WiserEarth Area of Focus Suggestions

Outerwear manufacturer Canada Goose, specializing in winter jackets for the extreme cold, regularly found itself with excess fabric and accessories due to discontinued lines. At the same time, it observed a lack of resources among residents of the Canadian Arctic, where low income communities have been cobbling together winter clothing from whatever leftover fabric they could find. Seeing the need for good quality materials when visiting the Arctic, Canada Goose employees realized that their own excess fabrics, buttons, zippers, Velcro and other accessories would be very valuable to the traditional northern sewers and their communities who could use them to make parkas and jackets with high-quality fabrications suited to their extreme climate.

This CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) initiative was carefully planned to ensure that it would be operational for years to come. To distribute the fabrics and other materials to these remote populations, Canada Goose partnered with First Air, an airline company that flies to Arctic destinations and The North West Company, a leading retailer in the north. In all, three distribution points, named “Canada Goose Resource Centres”, are being established at Nunavut, at Northern in Pond Inlet on and at Northmart in Iqaluit.

This initiative reduces waste of materials at Canada Goose, which is concerned with the company’s overall sustainability record. It is also a gesture of thanks to the people of the Canadian Arctic who have been early supporters of the company and an integral part of its brand identity. At the first opening of the Resource Centres, lineups went right outside the stores. It is safe to say that residents greatly appreciated the initiative and many will have better jackets to face the upcoming winter.

Presumably, surplus materials may run out at some point. Also, the logistics of shipping these materials far into Canada's North add to the overall costs of the initiative. More detail on the challenges should follow a yearly review of the initiative.