Sustainability

Furthering our Commitments to Water Conservation Through Collaborative Action

Sep. 30, 2021

Water is used at every stage of a product’s lifecycle, and while it is critical to the fashion industry overall, it is invaluable to the communities and individuals across our supply and value chains. It’s a precious resource and, due to the increasing pressure put on our environment, it’s under threat. One of the primary effects of climate change is disruption of the water cycle which increases the likelihood and severity of global droughts and floods – made even more evident by the recent extreme weather events around the world. Considering these effects alongside the environmental impacts of our industry’s manufacturing processes, we at PVH see water stewardship – the responsible planning and management of water resources – and the ongoing evaluation of the risk of water stress, as a contributing solution to mitigate climate change. Advancing our water stewardship efforts and driving action in the urgent fight against climate change starts with public commitments, external measurements, and accountability.

As part of our commitment to ensure access to clean water through collaborative action, we continue to work with partners and peers within our industry and beyond to achieve our targets. We look to our partners at World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and GIZ as central experts in water resiliency and stewardship to drive the implementation of remediation activities, working to preserve and restore local water resources in our most water-stressed strategic sourcing regions. Aligned with these efforts is our participation in the Water Resiliency Coalition, an industry driven initiative of the United Nations Global Compact’s CEO Water Mandate. As a founding member, PVH stands alongside other global leaders who have committed to working together to explore and develop solutions to accomplish their overarching commitments by 2050.

Our ability to lead in cross-sector collaborations like the Water Resilience Coalition is validated by our Forward Fashion water stewardship efforts, including our ongoing work across five basins in our key sourcing regions in partnership with WWF and GIZ. The challenges each basin faces are only exacerbated by intensive water use, water pollution, and the ongoing impacts of climate change. With these factors in mind, our work aims to protect the biodiversity of the basin as well as help both people and nature adapt to changing climate conditions over time.

Ethiopia’s Lake Hawassa is a unique sourcing community for PVH as it is home to Hawassa Industrial Park, where our teams are committed to protecting the community and its resources. The Protecting Lake Hawassa Initiative focuses on stopping waste from ending up in the lake, preventing soil degradation, and increasing community awareness around environmental issues facing this important water basin. This initiative has brought together stakeholders from the private and public sectors as well as NGOs and community leaders to work collaboratively to protect Lake Hawassa. To date, our teams have helped to facilitate the installation of 200 waste bins in an area previously deprived of any public waste disposal mechanisms. We amplified our afforestation and soil erosion control efforts by constructing trenches around two key areas of erosion near the lake and stabilizing gullies by supporting the planting of approximately 110,000 seedlings to reduce water runoff from entering the lake and prevent soil degradation.

China’s Taihu Basin is a crucial ecosystem that is vulnerable to pollution, with untreated runoff from industrial parks being the primary concern. Without the knowledge of regulations or solutions to remedy these escalating issues, suppliers face direct risk of being shut down. Alongside teams from WWF and other brand partners, PVH has conducted awareness and capacity building training to more than 100 textile manufacturing facilities and over 100 Industrial Parks on water and energy best management practices and technologies. Building upon the progress made since the partnership’s launch in 2015, it’s our overall goal to protect this key resource by fostering sustainable transformation of the industrial parks, working collectively toward improved freshwater ecosystems and improving water governance practices by 2030.

Vietnam’s Mekong Delta plays a key economic role in the region, but its resources are being threatened by upstream hydropower dam development, sand mining, and an overexploitation of groundwater causing the delta to sink and shrink. To prevent further degradation and preserve this resource, the textile businesses closest to the delta need to be active participants in resource planning, resource management and sustainable energy planning. PVH has helped to organize trainings within the region’s textile and garment industries, steer regulations and governance on sustainable textiles, and identify improvements for water, energy, and financing mechanisms. Investing in this program fosters national and transnational collaboration and helps to form highly beneficial relationships between WWF and the Chinese and Vietnamese Textile associations, to ultimately ensure sustainable development within the Mekong Delta.

India’s Noyyal Bhavani Basin faces a number of threats from pollution from industrial runoff and urban sewage to over abstraction of surface and groundwater resources – where the water is taken to be used for irrigation, industrial use, or drinking water. Our work with WWF in this region addresses shared basin challenges and has established a strong foundation for science-based actions, in addition to informing policy making and setting clear key performance indicators to measure the impact on the landscape. As one of the first apparel companies to launch corporate water stewardship efforts in the region, our environmental team contributed to WWF’s River Health Assessment of local bodies of water and are working toward completion of 30 River Health Assessments. The results of these assessments have helped WWF develop a baseline to begin to create and implement a wetland conservation plan which our local teams will support. Furthermore, in kicking off WWF’s clean technology work in the Tiruppur Textile Cluster, our suppliers are among the 40 enrolled facilities in the project, and have already kicked off improvement plans in 33 of the 40 enrolled.

Turkey’s Büyük Menderes Basin is a dense cotton, leather and textile production area. The region benefits from a rich biodiversity, yet is threatened by the conversion of salt marshes into cotton fields, intense water consumption for textile production, and diffuse pollution. Together with WWF and partner brands, PVH is supporting the development of guidelines and trainings surrounding key elements of the work at hand including water stewardship and regenerative agriculture, the identification of water efficiency solutions and financial mechanisms, and the implementation of a regenerative agriculture and modern irrigation pilot. This is supported by active dialogue with river basin governance institutions to foster the adoption of a landscape approach to this work, protect ecosystem services in key biodiversity areas, and preserve water resources.

Water stewardship is central to our Forward Fashion commitments, and a crucial element in mitigating the climate crisis and providing access to clean, safe water resources. As a global industry leader, we know we have an important role to play in the preservation of water. We are committed to continuing to implement collective action projects in our most water stressed communities, while also sharing knowledge and resources with our partners and peers to ensure we’re working collaboratively to scale the impact of this increasingly critical work.