Leadership Letters

There's an inevitability to change and, as it shakes up the status quo, change demands action.

But it also opens the door to transformation.

To us, the defining attribute of transformation is intention. Transformation embraces possibility and experimentation. It’s about purposefully breaking old processes and outdated ways of thinking and committing to learning with an eye on the future.

Our planet is becoming too warm, our sea levels have become too high and our tight grips on old ways of operating have prevented us from healthy growth. We are making the solution our business and transforming our way of thinking.

At Canada Goose, our transformation began in 2019 when we officially wove sustainability into our company’s mandate. We believe that sustainability is not just a tactic, but an essence that must permeate every department and be embraced by every employee. We view it as a responsibility that we need to lean into, especially as the world faces serious challenges.

We made a commitment to undertaking and addressing specific and pressing social, economic, and environmental challenges and attached goals and timelines to each. We knew we wanted to do more than just react to change. We wanted to drive it by embedding doing good within our business model. By embracing it, living it and embodying it.

We've already achieved several of those initial goals from our sustainable impact strategy, which were published in our inaugural sustainability report. We have successfully measured and published our carbon footprint for direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions, and have already achieved carbon neutrality for company operations (Scope 1 and 2 emissions) by investing in projects that reduce, avoid, or sequester the equivalent of each year's greenhouse gas emissions. We have also joined the bluesign raw materials standard as a SYSTEM Partner,

While the pandemic delayed the timing for some initiatives, we are well on track to completing the rest of our goals, including achieving 100 per cent RDS Certification in 2021, having 90 per cent bluesign® approved fabrics by 2025, and eliminating single-use plastics that we cannot recycle — such as shrink wrap - in all facilities we own or control.

This past year has accelerated some of our timelines and brought into focus other areas that required swift attention. It also demonstrated just how the role of business in today’s world has evolved.

For example, at the onset of COVID-19, we purposefully pivoted from manufacturing parkas to medical gowns and scrubs, doing our part to protect the people who protect us. We donated 14,000 units across Canada and 20,000 units to Mount Sinai in New York. By the fall of 2020, we delivered more than 2.5 million additional units, all produced at cost, to address both provincial and federal contracts.

In late 2020 we launched HUMANATURE, our purpose platform that unites our sustainability and values-based initiatives, spanning every piece of our operations. It places sustainability at the forefront of everything we do, while staying true to our dedication to function-first design in our products. It aligns with our heritage as a Canadian company and the ideals we’ve championed from the very beginning, which includes social and cultural initiatives.

It's a platform that we are passionate about and one that provides a strong foundation to do more and do better as we move forward.

I know that change is challenging and that it can be unsettling and even frightening. But by approaching change with the intention of transformation, we can harness it and let it lead us to a better place and a better future.

I invite you to read this year’s sustainability report and learn more about how we’re on the right path, ready to change for good.