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Sustainable Supply Chain Management

Our Commitment

We are committed to continuously improving the sustainability of our sourcing practices by working collaboratively with our suppliers and enhancing traceability within our supply chain.

To design and deliver world class products to our customers through our sourcing and design capabilities, we start with the quality, value and performance of the product, and then secure the best suppliers to help bring our vision to life. Our supply chain is complex, and there are many different ways that we work with our vendors, from procurement of national brands to innovation through new product design, materials sourcing, and the manufacturing of our owned brands.

Shipping containers on shipping boat

In 2021, we worked with over 2,600 suppliers around the world to bring products to our store shelves. Our ability to achieve our business objectives demands that every link in our supply chain is strong and built with a long-term view.

Given our global sourcing approach, we must have the right policies, processes and partnerships in place to ensure the availability of quality products at the right time to meet customer needs. Our award-winning supply chain capabilities ensure we monitor production quality and timelines, input costs and shipping timelines.

To mitigate these risks, our approach is rooted in strong partnerships with both merchandise and transportation vendors. We have a long-standing commitment to work directly with both domestic and offshore vendors in order to consistently deliver products that truly reflect our ethics and values. Our Global Sourcing team has worked for over 40 years with the factories throughout the world that make owned brand products for our group of companies, ensuring consistent quality, workers’ safety and ethical working conditions. We have also implemented many initiatives to lessen the environmental impacts of the transportation of the products. For more details, see our Climate Change section.

We collaborate closely with suppliers throughout our global supply chain to ensure our products are sourced and manufactured according to our rigorous standards. With mutual respect for craftsmanship, logistics, communities and the environment, we know we can work together to build a better future for all.

We Are Here to Make Life in Canada Better by providing Canadians access to products that are reliably available and responsibly made.

Our Approach

Our supply chain is critical to the success of our core retail business. Together with our transportation partners, we operate one of the largest retail distribution networks in Canada that efficiently moves products across the world. Our Supply Chain team is continually improving resiliency, and we are looking for new ways to reduce our transportation emissions across our supply chain.

Trailer door with Canadian flag painted on doors

Sourcing from Canadian vendors

In 2021, almost $4 billion worth of inventory purchased for Canadian Tire, PartSource, Party City and corporate-operated SportChek and Mark’s stores was sourced from vendors in Canada.

1

We set and maintain rigorous environmental and social standards, starting with our Supplier Code of Business Conduct

Throughout our global supply chain, we work with suppliers to ensure our products are sourced, manufactured and transported according to the standards outlined in our Code of Conduct and Supplier Code of Business Conduct (SCBC).

Commitment to ethical business practices is fundamental for CTC and a key part of how we operate with honesty, integrity, and respect. Our SCBC is designed to ensure that suppliers clearly understand how we expect to conduct our business, including standards and policies on labour, work conditions, wages, health and safety, and the environment. We expect full compliance with all principles and processes outlined in our SCBC. All our suppliers must agree to abide by these commitments as a condition of doing business with the Company. The SCBC is supported by an audit process that includes training and education to help suppliers understand and apply all policies.

Our Sourcing, Product Quality Assurance and Ethical Sourcing teams work together to rigorously vet prospective suppliers, sharing best practices and monitoring ongoing improvement plans. To learn more about our approach, see our Human Rights & Social Responsibility section.

Get to know our standards:

Supplier Code of Business Conduct
Supplier Code of Business Conduct
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We are reducing emissions in our supply chain

Sustainability is a priority across our supply chain, and we work closely with our transportation partners to secure supplies, ensuring our customers have access to our products. Our efforts to optimize loads and routes, through initiatives such as using long-combination vehicles, eliminating unnecessary round-trip journeys, and cube optimization, have resulted in both cost efficiencies and reductions in fuel use and emissions.

We measure the energy use and emissions that result from the transportation of our products from foreign ports all the way to our stores and customers' homes. These calculations include not only our own fleet’s emissions, but also third-party emissions related to our business.

While the stronger than anticipated growth of our e-commerce business drove our transportation-related emissions higher than our 2022 emissions reduction target, we continue to explore lower carbon alternatives for moving product within our business and are developing strategies to reduce GHG emissions within our owned fleet as well as our third-party transportation network. Visit our Climate Change section to learn more.

We will continue to collaborate with our transportation partners to look for innovative solutions to reduce emissions from transportation. For example, in 2017, we developed a 60-foot intermodal container in partnership with the Canadian Pacific Railway. These containers allow us to carry 13% more volume per container compared to a 53-foot container, enabling us to increase productivity while reducing GHG emissions.

Investing today for a better future

Investing today for a better future

In 2021, we acquired a minority share in Ashcroft Terminal, a 320-acre inland transload and storage terminal strategically located at the intersection of the Canadian Pacific Railway Limited and Canadian National Railway Company rail networks in British Columbia. The $40-million investment enhances the flexibility of our supply chain and will enable emission savings by replacing the use of long-haul trucks with rail in certain parts of our product transportation.

Visit our Climate Change section to learn more
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We partner with others to drive sustainable change

Collaboration with all players in a supply chain, including other brands and retailers, is a critical step to raising sustainability standards. Sustainability improvements across retail and consumer goods supply chains are systemic and complex, requiring cross-sector collaboration to facilitate progress. We are leveraging our network to support sustainable development both throughout our business and across Canada. Here are some of the ways we are accomplishing this work:

  • We are a member of the Retail Industry Leaders Association, a trade association for leading retailers that fosters collaboration between industry peers to advance progress on complex industry-wide issues, including sustainability.
  • We are a founding member of the Canada Plastics Pact, a partnership of business leaders committed to keeping plastics in the economy and out of the environment.
  • We are a founding member of the Circular Economy Leadership Canada, an organization providing thought leadership, technical expertise and a collaborative platform, to accelerate the transition to a low-carbon, circular economy in Canada. 

Lead by Helly Hansen, a bluesign member, we are leveraging many bluesign-approved fabrics and trims in our product offerings. bluesign is an independent authority that supports standards for sustainable textile production. Based on strict criteria, bluesign develops auxiliary material and services to support companies specifically in sustainable development.

Making an impact with CottonConnect

In 2021, Mark’s sponsored a drip irrigation program in India through CottonConnect, an organization that works to improve sustainability practices in the cotton supply chain. Mark's has partnered with CottonConnect since 2011, working together to educate cotton farmers on sustainable ways to decrease their dependence on chemical fertilizers, contribute to improved air quality, reduce water usage and enhance their livelihoods by growing high-quality cotton.

Compared to a control group, farmers who participated in the drip irrigation program saw a 10.5% increase in yield while achieving a 13.2% reduction in water usage, 20.8% reduction in chemical fertilizer usage and 5.3% reduction in input costs. For more information, please visit CottonConnect's website.

Consumer Goods Forum’s golden design rules

Unless otherwise indicated, information in this ESG Report is provided for the 2021 fiscal year. For further information on our approach to ESG reporting, including our Glossary, which sets out definitions of capitalized terms and acronyms that are not otherwise defined in this page, and our forward-looking information disclaimer, please click here.