have evolved over time. As we update the site, we will create new PDFs every two years (to match our reporting cycle).
Our last report was published in 2009, covering data from fiscal years 2007 and 2008, and we are committed to updating the data on our website at least every two years. We will make more frequent updates to other parts of the site as new information becomes available. We also aim to continue to communicate with our stakeholders on an ongoing basis through formal sessions, informal outreach, dialogue and partnerships.
Public Reporting Working Group
We could not have produced this web site without the help of our stakeholders. The Public Reporting Working Group – comprised of experts on social and environmental issues from a number of non-governmental organizations and socially responsible investment firms – has been instrumental in producing this report, providing feedback on stories, insights into our overall message, and perspective on our data, progress, and areas where we still need to do more work. Focused on helping us achieve greater transparency and sustainability, this group has been collaborating with us since late 2002.
The members of the Public Reporting Working Group are:
- Adam Kanzer – Managing Director and General Counsel – Domini Social Investments
- Mike Lombardo – Senior Sustainability Analyst and Manager, Calvert Social Index – Calvert Investment Management, Inc.
- Conrad MacKerron – Senior Program Director – As You Sow
- Ruth Rosenbaum – Executive Director – Center for Reflection, Education and Action
- David Schilling – Director of Human Rights and Resources Programs – Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility
Included in the release of every Gap Inc. Social and Environmental Responsibility report is a statement drafted by the Public Reporting Working Group, offering their overall analysis of the work we do. To read their statement on this report, please click here.
Additional Reporting
We provide regular, separate reports on our progress to the Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI), Social Accountability International (SAI) and the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) as a condition of our membership. We’re grateful for the insights and support of our stakeholders and value how much they’ve helped us improve both our work in social and environmental responsibility and our public reporting.
A collaboration of both individuals and organizations, the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) has played a crucial role in establishing a common framework for social, environmental and economic reporting. In 2005 and 2006, Gap Inc. joined a GRI working group to tailor this framework to the apparel industry, creating an Apparel and Footwear Sector Supplement. The working group of about 20 members represented a geographically diverse mix of major brands, leading manufacturers, civil society organizations, trade unions, environmental experts and investors. The GRI’s G3.1 guidelines and the pilot GRI Apparel and Footwear Sector Supplement helped guide us throughout the development of this site. Although it is not in full accordance with either framework, the PDF report provides an index of GRI indicators and the sections of the site to which they apply. Click here to download the PDF and view the GRI indicators and UNGC principles index.
The UNGC seeks to promote responsible corporate citizenship so that business can be part of the solution to the challenges of globalization. Since signing onto the UNGC in 2003, we’ve been working to advance its 10 universal principles in the areas of human rights, labor, the environment and anti-corruption. We’ve included the UNGC principles alongside related GRI indicators on this site. Click here to view the GRI indicators and UNGC principles index.
We welcome your feedback as we continue to evolve our social responsibility efforts. Send us an e-mail at social_responsibility@gap.com and let us know what you think.