Stakeholder Engagement

Governance: Stakeholder Engagement

Ambitious and Accountable

VF recognizes we cannot achieve our goals alone. We value our partnerships, collaboration and external engagement. We collaborate with relevant stakeholders in the creation and implementation of our strategies and programs, including ongoing and continuous engagement with numerous external organizations to help guide and support key aspects of our strategy, including human rights and climate change.

 Click here to learn more about VF’s approach to stakeholder engagement.

Collaborations

Working with others, we are charting the path towards a future based on sustainability and responsibility. Current collaborations include the below.

Accelerating Circularity is a collaborative industry project developed to accelerate the textile industry's move from linear to circular by establishing systems that will use embedded value and resources in existing textile waste for new products.

Apparel and Footwear International RSL Management (AFIRM) Group is a recognized global center of excellence, providing resources to enable continuous advancement of chemical management best practices. The work of AFIRM’s member companies is based on transparency, science, and collaboration with relevant industries and experts to build safer and more sustainable chemistry within the apparel and footwear supply chains.

The Arbitration Council Foundation (ACF) is a local, non-political, civil society organization formed to provide technical and managerial services for the Arbitration Council. The Arbitration Council is empowered to assist parties in resolving collective labor disputes in Cambodia.

Better Work is a collaboration between the UN’s International Labor Organization and the International Finance Corporation, a member of the World Bank Group, that brings together all levels of the garment industry to improve working conditions, respect labor rights for workers, and improve the competitiveness of the industry.

BSR is an organization of sustainable business experts that works with its global network of the world’s leading companies to build a just and sustainable world. BSR provides insight, advice, and collaborative initiatives to help you see a changing world more clearly, create long-term business value, and scale impact. 

CARE International is a global leader within a worldwide movement dedicated to saving lives, ending poverty and achieving social justice by providing assistance on the basis of need, regardless of race, creed or nationality and specifically addressing the rights of vulnerable groups, particularly women and girls. 

The Centre for Child Rights and Business supports companies to deliver improvements within their supply chains that benefit workers, families and children, and deliver positive business outcomes. The Centre for Child Rights and Business strives to create tangible and long-term impact that serves both children, parent workers and business by offering global expertise, services, support, research and insights covering a broad range of child rights and business issues across multiple sectors and countries. 

A network of Ceres, Business for Innovative Climate & Energy Policy (BICEP), was founded in 2009 on the understanding that climate and clean energy challenges present tremendous opportunities, but also urgent risks for global businesses. The Ceres BICEP Network comprises 70+ companies, including dozens of leading consumer brands and Fortune 500s, that advocate for strong climate and clean energy and transportation policies at the state and federal levels. Its members support three core principles: increased adoption of renewable energy and energy efficiency; increased investment in a clean energy economy; and increased support for climate change resilience.

Clean Cargo Working Group is a business-to-business leadership initiative facilitated by BSR. Clean Cargo’s global membership network includes over 80 members across the shipping industry working to reduce the environmental impact of global freight transportation and promote responsible shipping.

The European Outdoor Conservation Association (EOCA) is a conservation charity working within the European outdoor industry to raise funds to put into conservation projects around the world. Working with over 150 members, all companies operating within the outdoor sector, it has funded 154 projects in 59 countries totaling €4 million since it was set up in 2006. EOCA facilitates the outdoor industry to take its responsibility in looking after the wild places we value so much - demonstrating that by all working together we can make a much bigger difference.

The UNFCCC Fashion Industry Charter for Climate Action will identify and amplify best practices, strengthen existing efforts, identify and address gaps, facilitate and strengthen collaboration among relevant stakeholders, and join resources and share tools to enable the sector to achieve the UN's climate targets.

Gold Standard supports and ensures projects that reduce carbon emissions feature the highest levels of environmental integrity and contribute to sustainable development. As part of Gold Standard’s Value Change initiative, the Apparel Working brings together leading apparel & textile companies with significant scope 3 commitments to collaborate to remove barriers to reducing value chain emissions.

International Center for Research on Women (ICRW) Advisors is a global strategy consultancy that supports organizations in becoming more gender equitable across their full value chain to improve lives while also driving business value. Drawing on over four decades of evidence from ICRW, the global expert on addressing systemic and institutional gender inequities, ICRW Advisors provides insights and recommendations to help companies, development agencies, foundations, and leading NGOs to advance gender equality and women’s empowerment in the workplace, across supply chains and in society at large.

The International Labour Organization’s (ILO) Global Business Network on Forced Labour (GBNFL) brings together the ILO with businesses of all sizes and sectors, and their networks, from around the globe to eradicate forced labor. Operating across all sectors, and geographies, ILO GBNFL members work to engage smaller enterprises, develop actionable resources and tools, and devise local solutions that help shape national frameworks to create lasting change. 

International Organization for Migration (IOM) is the leading intergovernmental organization in the field of migration and works closely with governmental, intergovernmental and non-governmental partners to help ensure the orderly and humane management of migration, to promote international cooperation on migration issues, to assist in the search for practical solutions to migration problems and to provide humanitarian assistance to migrants in need, including refugees and internally displaced people.

The It’s Great Out There Coalition is a not-for-profit collaboration on a European level launched by the outdoor industry to increase public awareness of the benefits and positive impact of outdoor activities for individuals and for society.

Keeping Workers in the Loop (KWIL), led by BSR, aims to advance a circular fashion industry that works for all. KWIL brings foresight to the strategies and policies under development in the circular fashion transition by exploring the job impacts of this shift alongside the critical uncertainties shaping the future of the fashion industry. 

VF is a member of the Leather Working Group (LWG) a not-for-profit organization responsible for one of the world’s leading environmental certifications for the leather tanning industry.

Life and Building Safety (LABS) Initiative is an industry-led and driven technical safety assessment and remediation program, in which multiple brands and retailers are joining forces with public organizations to operate a scalable program to mitigate preventable fire, electrical and structural safety risks in key apparel and footwear producing countries in a targeted away.

Make Fashion Circular, Ellen MacArthur Foundation, brings together leaders from across the fashion industry to work with cities, philanthropists, NGOs, and innovators. Make Fashion Circular is leading international efforts to stop waste and pollution by creating a circular economy for the industry, where products are used more, made to be made again, and made from safe, recycled, or renewable inputs.

The Mekong Club is a catalyst for change, inspiring and engaging the private sector to lead in the fight against modern slavery by redefining how businesses collectively achieve a world without slavery.

The Microfibre Consortium facilitates the development of practical solutions for the textile industry to minimize fibre fragmentation and release to the environment from textile manufacturing and product life cycle.

Nirapon is an industry-led nonprofit organization that collaborates with global brands, retailers, manufacturers, and NGOs to create and sustain a culture of workplace safety in Bangladesh factories.

Other Half Processing SBC (OHP) partners with farmers and ranchers to source hides and other identity-preserved, high-quality byproducts from regenerative, organic, and more sustainably raised animals.

The Policy Hub EU unites the apparel and footwear industry to speak in one voice and propose policies that accelerate circular practices. Launched in 2019, the Policy Hub has five partner organizations: Sustainable Apparel Coalition, Global Fashion Agenda, Federation of the European Sporting Goods Industry, Textiles Exchange, and ZDHC Foundation. In total, these organizations represent more than 500 apparel & footwear stakeholders including brands, retailers, manufacturers, and NGOs.

Protect Our Winters (POW) helps passionate outdoor people protect the places and lifestyles they love from climate change. POW is a community of athletes, scientists, creatives, and business leaders advancing non-partisan policies that protect our world today and for future generations.

PUR Projet works with companies to regenerate the ecosystems they depend upon by empowering local communities to operate long-term socio-environmental projects, helping companies strengthen their supply chains through agroforestry, land restoration and sustainable agricultural practices in temperate and tropical countries.

Renewable Energy Buyers Association (REBA) is an alliance of large clean energy buyers, energy providers, and service providers that, together with NGO partners, are unlocking the marketplace for all nonresidential energy buyers to lead a rapid transition to a cleaner, prosperous, zero-carbon energy future. 

Responsible Sourcing Network (RSN) is dedicated to ending human rights abuses and forced labor associated with the raw materials found in products used every day by building responsible supply chain coalitions of diverse stakeholders including investors, companies, and human rights advocates. 

The Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) drives ambitious climate action in the private sector by enabling companies to set science-based emissions reduction targets.

The Sustainable Apparel Coalition (SAC) is a global, multi-stakeholder non-profit alliance for the fashion industry. It’s made up of over 250 leading apparel, footwear and textile brands, retailers, suppliers, service providers, trade associations, non-profits, NGOs, and academic institutions working to reduce environmental impact and promote social justice throughout the global value chain.

The Sustainable Packaging Coalition is a membership-based collaborative with the leading voice on sustainable packaging and the creation of packaging that is good for people and the environment. Their mission is to bring packaging sustainability stakeholders together to catalyze actionable steps to packaging systems and lend an authoritative voice on issues related to packaging sustainability.

Terra Genesis International is a global design and development firm specializing in growing regenerative supply systems through integrative processes, and robust and inclusive partnerships. Their approach develops healthy, equitable and lasting relationships between communities, ecosystems and businesses; and is strategically designed to adapt to, and build resilience for, a rapidly changing world.

Textile Exchange is a global nonprofit that develops, manages, and promotes a suite of leading industry standards, as well as collect and publish critical industry data and insights that enables brands and retailers to measure, manage and track their use of preferred fiber and materials. 

UNICEF works in the world’s toughest places to reach the most disadvantaged children and adolescents – and to protect the rights of every child, everywhere. Across more than 190 countries and territories, UNICEF does whatever it takes to help children survive, thrive and fulfill their potential, from early childhood through adolescence. 

The United Nations Global Compact is a call to companies everywhere to align their operations and strategies with ten universally accepted principles in the areas of human rights, labour, environment and anti-corruption, and to take action in support of UN goals and issues embodied in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Yarn Ethically & Sustainably Sourced (YESS) is an initiative of RSN that works to eliminate forced labor from the cotton textile value chain by building capacity and managing an assessment of value chain actors’ ability to identify, address, and prevent sourcing cotton produced with forced labor.