Sustainability makes sense from every angle, benefiting people, the planet and our business. That’s why HanesBrands has been committed to building and evolving a sustainability program for decades. 

We’re incredibly proud of the progress we made in managing our environmental impacts and continually improving programs that benefit our people and communities. 

Between 2007 and 2022, on a per unit basis, we have reduced our:

• • Energy use by 26%
  • Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions by over 60%, and
  • Water use by 35%

These are real reductions that generated real cost savings – hundreds of millions of dollars.  Our recycling efforts have  generated millions more in revenue that we invest in our own associates, local community development efforts and philanthropic donations through our Green for Good program.  

But, we must continue do even more. That is why in late 2020 we set new, aggressive 2025 and 2030 goals around the three pillars of People, Planet and Product. These are long-term commitments that are embedded in our company-wide strategic, Full Potential growth plan. So how are we doing so far? In short, we are making real progress. 

In our People pillar, we aim to improve the lives of at least 10 million people by 2030. We are calculating this goal in three ways: 

1. Given the breadth of our associate programs and the impact jobs with HanesBrands have on our 50,000+ global associates and their families, we count each associate as a life impacted and multiply that number by four – the average household size. That equals 200,000 lives. The range of benefits and programs we offer associates includes living wages and compensation, facility-level health clinics, subsidized meals and transportation, continuing education, and school backpack programs for children of associates.

2. We provide millions of units of our apparel every year to well over 80 global organizations focused on the themes of comfort, inclusion and health. In 2022, we provided 8.5 million units. Many of these items went to those most in need, including Ukrainian refugees, those experiencing homelessness and those recovering from natural disasters – like thousands ravaged by hurricanes in Florida and flooding in Kentucky. We believe that every 10 garments donated equals one life impacted. This translates into 850,000 lives impacted in 2022.

3. We work aggressively to advance the many communities where we live and work, leveraging our financial contributions with the volunteer efforts of our 50,000 + associates. Our global human resources teams track the number of individuals directly impacted by our community philanthropic work. In 2022, this work impacted a total of 407,000 lives.

In 2022, we believe we meaningfully contributed to improving over 1.4 million lives. Add that to the 1.3 million impacted in 2021 for a total of 2.7 million, and we are well on our way to our 2030 goal. 

In 2021, we also formally added two diversity, equity and inclusion metrics to our People goals. In our U.S. workforce, we are committed to raising the percentage of persons of color at the senior manager and above level to 25% by 2025. We have made excellent progress already, increasing the level from 11% to 19% since 2021. We are also committed to having 50% women at senior managers and above in the U.S. We are pleased to report that number now stands at 50%.

In our Planet pillar, we focused first, with the help of expert consultants, on calculating and submitting our science-based targets to the Science-Based Targets Initiative (SBTi). We are still awaiting final approval of our goals from SBTi (expected in 2023), but it is clear that we must do even more to align with the Paris Climate Agreement. 

As such, we plan to reduce (off of a 2019 baseline) our scope 1 and 2 carbon emissions by an additional 50% and our scope 3 emissions (purchased goods and services and upstream transportation) by 30%. The good news is we have already reduced our scope 1 and 2 emissions by a huge 30% since 2019 and are working aggressively to reduce our relevant scope 3 emissions.

And we have made great initial progress on other Planet goals as well. Since 2019, we have reduced our water use by 6%. Our total renewable electricity consumption now stands at 49%; 92% of our facility waste is currently diverted from landfill and 315 owned and contractor facilities have completed the Higg Facility Environmental Module self-assessment.  

That said, our challenges in 2022 were around our energy and water intensity metrics. These are calculated on a per pound of fabric produced basis. Given unexpected downturns in capacity in late 2022, these metrics were negatively impacted – in fact energy intensity actually increased 2%. We expect these intensity numbers to rebound as capacity comes back on line.

Importantly, we are also proud to say that in partnership with Tide, we reached well over 800 million consumers on the environmental and cost benefits of washing in cold water  – more than double our goal of educating 300 million consumers by 2022. We are very pleased to report that we are also signing a three-year extension of our partnership with Tide to continue this effort in the years to come. There is no greater impact we can collectively have on greenhouse gas emissions resulting from apparel production and use than to simply wash in cold water. It really is that easy.

In our Product pillar, we also made real progress. Our use of sustainable cotton is now at 70%; our recycled/biodegradable polyester use stands at 15% (over 6 million total pounds); and we are implementing projects that will reduce packaging weight by 11% (nearly 8 million pounds) and reduce single use plastics by 34% (over 1.5 million pounds). Importantly, our packaging and single-use plastics efforts generated over $4 million in savings in 2022. What’s good for the earth is also clearly good for our business. 

Being a force for good is rewarding at any level, but we’re excited to take our commitments further in the years to come. We’ve gotten off to a good start in 2021 and 2022 toward achieving these goals. But, it won’t be easy. Along with successes, there will be challenges and there will be setbacks. We’ve seen some this year with our energy and water intensity metrics that are heavily impacted by production volumes. Also, given supply/demand issues and to align with peer goals and the timing of our science-based targets, we have decided to push our sustainable cotton and polyester goals to 2030. There will not be straight line improvement. But, that’s what aggressive goals are all about.