Canopy is dedicated to keeping vital forests standing all over the world.
Through our CanopyStyle and Pack4Good initiatives, we collaborate with over 900 brand partners across a broad spectrum of businesses to help ensure they aren’t sourcing from the world’s Ancient and Endangered Forests for their viscose fabrics, paper, paper packaging and pulp. To maintain our independence, we do not receive any funding from the companies or producers that we work with for any of Canopy’s core activities or expenses. Canopy’s work is generously supported by the philanthropic community and individual donors.
Our work is not an endorsement of any businesses’ overall practices or policies but instead a recognition that we are in a climate and biodiversity crisis and we need all players, including the industries’ largest, to be part of the solution. We need companies to transition away from traditional ‘take, make, waste’ supply chains to lower carbon, lower impact and circular solutions like recycled textiles (often landfilled) to make new fabrics, and agricultural residues like straw and hemp (often burned) to create paper and packaging. Speeding that transition is what Canopy’s work is all about.
We are at the beginning of a journey with many of our partner brands. Through their policy commitments, these companies work to eliminate any sourcing from Ancient and Endangered Forests or controversial sources where communities haven’t given their consent for logging and to increasingly give preference to low-impact Next Gen alternatives. A public-facing policy commitment is the first step in our work with our brand partners. As we move forward with companies in implementing their CanopyStyle and Pack4Good policies, we help them map their supply chains and shift their production away from climate-critical forests.
As a result, our work with 500+ fashion brands and producers in the viscose supply chain, Canopy has built and increased transparency and engagement with man-made-cellulosic-fibre (MMCF) producers where before there was none. Today, 74% of the viscose trade globally are now audited for these risks and those full audits are made publicly available. More than 50% of the viscose supply chain is now verified at low risk of sourcing from the world’s high-carbon and biodiverse forests and taking substantive steps to ensure they do not source from these key landscapes in the future.
We recognize that there are other issues of concern and interest that are beyond what Canopy’s work and resources are able to address. As our corporate partners take steps to save the world’s most critical forests, we encourage all of them to take additional actions to address vital issues beyond the scope of our collaboration, ranging from energy use, to health and safety, working conditions, labour practices, unsustainable growth and production, equity and discrimination, among others.
In addressing these risks we encourage our partners to:
- Work with relevant third-party auditors.
- Contract independent methods of inquiry and assessment.
- Work with credible NGO partners in the field of concern.
- Insert contract conditions for suppliers to provide assurances.
- If unable to credibly assess, consider suspension of contracts until the issue is addressed.
We encourage these companies to address their varied impacts, across their value chains and supply chains, to be consistent with their Canopy actions.
