Creating more sustainable products is complex, and shopping with sustainable intent can be just as challenging. That’s why REI and its brand partners are working together to create more sustainable products, increase social and environmental impact, and educate to make it easy for customers to shop their values.
“Transparency is important,” says Matt Thurston, Director of Sustainability at REI, “but you can’t expect every person dropping into a store on their way out to the trail to take the time to do research. So we’re trying to make that information easily available for them.”
With more than 1,000 brand partners and 17 million members, REI plays a unique role bringing the values of their members directly to brands while working with companies to support a better way for them to do business.
Thurston says, “At the crux of the standards is unlocking permission on both ends to really merge shared values so customers who are passionate about sustainability in the outdoors have an opportunity to work with brands who are passionate about creating more sustainable products.”
Products have been created more sustainably through both the REI Co-op and Co-op Cycles brands for years. Over time, REI considered how to use its experience to engage a broader community and make a positive impact. In early 2016, the company formally committed a long-range body of work and staffing support to make these goals a reality.
As part of this process, REI spoke with vendors to shape product sustainability standards and formed a task force of approximately 60 outdoor industry brands of various sizes and categories. When it comes to sustainability, collaboration is the name of the game.
“That notion of bringing others along with us is really just core to the ethos of the cooperative,” Thurston says. “I think it gets back to the roots of REI and why and how we were founded.”
Rachel Lincoln, Director of Sustainability & PCT Ops at prAna, believes this collaboration among brands is essential. “We all realize no one can do it alone,” she says. “We have a common interest, and to make change, we have to come together.”
Using internal and external feedback, Thurston says the standards were rewritten a dozen times before the final public release in April 2018. REI’s standards contain three main components: value statements, brand expec- tations and preferred product attributes.
Some of these standards went into effect immediately, “picking up on expectations we’ve had in our contractual agreement with brands for years,” Thurston says. In late 2020, most of the remainder will go into effect, based on an understanding of long production lead times.
REI is now focused on engaging, educating and continuing vendor collaboration. In the process, they’re supporting brands to become more sustainable with a guidebook of resources, expert advice articles and live networking sessions with third-party certification programs.
NEMO Equipment is among the smaller companies collaborating with REI. Theresa Conn, NEMO Supply Chain & Sustainability Coordinator, says, “I think a lot of companies, especially in our industry, want to do the right thing, but don’t really know what that is or where to start. I think the power of these standards is the education of what the industry is aligned around and what the best practices are.”
Conn adds that standards help provide groundwork for brands to inform what their next steps can be. For REI, this is just the beginning. With input from vendors and members, the product sustainability standards will continue to evolve and improve.
“We want to use this as a starting point and go find those technologies, products and brands with innovative, novel ways of tackling environ- mental challenges,” Thurston says. “Our belief is that the greatest business opportunities of today are in tackling environmental and social issues—finding solutions to things getting in the way of living a good life.”
Images courtesy of REI.
This article was originally published in RANGE Magazine Issue Nine.