ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY

MARCH 2020 – VERSION 1 Owner: Sustainability Department ARITZIA LP 1. SUSTAINABILITY VISION 1.1 ARITZIA’S COMMITMENT TO PROTECT THE ENVIRONMENT

At Aritzia, we recognize our responsibility and the growing urgency to reduce our contributions to climate change and to protect biodiversity. We are committed to enhancing our efforts by incorporating environmentally responsible decisions across all of our business activities. We have established this Environment Policy (‘Policy’) to communicate Aritzia’s commitment, guiding principles and requirements to managing the environmental impacts of our business.

1.2 ARITZIA’S IMPACT ON THE ENVIRONMENT

In 2017, Aritzia conducted an organizational life cycle assessment to assess the carbon impacts, water consumption and waste generation across all areas of the business. This identified which areas across our supply chain and own operations of our organization and products have the highest impacts. We found that the highest level of impacts are upstream (supply chain) and downstream (during consumer use and end of life of products). We acknowledge the ranging environmental impacts that our business and operations can have on communities globally, and have developed the Policy to reduce relating consequences.

1.3 HOW TO USE THIS POLICY

The Policy is designed to support Aritzia and manufacturing partners to meet Aritzia’s sustainability standards. The Policy outlines how we meet our aforementioned commitments; at our facilities (offices, stores and distribution centres), our packaging and our product (design, raw materials and manufacturing).

For the purposes of ensuring compliance to the standards and requirements outlined in the Policy:

  • Aritzia’s Board of Directors reviews the Policy and performance and provides direction for implementation.
  • Aritzia’s Chief Operating Officer and President is accountable for the compliance to the standards and requirements outlined in the Policy.
  • The Aritzia Leadership Team is accountable for the Policy implementation in the areas of the business for which they are responsible and sign off on the Policy.
  • All Aritzia employees and manufacturing (finished good factory and fabric mill) partners are responsible for following the standards and requirements outlined in the Policy.
  • The Sustainability Department is responsible for ensuring the Policy is kept up to date and relevant, as well as providing support across the business in the implementation of the standards and requirements outlined.

1.4 GUIDING PRINCIPLES

With a philosophy of continuous improvement, the Policy maintains the following guiding principles:

  1. Comply with or exceed relevant legislative requirements. Where these are inadequate, we will aim to set our own standards.
  2. Support a precautionary approach to environmental challenges, by striving to prevent impacts regardless of certainty of the level of impacts, rather than focusing on remediation alone.
  3. Develop and implement a set of processes to monitor, evaluate, control and improve all areas where the company has significant impacts on climate change and biodiversity.
  4. Set targets and objectives for the business to drive continued improvement in environmental performance.
  5. Remain informed of the latest scientific findings and solutions, and adapt our strategy accordingly.
  6. Educate employees and our manufacturing partners of the importance of integrating environmental factors into decision making and equipping them with the tools, support and skills to implement improvements.
  7. Communicate the Policy on a regular basis, internally and externally.
  8. Engage with stakeholders including but not limited to the Sustainable Apparel Coalition and Textile Exchange to ensure the Policy is up to date.
  9. Continue to evolve the Policy based on stakeholder feedback and as new science becomes available.

2. OUR REQUIREMENTS 2.1 OUR OPERATIONS

With direct control over the offices, stores and distribution centers we operate in, to manage their impacts to the environment, we:

  • Comply with all relevant legislation and requirements the business subscribes to across all regions our facilities are located.
  • Take environmental criteria into account and continually review procurement options for office and operational goods and services.

2.1.1 ENERGY & EMISSIONS

  • Reduce and eliminate unnecessary energy consumption – including by opting for LED lighting in all stores and closing doors at our street front stores when temperatures are above or below room temperature, as detailed in our Door Policy.
  • Conduct regular assessments of our impacts as and when required including but not limited to, measuring our operational greenhouse gas footprint.
  • Provide options to encourage our people to utilize public transport including offering incentives for public transportation and secure, indoor bike storage at our Vancouver Support Office and Distribution Center.

2.1.2 MATERIALS & WASTE

  • Continue to optimize recycling systems for waste generated across business operations.
  • Conduct regular assessments of our impacts as and when required including conduct waste audits at stores to review and encourage diversion of waste from landfill.
  • Use in-store receipts that are non-phenol and BPA/BPS free, and provide clients the opportunity to opt for digital receipts.
  • All product that cannot be sold or donated due to significant damage is dispositioned to partners who will maximize alternative uses of the product responsibly, and avoid routing to landfill.

2.1.2.1 PACKAGING

Aritzia is committed to reducing the environmental impacts associated with packaging used for shipping product from manufacturing partners, as well as client-facing retail, ecommerce and product packaging. Our requirements include:

2.1.2.1.1 RETAIL, ECOMMERCE & PRODUCT PACKAGING

  • Reduction of packaging volume where possible, by providing a range of sizes and offering in-store clients choices in packaging materials.
  • Maximize overall recycled content used in packaging materials, and at minimum strive to use fiber that is certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC).
  • Support the implementation of Aritzia’s Sustainable Packaging Guidelines by training relevant teams to assess and validate sustainable packaging claims.
  • Conduct an annual review of all paper and packaging to identify areas to improve efficient use of materials and material content.

2.1.2.1.2 SHIPPING PACKAGING

  • Eliminating the use of individual polybags in our vendor to distribution center shipping where possible. Otherwise reduce the size of bags required by folding product and as a last resort, switch to recycled content polybags.

2.2 PRODUCT 2.2.1 MATERIALS

We strive to reduce our impacts associated with the production of raw materials used in our products. Our requirements:

  • All Aritzia Suppliers must sign off and comply with the standards outlined in Aritzia’s Materials Sourcing Policy.
  • Sourcing more sustainable fabric and raw material choices to minimize environmental impacts, including sourcing sustainably certified natural and synthetic fibers.
  • Ensure all sustainable raw materials (i.e. organic, recycled, responsible) we source are certified to industry standards, including those owned and managed by Textile Exchange (OCS, GRS, RDS), prior to making any public claims about their sustainability performance. Details are outlined in our Materials Sourcing Policy.
  • Leverage our membership with the Better Cotton Initiative to support more environmentally and sustainable cotton production.
  • Maintain our commitment with Canopy that all man-made wood-based cellulosic fibers (e.g. viscose, rayon) are sourced from non-ancient and non-endangered forests. We will then strive to source as FSC certified where possible.
  • Exclude high risk raw materials from our products, as identified in our Materials Sourcing Policy.
  • Review opportunities for our raw material mix to include more sustainable material options each season.
  • Train relevant product and fabric teams on the value of sourcing certified sustainable raw materials.

2.2.2 MANUFACTURING

We recognize the impacts that our production and sourcing have on the environment globally, and therefore work to equip the finished good factories and fabrics mills with tools to understand and reduce their impacts. Our Supplier Code of Conduct and Supplier Sustainability Manual details our expectations and requirements of our manufacturing partners, which include but is not limited to the following:

  • Manufacturing partners must comply with applicable local laws, regulations, and environmental conventions.
  • We require all manufacturing partners to sign and follow Aritzia’s Restricted Substance List (RSL).
  • We utilize the Sustainable Apparel Coalition Higg Facility Environmental Module (FEM) to measure environmental impacts across our manufacturing partners to ensure compliance with local laws and identify opportunities for remediation and capacity building.
  • Using Higg FEM, we monitor the environmental performance of all Tier 1 apparel factories, as well as high volume Tier 1 accessories factories and Tier 2 fabric mills, with prioritization on wet process mills.
  • Manufacturing partners are required to work towards reducing negative environmental impacts in their daily operations and continuously strive for improvement, and are asked to contact Aritzia if any issues arise or if support is needed.

2.3 COMMUNICATIONS

With transparent and consistent dialogue, we strive to expect that all of our employees are engaged and involved in meeting the aforementioned standards in the Policy. We also seek to maximize and share our impact through engagement in industry environmental initiatives. To do this, we:

2.3.1 ENGAGEMENT

  • Communicate internally and externally the importance of tackling environmental issues for Aritzia.
  • Share our progress to improve environmental performance with our employees, customers, suppliers, investors and wider communities.
  • Conduct trainings across key teams on the Policy and its implementation.
  • Maintain two-way engagement across our retail network and distribution network for feedback on opportunities to manage our stores more efficiently and appropriate to respective local contexts.
  • Support scientific research on industry environmentally related issues and solutions.
  • Continually seek opportunities to improve environmental performance of our facilities.

2.3.2 REPORTING & ENGAGEMENT

  • We remain committed to meeting the expectations of and supporting our external stakeholders, including but not limited to our clients, investors, governments and civil society organizations.
  • As a member of the Sustainable Apparel Coalition, Aritzia is committed to the completion of the Higg Brand and Retail Module (BRM) and sharing details of our operational environmental performance and management with manufacturing partners.
  • Follow key industry reporting frameworks in our external reporting and disclosures.
  • Join industry-wide collaborative efforts to share knowledge and encourage industry improvements, such as the Sustainable Apparel Coalition and Textile Exchange.
  • Remain engaged and open to feedback from our stakeholders to keep the Policy up to date as necessary.

By signing the below, the undersigned agrees to comply and uphold the standards and requirements outlined in Aritzia’s Environmental Policy.