Doing the right thing, continually innovating and caring about the global community is foundational to AEO’s culture. We pledge to accelerate sustainability improvements across our company.
AEO’s sustainability goals include a comprehensive plan to be carbon neutral by 2030 with a commitment to:
Water reduction
Energy reduction
The use of more sustainable raw materials
Reduce & Reuse




Make sure the water leaving our factories does not pollute the environment

Reduce carbon emissions 40% by 2030 and 60% by 2040 in AEO’s manufacturing

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.
Ensure that 100% of viscose is from non-endangered forests and increase sourcing of sustainably produced viscose fibers

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
Convert all labels to sustainably sourced materials

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.