Canadian Tire

Sustainable Supply Chain Management

Our Commitment

We are committed to reducing the environmental impact of our sourcing practices through ongoing collaboration with our suppliers and enhancing traceability throughout our supply chain.

To deliver world class products to our customers through our sourcing and design capabilities, we start by determining 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 various ways that we work with our vendors, from procurement of national brand products to innovation through new product design, materials sourcing and the manufacturing of our owned brand products. Our ability to achieve our business objectives demands that every link in our supply chain be strong and built with a long-term view.

Our global sourcing network

We work with a global network of over 2,500 vendors across our banners to bring our owned brand and national brand products to our store shelves. This is an interconnected and complex network that relies on sourcing and supply chain partners across the globe to support our operations. In 2022, our top ten sourcing countries by dollars spent were: China, Canada, the United States, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Cambodia, Mexico, Malaysia, Taiwan and Israel.

Pixelized world map

We know that minimizing the environmental impact of our supply chain is crucial for the health and sustainability of our planet. Many of the activities required to bring a product to store shelves have impacts on the environment, including raw material extraction, manufacturing and transportation. 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, while also balancing the environmental impacts of the operations.

Our approach to mitigating these risks is rooted in strong partnerships with both merchandise and transportation vendors. We have a long-standing commitment to working directly with both domestic and offshore vendors to consistently optimize shipments and reduce the environmental impacts of transportation. With mutual respect for craftsmanship, logistics, local communities and the environment, we can work together to build a better future for all.

We Are Here to Make Life in Canada Better by providing customers with the products they want, in a way that respects the environment.

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, which efficiently moves products across the world. Our Supply Chain team is continually improving the resiliency of our logistics operations, and we are always looking for new ways to reduce the environmental impacts across our supply chain.

Progress towards the sustainability of our supply chain requires a relationship with our vendors that is grounded in honesty, integrity and respect, and is guided by our Supplier Code of Business Conduct. It is designed to ensure that vendors clearly understand how we expect to conduct our business, including standards and policies on labour, work conditions, wages, health and safety and the environment. All our vendors must agree to abide by these commitments as a condition of doing business with CTC. The Supplier Code of Business Conduct is supported by an audit process that includes training and education to help vendors understand and apply the policies. By working with suppliers and business partners who are aligned with our corporate values, we are building a more resilient and responsible network to service our customers. The Supplier Code of Business Conduct is reviewed regularly, and we are planning to do a comprehensive refresh of the policy in 2023.

To learn more about how we uphold these standards across our supply chain, see our Human Rights & Social Responsibility section.

Get to know our standards: Supplier Code of Business Conduct

Supplier Code of Business Conduct

Boat with freight
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Managing the environmental impacts in our supply chain

We are diligently working to develop our plans to reduce the environmental impacts in our supply chain. Our current focus is on gaining visibility into the greenhouse gas emissions that arise from activities like the raw material extraction and manufacture of our products before they arrive in our distribution centres (these contribute to CTC’s overall “Scope 3 emissions,” which you can learn more about in our Climate Change section and our 2022 Climate Data Supplement.

Given that these activities are outside of our direct control, measuring and reducing these emissions must be achieved in collaboration with our vendors, taking into consideration their own climate commitments, carbon footprints and emissions-reduction initiatives.

Tier 1 suppliers and beyond

Our global sourcing network is made up of a series of suppliers who each play a role in the sourcing, production and manufacturing of products before they arrive on our store shelves. The factories that supply the finished owned brand goods directly to CTC are referred to as our Tier 1 suppliers (these may be owned or subcontracted by our vendors). The suppliers who transact directly with our Tier 1 suppliers are referred to as Tier 2 suppliers, and so on.

Our efforts to improve the environmental impacts of our supply chain are primarily focused on our Tier 1 suppliers because we have the most influence over them. However, we are also working to improve the transparency of our supply chain networks and ensure that supplier facilities beyond Tier 1 meet our rigorous standards.

Tier 4

Suppliers who extract raw materials

Tier 3

Suppliers who process raw materials into components

Tier 2

Suppliers who manufacture the final product using component pieces

Tier 1

Suppliers who assemble and package the final product

CTC

Sale of product

Within our apparel and footwear supply chain, we are leveraging the industry leading Higg Facility Environmental Module (Higg FEM) program developed by the Sustainable Apparel Coalition. The Higg FEM program provides a consistent methodology to measure factory carbon footprints, giving us a clearer picture of our Scope 3 emissions along our value chain, while also facilitating conversations with our supply chain partners to make improvements to their own environmental impacts. In 2022, 13 of Helly Hansen’s Tier 1 supplier factories and 53 of Helly Hansen’s Tier 2 supplier factories completed a Higg FEM assessment. In 2023, we will continue to gather Higg FEM data from factories manufacturing our owned brand products across more of our banners.

Helly Hansen: Tracing the Supply Chain

In 2022, Helly Hansen ran a pilot to improve traceability within its supply chain, and in early 2023, it invested in a supply chain tracing software called TrusTrace. The pilot was an important step in gaining more knowledge about Tier 3 and 4 suppliers, enabling Helly Hansen to better minimize risks, drive change and reduce the negative impacts within its supply chain. Helly Hansen intends to leverage the lessons from the pilot to continue mapping out its suppliers, materials and products.

We recognize that many of the environmental impacts in our supply chain are interconnected with the larger global retail and manufacturing system. As a result, we also invest in and collaborate with our supply chain partners, including other brands and retailers. Sustainability challenges 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 throughout our business and across Canada. Here are some of the ways we are advancing 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 businesses 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.

Reducing GHG emissions in our transportation activities

We work closely with our transportation partners to improve the sustainability of our supply chain transportation networks while 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 applying cube optimization, have resulted in cost efficiencies and reductions in fuel use and emissions. Changing our operational infrastructure requires dedicated investments, like when we developed the 60-foot intermodal containers with Canadian Pacific Railway to increase transport productivity.

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 the third-party emissions related to our business. For details on our transportation carbon footprint, please see our 2022 Climate Data Supplement.

Unless otherwise indicated, information in this ESG Report is provided for the 2022 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 on this page, and our forward-looking information disclaimer, please click here.