Nordstrom Inc.

04/19/2021 | News release | Distributed by Public on 04/19/2021 12:47

Celebrating Earth Day: Progressing Toward Our Environmental Sustainability Goals

Celebrating Earth Day: Progressing Toward Our Environmental Sustainability Goals

As a company, we are committed to leaving the world better than we found it. Now more than ever, we know being a responsible corporate citizen is important to our customers, employees and communities we serve.

'Our customers have told us they want to shop sustainably and look to us to be a retailer that plays an active role in protecting the environment,' said Gigi Ganatra vice president of corporate affairs at Nordstrom. 'We are proud of the progress we've made toward our 2025 goals, which includes providing over $425,000 in corporate grants promoting innovation in textile recycling and fighting climate change, the expansion of BEAUTYCYCLE to Canada and the elimination of plastic gift cards.'

To celebrate Earth Day, we're excited to share we've made progress toward our 2025 Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Sustainability goals:

  • Contribute $250,000 in corporate grants to help slow and prevent climate change
    • Clean Air Task Force is a non-profit that advocates for clean air measures and innovation in neglected low-carbon technologies. 'With Nordstrom's support, we're working with leading companies, researchers, and other environmental advocates to establish the world's first emissions-free transoceanic shipping routes, served by cargo ships that run on clean zero-carbon fuels,' said Jonathan Lewis, director of transportation decarbonization program at Clean Air Task Force. 'Nordstrom's support for Clean Air Task Force does more than help establish the first clean shipping routes, it sends an important signal that sustainably minded businesses will be key partners in the transition to an emissions-free shipping industry.'
  • Contribute $1 million in corporate grants to support industry innovation for textile recycling
    • FABSCRAP is a New York City-based one-stop textile reuse and recycling resource and the grant will help them expand their operations into Philadelphia and make their textile waste data more accessible. 'The support from Nordstrom allows us to improve the way we share textile waste diversion data with every partner and with the public, helps us scale to meet demand as we open another location, and introduces FABSCRAP's work and mission to all their online consumers,' said Jessica Schreiber, chief executive officer at FABSCRAP. In addition to the grant, customers can add $1 to their Nordstorm.com purchase from April 19 through April 30 to support FABSCRAP.
    • Homeboy Recycling is a Los Angeles based organization that offers recycling services as well as gang rehabilitation and re-entry programs. 'This grant will help us purchase equipment and train staff in collecting, sorting, grading, reselling, and recycling clothing,' said Chris Zwicke, chief operating officer at Homeboy Industries. 'We hope to use the data from these initial efforts to identify the gaps in the market that we are best positioned to fill.'
  • Take back 100 tons of beauty packaging to ensure its recycled
    Earlier this month, Nordstrom announced its expansion of BEAUTYCYCLE to Canada. Launched in the U.S. in 2020 in partnership with TerraCycle, BEAUTYCYCLE is Nordstrom's beauty take-back and recycling program, which accepts all brands of beauty packaging waste. Through this program, Nordstrom aims to take back 100 tons of hard-to-recycle beauty packaging by 2025 to ensure it is recycled. BEAUTYCYCLE is available at all six Nordstrom stores in Canada, 94 U.S. Nordstrom stores and seven U.S. Nordstrom Locals.
  • Reduce single-use plastic in our value chain by 50%
    This month, Nordstrom will also begin to transition from plastic to paper gift cards, eliminating approximately six tons of plastic annually. The paper gift cards are 100% recyclable and will be available in select stores starting in June. Last year, we announced we are phasing out all plastic bags from our more than 249 Nordstrom Rack stores.
  • Ensure 15% of our product assortment qualifies for Sustainable Style
    We first introduced Sustainable Style in 2019 as a shoppable category for customers to find products that are responsibly manufactured or packaged, are made with sustainably sourced materials or ingredients, or give back. In 2020, we expanded the category to include beauty products. New brands continue to be added regularly with the latest including Pop-In@Nordstrom x Package Free Shop and Cool Planet by Steve Madden. We continue to carry sustainable products across apparel, home and beauty from brands like Levi's, Parks Project, GANNI, Girlfriend Collective, John Hardy, ChopValue, True Botanicals as well as Nordstrom Made brands.

How can customers get involved?
In addition to shopping Sustainable Style, we invite our customers to help celebrate Earth Day by:

  • Adding $1 to their Nordstrom.com purchases to support FABSCRAP from April 19 - 30
  • Shopping the Trunk Club Sustainable Style Trunk and Style Ideas curated by celebrity stylist Tara Swennen
  • Recycling their empty beauty products with BEAUTYCYCLE
  • Donating used clothing with Give Back Box or in select stores
  • RSVPing here to attend a special virtual style session in partnership with GANNI and Levi's where customers can learn about sustainable style, caring for clothing and how they can repurpose and refresh existing pieces in their wardrobe with Nordstrom Alterations
  • Personalizing their wardrobe with custom Earth Day artwork with Alterations in all Nordstrom stores

For more information on environmental sustainability and corporate social responsibility at Nordstrom, please visit NordstromCares.com.