12 Sourcing

14 Durable Products

16 Innovation

17 Recycled Content

18 Renewable Materials

19 Design Tools

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The North Face 2010 Sustainability Report

THE NORTH FACE 2010 SUSTAINABILITY REPORT: PROdUCT

SOURCING We work with the bluesign® standard to reduce supply chain impacts.

Our rapidly growing engagement with bluesign technologies is the cornerstone of our

efforts to drive improvements in our supply chain. The bluesign® standard is a rigorous,

independent system to ensure that factories address harmful chemicals at the fabric level

and meet demanding requirements for consumer and worker safety, efficient resource use

and environmental protection. The bluesign® system also requires that mills meet the U.S.

Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA), the European REACH (Registration,

Evaluation, and Authorisation of Chemicals) protocols and all other relevant requirements.

We have aggressive goals for increasing the percentage of bluesign® approved fabric we

develop each season and aim to convert 65% of our fabric to the bluesign® standard by

2015. Our approach has always been to prioritize our high volume fabrics and our largest

suppliers to create the greatest and most immediate impact.

“We create shared value by helping our mill partners reduce their environmental impacts

and costs, making them more attractive partners to apparel companies demanding

sustainable materials. In return, the mills help us provide more environmentally responsible

products for our customers and indirectly mitigate price increases through resource

efficiency. They also understand that we award our business preferentially to mills that are

bluesign® system partners, so they are investing in a long-term relationship with us.”

— Adam Mott, Corporate Sustainability Manager

In addition to working with our primary suppliers, we aggressively worked to influence

additional supply chain partners to engage with the bluesign® system in 2010. These

included trim, synthetic insulation, down insulation, buckles, cording, webbing, and seam

tape companies. Next, we will work to bring our thread, label, footwear, and equipment

materials partners into the bluesign® system.

SOURCINGSourcing with the bluesign® standard

PRODUCT SUSTAINABILITY

2015 GOAL

% bluesign® approved fabric(apparel)

65%

2011*

27% (almost 16 millionyards of fabric) short of 30% goal

2010

21% (10 millionyards of fabric)

* Our 2011 collections are designed and ordered in 2010 so we are able to report 2011 product data in this report.

 

expeditionsustainability.com/go/bluesign

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The North Face 2010 Sustainability Report

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Peter Waeber, CEO, bluesign technologies, describes how the bluesign®

standard works:

“The apparel industry has a history of very serious environmental problems. When textile

manufacturing moved in a short timeframe from Europe and the United States to Asia, the

know-how was not transferred along with the orders. Suddenly we had people making the

same fabric using twice the amount of water, with poor quality wastewater treatment and

air emissions and with a difficult life for their workers. This was often occurring in countries

without strong regulatory programs and in water-scarce areas.

When I first launched the bluesign® standard ten years ago, we were focused on resource

efficiency and optimization but we soon realized we had to start by eliminating harmful

chemicals at the earliest stage of the process. To protect workers and consumers, we have

developed our own risk-based list of over 900 substances. We prohibit some processes

and chemicals (rated black), allow others with special process controls (these are grey —

such as for performance fabrics) and allow outright those classified as blue. This is much

easier than trying to remove a chemical once it is in a fabric.

We give each mill a detailed, individualized assessment that allows them to compare

their energy and water use per kilogram of fabric to that of a mill using Best Available

Technology. One manufacturer was using 680 liters while another used 30 liters by weight

to produce the same shirt. Continuous dyeing uses 4 liters of water instead of 200+ liters.

Usually the savings are huge. In places where the owners may not be as sensitive to

environmental concerns, the financial savings usually sway them.

Sometimes we have trouble getting mills to work with us. We do a very comprehensive

assessment with our experts on-site for the screening; the whole process takes

approximately two and a half months. Then they do another re-screening once mills have

implemented our standards and are ready to certify their articles. The cost of participating

varies depending on the complexity and amount of chemicals involved. Even though the

payback period for this fee and for any equipment upgrades is usually only three months,

there are no guarantees and the initial cost remains a barrier for some.”

“ SUCCESS came with our partnership with The North Face, one of the biggest companies we work with. They have the big orders and they have the power to make things happen in the supply chain. They are helping us expand into more mills and generate even more improvements.” — Peter Waeber, CEO, bluesign technologies

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The North Face 2010 Sustainability Report

THE NORTH FACE 2010 SUSTAINABILITY REPORT: PROdUCT

bluesign® savingsWhile the data gathered from bluesign technologies’ work with textile mills is confidential,

we have an agreement that gives us aggregated data from our bluesign® screened

suppliers. This allows us to track the impact of the program from year to year. We are

extremely proud of the environmental savings we have realized as a result of implementing

this system — a testament to our strategy of identifying and addressing our biggest

impacts first.

SUPPLY CHAIN ENVIRONMENTAL SAVINGS FOR THE NORTH FACE ® PRODUCTS 2010 and 2011*

Energy

Chemicals

Savings 2010 2011

’10/11TotalSavings

85 Olympic swimming pools of water. pool = 10

21 million gallons

4.8 million kWh

604,480 lbs.

35 million gallons

7.8 million kWh

604,480lbs.

56 million gallons

12.5 million kWh

1.6million lbs.

1,153 cars off the road for a year**1 car =10

38 tanker trucks*** 1 tanker = 10

Equivalencies

85

1,153

38

Water

* Our 2011 collections are determined in 2010 and thus this data can be included in our 2010 report. ** Conversion factors per U.S. dOE and U.S. EPA *** Average tanker truck volume = 500 gallons

DURABLE PRODUCTS We stand by our lifetime warranty.

“Sustainable consumption starts by consuming less. At The North Face, we focus on

building product that lasts a lifetime so that our consumers buy fewer products over time,

thereby reducing impacts on the environment. We find that The North Face can actually be

profitable, while driving a very strong sustainability message.”

— Philip Hamilton, VP of Global Product

“We repair as much as we can and, above all, prevent materials from ending up in a landfill.

When an item comes back damaged, the first thing we try to do is fix it. We have a staff

of expert seamstresses and tailors whose average tenure with the company is 25 years.

They have seen or touched just about everything we have made and are extremely creative

solution providers. Anything we can’t repair, we generally scavenge for usable parts. We

have drawers of zippers and buttons and fabric pieces in all colors.

First, we try to get products back into the sales chain and then donate as many of the

remaining items as we can. From 2010 through the first half of 2011, we donated more than

56,000 units to organizations such as Clothes4Souls and to emergency relief situations

such as the Haiti earthquake.

expeditionsustainability.com/go/durableproducts

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The North Face 2010 Sustainability Report

THE NORTH FACE 2010 SUSTAINABILITY REPORT: PROdUCT

2010 REPAIR/DONATION PROGRAM

Repaired 46,021 units

Scrap to Waste / Recycled 800 units

Donated 25,000 units

We sort through the remaining items that we are unable to fix and recycle as much as

we can. Finally, whatever can’t be recycled is incinerated at a waste-to-energy plant.

We believe strongly in responsible disposal and feel good every time we avoid throwing

something away.

As our sales grow, the volume of goods that may require repair keeps pace and it is getting

harder to keep up. As fabrics become more technical and cutting-edge, it is more difficult

to repair them and sometimes requires new technology such as fabric welding tools. We

are currently developing a plan to ensure that our approach to repairs meets the latest

advances in product materials and construction.”

— Director of Quality, Rick Griffin

“THE RECENT clothing donation from The North Face was an extremely substantial portion of Clothes4Souls donations. I am very excited about the opportunity to take Clothes4Souls to the next level by partnering with such a powerful brand. Together we can provide hope for a better tomorrow.” — Keith Woodley, Chief development Officer, Clothes4Souls Inc.

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The North Face 2010 Sustainability Report

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INNOVATION Athlete Tested. Expedition Proven.

We have a unique, collaborative process that propels our designers to innovate

high-performance solutions for our consumers. Our elite athletes push their own

limits and the limits of our products on expeditions and testing trips covering a

range of sports and climate conditions. They return with valuable feedback that

challenges us to refine our designs and materials in an iterative process that ensures

a high-quality outcome. The best example of this is our Meru collection.

Climbers Jimmy Chin, Renan Ozturk and Conrad Anker worked with The North Face to

design the Meru Kit specifically for the trio’s second attempt up the unclimbed Shark’s

Fin route to the summit of 20,700-foot Mount Meru in the Garhwal Himalaya. On an earlier

attempt in 2008, they spent a gruelling 19 days on the wall before turning back just 100

meters from the summit, as featured in Ozturk’s film Samsara. They hadn’t anticipated

how cold it would be and upon their return, they suggested specific, high altitude

mountaineering features for the Meru line.

They tested the Meru collection in their successful second attempt up Shark’s Fin in

September 2011. This same willingness to tackle challenges defines our work to develop

innovations to improve the environmental profile of our products, an area that presents a

great opportunity for us. As an example, we created a design challenge to eliminate waste

that produced our Loop Tote bags, made from scrap fabric. Learn more in the Waste

section of this report.

expeditionsustainability.com/go/innovativeproducts

CASTOR OIL INTO JACKETS. Our Venture jacket is a great illustration of innovation going hand-in-hand with environmental sustainability. We reduced the synthetic compounds

in the membrane of our Venture product line by 50% by incorporating castor oil, a renewable resource. The castor bean plant, widely grown throughout the tropics, produces oil from its seeds that provides an effective substitute for half of the petroleum-derived materials in the

waterproof membrane of our best-selling Venture product line.

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The North Face 2010 Sustainability Report

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Redesigned in 2010 to debut in our Spring 2011 collection, the waterproof membrane is now

made using our castor oil-based HyVent DT EC material and offers these benefits:

•Each new Venture Jacket contains 28 grams of standard waterproof coating, 50

percent of which is castor oil-based.

•The 2011 Venture product line will eliminate more than 50,000 lbs. of petroleum-

based materials.

RECYCLED CONTENT Our entire line of products using Polartec® recycled fleece kept over 49,000 plastic bottles from landfills in 2010.

“We incorporate recycled content into many of our products to help prevent the flow of waste to

landfills and to reduce the need to extract natural resources from the earth. Starting deep in the

supply chain, we develop about one thousand materials each year and try to achieve the greatest

environmental gains possible. To make the biggest, fastest difference each season, we focus on

improvements in our largest volume fabrics. Our entire line of products using led fleece kept over

49,000 plastic bottles from landfills in 2010.”

— Adam Mott, Corporate Sustainability Manager

Despite cost pressures that affected recycled polyester in 2009 and 2010, we have goals to

increase the volume of the recycled fabric we use in each Fall and Spring product season and

to bring recycled content into a broader range of materials, focusing on our highest volume

products.

Recycled Fabric

2010 2011 2015 Goal

% Recycled of Total Fabric Yardage 6% 7% 30%

Here’s a look at how one of our most iconic styles, the Denali fleece jacket, continues to

evolve as we introduce improvements each year.  In 2010, the fleece in our solid color Denali

jacket was comprised of 87% recycled content Polartec® 300 series fleece. The recycled

content was derived from 90% post-industrial waste and 10% post-consumer waste.

expeditionsustainability.com/go/denali

THE FLEECE in our 2011 solid color denali jackets contains 87% recycled content which is comprised of 100% post-consumer waste.  For our 2012 collection, the fleece in our solid color denali products will consist of 100% recycled content and will be constructed entirely from post-consumer recycled waste. We will use an average of 58.5 plastic bottles to create the polyester fibers for each men’s denali jacket while each women’s jacket will incorporate approximately 47 plastic bottles.

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The North Face 2010 Sustainability Report

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FootwearWhile footwear currently represents a small part of our business, the various materials and

processes involved in the construction of our shoes and boots bring unique sustainability

challenges. We consider a variety of issues including incorporating recycled content, responsibly

sourcing renewable materials such as leather, and eliminating potentially harmful chemicals.

Our biggest achievement in 2010 was completely eliminating polyvinyl chloride (PVC) in this

category. We had used PVC in the straps of our men’s and women’s Slippy flip-flops and in

some microinjection labels but were able to substitute rubber for both of these applications.

Our footwear meets the following standards:

•100% PVC-free.

•100% recycled PET.

•This means that all of the polyethylene terephthalate (PET) polyester in our

footwear is recycled. Our popular Nuptse boots feature 100% recycled PET

ripstop material uppers and trim.

•100% British Leather Corporation (BLC)-approved leather.

•While only a small amount of our footwear is made with leather, leather

tanning is a chemical-intensive process demanding strict environmental

oversight. All of our leather is audited by the BLC (leather testing experts)

against the environmental auditing protocol of the industry-leading Leather

Working Group (LWG) and must achieve a silver level or higher.

RENEWABLE MATERIALS We strive to incorporate renewable alternatives to virgin synthetic materials in our products.

In our quest for more environmentally responsible materials and processes, we constantly

evaluate renewable alternatives to virgin synthetic materials. We consider wool and cotton

and other traditional renewable materials as well as bio-based raw ingredients such as the

castor oil used in our Venture jackets and pants. While the majority of our products are

made from synthetic materials due to technical performance requirements, we still have a

responsibility to address the impacts of our use of cotton and other renewable materials.

Rising cotton prices presented sourcing challenges in 2010 and early 2011. We are currently

reevaluating our approach to cotton fabric sourcing to improve the overall sustainability

attributes rather than focusing exclusively on increasing our organic cotton usage. Through

our Sustainable Materials Landscape project, we will examine a variety of sustainable

sourcing alternatives that will not be limited to organic cotton. We are also engaging VF’s

corporate sustainability team and know-how from other VF brands that use significantly

more cotton to determine a comprehensive strategy.

expeditionsustainability.com/go/renewable

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The North Face 2010 Sustainability Report

THE NORTH FACE 2010 SUSTAINABILITY REPORT: PROdUCT

Cotton Use

2009 2010 2011*

Total Cotton (thousand units) 1,458 1,160 656

Organic Cotton (thousand units) 104 45.5 84

% Organic of Total Cotton Units 7.1% 3.8% 12.9%

* Note that 2011 collections are finalized in 2010 and thus this data can be included in our 2010 report.

In facing raw material price spikes or supply constraints, The North Face benefits by

being part of VF Corporation’s world-class sourcing structure. VF’s sourcing organization

encompasses offices in over 20 countries and over 600 people dedicated to overseas

sourcing management. This allows us to research opportunities, manage supply

disruptions, leverage pricing and supply concessions, and ensure that our strict sourcing

standards are upheld.

DESIGN TOOLS New tools drive sustainable design.

We strive to provide our product design, development, materials and sourcing teams with

cutting-edge tools to allow them to evaluate sustainability considerations in the earliest

phases of the design process before inferior choices are deeply embedded. We use our

internal Product Rating Tool as well as the results of the life cycle assessment (LCA) studies we

completed in 2010 to guide the design process. We are also actively participating with other

outdoor and apparel peer companies to develop the Outdoor Industry Association Eco Index,

an environmental assessment tool that will define sustainable products for our industry.

Life Cycle Assessments. In 2010, we conducted LCA studies in our outerwear, equipment

and footwear categories to better understand the environmental hot spots that present the

best opportunities for improvement. This holistic process evaluates the effects a product

has on multiple environmental endpoints throughout its life cycle from material production

all the way through end-of-life. The examination of our Surge backpack, Plasma Thermal

jacket, and Hedgehog shoe confirmed that our biggest environmental impacts occur in the

materials production and manufacturing stages of the product life cycle. This validated our

strategy of working with bluesign technologies in our supply chain.

expeditionsustainability.com/go/tools

64% 75% 85%% of Global Warming Potential impact during material production and manufacturing

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The North Face 2010 Sustainability Report

THE NORTH FACE 2010 SUSTAINABILITY REPORT: PROdUCT

GLOBAL WARMING POTENTIAL IMPACTS FOR SURGE BACKPACK

Focusing on issues regarding water, energy use and global warming

potential, the LCA studies identified six key strategies for achieving the

greatest sustainability improvements in our products:

•Decrease product material.

•Select lower impact materials.

•Reduce impacts of dyeing.

• Improve performance of Tier 1 Suppliers.

• Improve retail resource efficiency.

•Minimize washing and drying requirements during

consumer use.

Sustainable Materials LandscapeAll material choices come with trade-offs. Organic cotton can be water-intensive, readily

available bamboo requires a chemically-intensive process to turn it into usable fibers, and

using merino wool raises questions about animal welfare. To help our designers make

informed choices, we are developing an interactive “Sustainable Materials Landscape” tool

for all VF brands to use. It will provide the environmental profile for a wide range of materials

used in our industry. Work began in 2010 and will be completed in 2011.

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The North Face 2010 Sustainability Report

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Internal Product Rating Tool and TNF Sustainability GoalsIn 2009, we developed our internal Product Rating Tool with binary metrics for bluesign®

approved, recycled and organic content. Every product style gets a “yes” or “no” based

on whether it meets the thresholds established for each parameter. No credit is given for

recycled content, for example, until a 50% threshold is reached. Our Action Sports Product

team recently designed cycling shorts with only 49% recycled content — then worked

to redesign them until they achieved the 50% threshold. We set the bar for these metrics

higher each season.

“This tool has been a crucial catalyst in fostering sustainable material development.

With every product team responsible for hitting progressive goals each season, the tool

encourages collaboration on challenging issues and potential opportunities. When teams

have difficulty meeting goals, they engage other associates, partners and vendors on

sustainability issues around materials and sourcing to develop solutions.”

— Corporate Sustainability Manager Adam Mott

“Until this point it has been ‘my sustainable is more sustainable than your sustainable.’ This

is not a win-win scenario. It should be about conservation and the environment. It should be

about deeply rooted corporate responsibility not market positioning. Once we have a robust

set of brand and corporate standards in place, it will drive the whole industry forward.”

— Philip Hamilton, VP of Global Product

Outdoor Industry Association Eco IndexNo company alone can create groundbreaking change across the industry’s supply chain.

That’s why we joined with over 200 companies globally to advance sustainability in the

outdoor industry by collaborating to develop the Outdoor Industry Association (OIA) Eco

Index. This pioneering environmental assessment tool provides companies with a way to

measure and benchmark their products’ environmental footprints and identify areas for

improvement. The tool informs product design and sourcing decisions addressing the

entire length of the supply chain. The framework is broken into product life cycle phases

and covers seven critical impact areas: water, waste, biodiversity, energy use/greenhouse

gas emissions, land use intensity, and chemistry/toxicity regarding both people and the

environment.

The Eco Index was spearheaded by the OIA Eco Working Group and the European Outdoor

Group (EOG) Sustainability Working Group, which TNF EMEA (Europe, Middle East, and

Africa) chaired from its inception in 2008 until spring, 2011. The non-profit organization Zero

Waste Alliance was also a valuable partner.

The North Face piloted the beta version of the Eco Index in 2010 for three different products

(Men’s Paramount Peak Pants, Men’s Short Sleeve Easy Tee, and 100 Glacier 1/4 Zip). Our

designers found the framework and content to be robust and helpful in focusing attention

on opportunities for improvement they had not considered before.

The Eco Index has caught the eye of others in the apparel industry outside of the outdoor

sector and was recently combined with Nike’s Material Assessment Tool to create a

comprehensive product sustainability evaluation tool for the apparel industry under the

Sustainable Apparel Coalition (SAC). VF joined the SAC in mid-2010, piloting a number of

programs across its brands in 2011 to test the SAC’s version of the upgraded tool.