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Canada Goose Inc&trade, a Canadian extreme outerwear company, has recently put in place an initiative to furnish Arctic residents with fabrics and accessories they can use to manufacture winter clothing. This project diverts the manufacturer's high quality surplus materials to populations that have traditionally made parkas from scarce leftover fabrics.

To distribute these materials to remote populations, Canada Goose partnered with First Air, an airline company that flies to Arctic destinations and The North West Company, a leading retailer in the north. In all, three distribution points, named "Canada Goose Resource Centres", are being established at Nunavut, at Northern in Pond Inlet on and at Northmart in Iqaluit.

For decades, Canada Goose Inc. has distinguished itself as a company that decided to go against the grain and to keep making its products locally when the overwhelming trend was to de-localize to cheap production sites overseas where worker conditions often take a back seat. The success of the brand, distributed in over 40 countries and named one of Canada’s fastest growing companies in 2006, blasted the accepted business wisdom that locally-produced goods could never compete with those made in places like China. As American Apparel had proved in the light cotton sector, a company can pay its workers decent wages, make a profit and grow its markets. Canada Goose makes the same case in the outerwear sector, where materials are more costly and the assembly is more complex.

The recent CSR (corporate social responsibility) initiative launched by the brand is directed at residents of the Canadian Arctic, where the company's jackets are widely used. Living with low incomes and skilled at making a lot with a little, northern sewers have traditionally made jackets and clothing for members of the community with any fabric that was close at hand. Seeing the need for good quality materials when visiting the Arctic, Canada Goose employees realized that their own excess fabrics, buttons, zippers, Velcro and other accessories would be very valuable to the traditional northern sewers and their communities who could use them to make parkas and jackets with high-quality fabrications suited to their extreme climate. This initiative also reduces waste of materials at Canada Goose, which is concerned with the company’s overall sustainability record.

This initiative is endorsed by ethiquette.ca, Canada's premier information website on sustainable products and services. For third party reviews of Canada Goose, view the evaluation of the company's products on ethiquette.ca and their business model on ethipedia.net here.

See also:www.canada-goose.com

ethiquette Inc.

ethiquette Inc.

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