Sustainable Denim Washing

Garment finishing and washing is the last step in the manufacturing process to give our jeans the final look our customers love. We are working with key laundries to implement new technologies and equipment that dramatically decrease the overall water needs for this type of processing. Our laundries have installed new washing machines that use a fraction of the water used by conventional washers, as well as others technologies such as lasers and ozone. Many of our laundries are using Jeanologia’s environmental impact monitoring (EIM) software as an initial step towards measuring and building more sustainable processes. The EIM software assesses the environmental impact of the garment finishing process in four areas: water consumption, energy consumption, chemical use, and worker health.

Sustainable Apparel Coalition

In 2016, we joined the Sustainable Apparel Coalition (SAC), joining a common industry approach for environmental assessments at factories. We are using the SAC’s Higg Index suite of tools to help us measure the environmental impacts of factory operations at over 150 factories, mills and laundries.

AEO’s Water Leadership Program

Apparel production involves a large quantity of water and needs to be treated properly. In 2013, we launched the AEO Wastewater Management Standard to provide factories with guidance on how to properly manage water and make sure that water is safe before it is discharged. In 2017 we launched the Water Leadership Program with our denim factories. This program sets expectations for our factories on wastewater, water reduction, and water recycling. Our expectations are building each year as we work with our factories toward meeting our overall water goals. Factories that meet our requirements receive higher scores on our vendor scorecard and are prioritized for receiving business.

Through this program, we have decreased the water used per jean by 14%, and increased the amount of water recycling by 24%. With these efforts, our factories have saved over one billion gallons of fresh water a year.

Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reduction Strategy

n 2012, we initiated our Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Inventory Program to reduce our GHG emissions. We set a goal to reduce by 20% and  are proud to report that between 2013 – 2017, AEO decreased its CO₂ emissions intensity by 32% in AEO offices, distribution centers, data centers, and retail stores in the US and Canada.

In 2019, we unveiled our new greenhouse gas emissions goals in line with climate science. These goals were framed by a number of commitments we made. We joined RE100, making a commitment to achieve carbon neutrality across all of AEO s owned and operated facilities and employee business travel by 2030 by sourcing 100% renewable energy. We also joined the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’s (UNFCCC) Fashion Industry Charter for Climate Action, a coalition of fashion stakeholders committed to holistic climate action. The Charter set a vision to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. Lastly, we committed to and set a science-based target. In order for a target to be science-based, emissions must be limited to keep global warming below 2°C. AEO’s target was approved by the Science Based Targets Initiative at the most ambitious level, limiting emissions to keep warming in line with a 1.5°C scenario.

We have begun making progress on these goals through energy efficiency measures including, retrofitting our entire fleet of store with LED lighting, installing energy management systems in stores, and certifying LEED facilities. We will continue to look for ways to reduce our energy consumption in our facilities. We will also source renewable energy in order to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and meet our carbon neutrality goal.

View the GHG Inventory Results

Renewable Energy

AEO’s commitment to the RE100 initiative has increased the amount of renewable energy we source. We began sourcing renewable energy for our offices, distribution centers and stores in Pennsylvania and Ohio at the end of 2018 and have expanded to New York and Texas in 2019. This led to a 20% increase between 2018 and 2019, from 2% to 22% renewable energy! We continue to look for opportunities to source renewable energy for more of our facilities and expect to see this percentage increase year over year.

LEED Certified Facilities

LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) is a green building rating system that provides a framework for healthy, highly efficient, and cost-saving green buildings. AEO LEED Facilities:

• Hazelton Distribution Center – LEED Silver
• Mexico Corporate Office – LEED Platinum

Smarter Energy Systems

New stores are being built with an Energy Management System (EMS) that allow us to make sure lights and heating/cooling systems are turned off when no one is in the store. It also allows us to identify and diagnose energy anomalies, such as a bad compressor or other equipment failure.

Energy Savings with LED Lights

Since 2014, we’ve changed the lighting in our stores to LED, resulting in savings 3,050 tons of carbon dioxide. This is equivalent to removing 582 cars from the road. We also replaced and installed LED lighting on our Pittsburgh campus, which reduced our energy usage by 40% and will be installing energy saving LED lighting in one of our distribution centers in 2019.

Supply Chain

In order to meet our ambitious 40% emissions reduction target for manufacturing we have begun this journey by collecting metrics on supplier energy performance via the SAC’s Higg Facility Environmental Module (FEM). This tools to help us measure the environmental impacts of factory operations at over 150 factories, mills and laundries. We are also currently partnering with the Apparel Impact Institute (AII) to pilot mill improvement programs, such as Clean By Design, as a way to help our manufacturing partners improve the efficiency of the operations and reduce their environmental impact, including GHG emissions.

AEO Climate Policy

AEO recognizes the scientific-consensus that climate change is real and significantly impacts our world. AEO is committed to reducing our impact on the environment, preserving natural resources, and promoting the well-being of our communities. AEO seeks to make the world a better-place and to continue to empower the youth.

View our full Climate Policy

Progress to Goals

We have a goal to source 100% more sustainable cotton by 2023. More sustainable cotton includes BCI, recycled, and organic cotton. In 2020 we sourced 26% of our cotton from more sustainable sources, up from 12% in 2019!

Better Cotton Initiative

We have a goal to source 100% more sustainable cotton by 2023. More sustainable cotton includes BCI, recycled, and organic cotton.

Better Cotton is sourced via a system of Mass Balance. While it’s not physically traceable, BCI farmers benefit from the demand for Better Cotton in the supply chain in the equivalent volumes to what is sourced.

Recycled Polyester

Post-consumer plastic bottles can be turned into polyester fibers preventing the need to use virgin resources and also keeping bottles out of landfills or the ocean.

We work with Unifi, Inc. and several of our key mills to help us manufacture fabrics containing recycled or waste synthetic raw materials using their recycled fiber called REPREVE®.

Additionally, AEO works with the First Mile initiative. First Mile material is recycled polyester made out of responsibly collected bottles from Haiti, Honduras, and Taiwan. Brands that utilize First Mile material in their products support income generation for people around the world while keeping plastic waste out of landfills and out of our oceans.

CanopyStyle Initiative

The world’s Ancient and Endangered forests are irreplaceable. For this reason, AEO is working with the CanopyStyle initiative to eliminate the use of these fiber sources from our clothing-and expand our innovative solutions for our viscose and rayon. The details are contained in our pledge.

Made Real Good™

The “REAL Good” badge was developed to identify AE and Aerie products made from more sustainable raw materials, like recycled fibers, or products that were manufactured using more sustainable techniques, such in a factory that meet expectations for AEO’s Water Leadership Program. REAL Good styles include lots of feel-good, good-for-the-planet materials that have been sustainably produced and/or sourced, such as:

• Recycled polyester
• Recycled nylon
• Cotton that’s recycled, organic, and/or sourced as Better Cotton

Apparel Recycling

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 32 billion pounds of clothing, shoes, and other textiles end up in landfills in the U.S. each year. We aim to be part of the movement towards a circular economy where pre-loved apparel and footwear can be reused or re-manufactured into new products.

In our stores we have two initiatives for garment collection and recycling. Aerie has engaged with the NGO “Free the Girls” to start a bra give-back program in all stores. Free the Girls turns new or gently used bras into economic opportunity and a path to freedom for sex trafficking survivors.

In April 2019 we started a partnership with the Cotton Inc. program “Blue Jeans Go Green” to collect jeans in our AE stores. Jeans collected through this program are turned into home insulation.

At our corporate offices and distribution centers, we partner with I:CO (I:Collect) to implement a closed-loop recycling program to collect used clothing and shoes. AEO associates can recycle their unwanted clothing, shoes, and textiles on each campus through I:CO. Additionally, in our New York Design Office, any fabric scraps or samples are processed together with the organization Fabscrap to make sure they are properly recycled. Recycled items through these programs are transformed into new products like insulation and even new fabric.

Plastic Packaging

We often receive feedback from our customers on this issue and we want you to know that we hear you! We also want to see how we can impact plastic use in this way. We are currently addressing plastic use in our supply chain by assessing possibilities for converting to recycled plastic or finding opportunities to reduce or eliminate plastic use.

Starting in 2018 we made the move to use shopping bags with a higher percentage of recycled content. It may seem like a small step, but this simple switch has already yielded a sizeable impact by saving 4.3 million square meters of plastic every year.

Sustainably Sourced Labels

We are well on our way to making sure that all labels on AEO products are made using sustainably sourcing raw materials. Aerie labels have already been converted to recycled polyester and American Eagle will have these in production soon. We’re also working to make sure that hangtags and other marketing items are made using the most sustainable materials possible.

Recycling

Every year through our Clean and Green initiative, we tackle paper recycling on a huge scale across our corporate and distribution locations. We encourage AEO associates to clean-up documents, files, and records. In 2018, the Clean and Green campaign deleted 55 terabytes of electronic storage and recycled 8 tons of physical files. The paper recycled saved 136 trees, 3,040 gallons of oil and 56,000 gallons of water.

We also work to reduce our footprint through cardboard recycling and reuse by reusing or purchasing used boxes that would otherwise have gone to a landfill.