Environmental Sustainability
Understanding and targeting environmental impacts throughout our company, products, and supply chain.
We recognize the actual and potential environmental impact of the Fanatics business and have identified the need for a more robust program to manage our footprint. To get a true understanding of our impact, Fanatics has begun conducting annual company-wide Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions inventories, while also developing programs to operationalize solutions within specific areas of our business. In building an environmental sustainability strategy for Fanatics Brands, we have prioritized programs covering two areas — products and manufacturing — which according to industry research, are the areas that contain the largest overall impacts within an apparel company’s value chain.
As our environmental sustainability strategy develops, it will expand to include value chain measurement of other key impacts, including areas within the planetary boundaries model identified as significant, such as biodiversity, air and water pollution, and waste. We will examine and address these impacts through our existing product and manufacturing programs.
climate
In 2022, Fanatics launched its initial Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions exercise covering Scopes 1 and 2, in alignment with the Greenhouse Gas Protocol Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standard. With the lessons learned from this preparatory exercise, in early 2023, we conducted our Scopes 1 and 2 baseline inventory for the calendar year 2022 on a company-wide basis and began a preparatory exercise for Scope 3 emissions, which will enable us to track and measure Scope 3 value chain emissions in the future. These annual inventories will further enable target setting and data-driven mitigation of our climate impacts.
In alignment with the GHG Protocol Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standard:
SCOPE 1 data includes direct GHG emissions from sourcesowned or controlled by Fanatics, such as the on-site generation of heat, electricity or steam, transportation, fugitive emissions (HVAC), and physical or chemical processing.
SCOPE 2 data includes indirect emissions from the generation of purchased energy. Examples include purchased electricity, heating, cooling, and purchased renewable electricity.
SCOPE 3 data includes all other indirect emissions Fanatics is responsible for in its upstream and downstream value chain, such as emissions from purchased goods, business travel, and consumer use of Fanatics’ products.
product
While our own enterprise-level impact inventories are still in progress, we know from apparel industry research that most critical environmental impacts will occur in our upstream supply chain, beyond our own direct suppliers. One of the strongest vehicles we have as an organization to address theseupstream impacts is our product design and development process.
In 2022, we began engagement with our Fanatics Brands product creation teams to analyze product and materials data and launch discussions around product sustainability. We also hired our first team member fully dedicated to the product sustainability program. Additionally, we became a member of Textile Exchange, a global nonprofit driving positive impact on climate change across the fashion and textile industry, to facilitate our adoption of preferred materials.
As of 2023, Fanatics Brands is now a proud member of Better Cotton. Better Cotton’s mission is to help cotton communities survive and thrive, while protecting and restoring the environment.
Fanatics Brands is committed to improving cotton farming practices globally with Better Cotton. Through its implementing partners, Better Cotton trains farmers to use water efficiently, care for soil health and natural habitats, reduce use of the most harmful chemicals and respect workers’ rights and wellbeing. Better Cotton is sourced via a chain of custody model called mass balance. This means that Better Cotton is not physically traceable to end products, however, Better Cotton Farmers benefit from the demand for Better Cotton in equivalent volumes to those we ‘source.’ Manufacturing
Fanatics Brands is proud to be affiliated with Cascale (formerly known as the Sustainable Apparel Coalition (SAC)), the industry’s leading alliance promoting sustainable production. Cascale represents over 300 brands, retailers, manufacturers, NGOs, and other members working toward the vision of an apparel industry, “that gives back more than it takes to the planet and its people.”
Through this membership Fanatics is progressively adopting the SAC’s Higg Index, a suite of tools used to measure the sustainability performance of a product, facility, or company. Information gained from the Higg Index tools will allow Fanatics to meet its additional commitments in the areas of transparency, collaboration and environmental impact reduction.
For Fanatics Brands' environmental work in the manufacturing supply chain, we are leveraging the Higg Facility Environmental Module (FEM) to measure the environmental performance of Tier 1 and Tier 2 supply chain facilities and ensure adherence to local law and Fanatics’ internal standards.
The work conducted to date to baseline environmental impact in our manufacturing supply chain will serve as the foundation for monitoring supply chain facilities for minimum environmental compliance, targeting impact reduction programming, and tracking improvements over time.
OUR ZERO WASTE-TO-LANDFILL COMMITMENT
Fanatics is steadily improving its efforts to divert all waste from landfill disposal by reducing, reusing, recycling at every step in our owned supply chain. The goal is to be 100% zero waste to landfill by 2030 in our existing U.S. facilities, making us one of the global leaders on this front.
To achieve this goal, Fanatics is partnering with Link International, an industry leader in sustainability. Since our partnership began in 2018, we have increased tons of waste diverted from the landfill by 7% – putting us on track to achieve our countdown to zero at Fanatics’ Louisville, Las Vegas, and Jacksonville sites in the next five years.
In 2020, Fanatics made a significant reduction in its carbon footprint – the equivalent of planting 3,684 acres of U.S. forest or reducing gasoline use by 439,603 gallons.