How we manage sustainability

Global Sustainability Governance

The C&A AG has a well-organised and streamlined business planning and decision-making process that integrates and embeds sustainability. The C&A Global Sustainability team works closely with other functions across the business and collaborates with C&A retail market teams to help develop locally relevant plans and key performance indicators that advance us towards our 2028 sustainability goals at the C&A brand level, whilst recognizing ownership of locally relevant plans by the retail market teams. Each retail market business and the C&A AG Sustainability Committee review and approve these action plans bi-annually.

C&A Europe Sustainability Governance

At C&A Europe, we apply clear accountabilities and governance process to plan and execute the sustainability strategy. The C&A Europe Range & Sustainability (R&S) Committee — which includes the CEO, members of the Leadership Team, Head of Transformation Office, and selected Heads of Functions when relevant — reviews and approves targets, goals and roadmaps and meets monthly.

The C&A Europe Sustainability Council provides further support to the R&S Committee and helps to define and drive execution of our sustainability goals. The Council represents all the business units that have sustainability targets associated with their performance and provides a forum to align on actions and prioritization. The Council meets quarterly to ensure the implementation of the Sustainability goals is on track versus the roadmaps approved by the R&S Committee. The Council includes Heads of Function for all areas directly involved in the sustainability strategy execution, as well as the Transformation Office.

The Global Sustainability Team, led by the Head of Global Sustainability & Innovation has strategic as well as operational responsibilities. Dedicated leads for Social, Environmental, Raw Materials & Circularity and Transparency & Reporting propose strategic initiatives and collaborate with the business to drive execution and identify critical concerns. The leads report to the Head of Sustainability or the Head of Sourcing who report to the Chief Operations Officer. The Chief Operations Officer is part of the C&A Europe Range & Sustainability Committee.

At C&A Europe, Sustainability Governance is as follows:

Linking Executive Compensation to Sustainability Performance

Globally, the members of C&A leadership are evaluated quarterly against their defined business goals, of which sustainability performance is a part. Among our leadership, the Head of Global Sustainability & Innovation together with the Chief Operations Officer have the most significant responsibility for ensuring our sustainability strategy is implemented by all the business units and meeting our key performance indicators for human rights, environmental management, and other aspects of our sustainability strategy, with bonus compensation directly tied to successful achievement of these goals. Sustainability objectives are also included in the annual bonus compensation of C&A retail market leadership.

Each year we evaluate and prioritize the material sustainability issues to ensure we remain focused on the most important issues and impacts of our company, value chain, and industry. Our 2021-2022 evaluation used a different methodology from our previous assessments, which focused on the importance to stakeholders and the impacts on our business. This assessment evaluated the impacts of business activities and impacts on enterprise value. Importantly, the 2021-2022 assessment focused on C&A Europe, whilst the previous assessments were global. This most recent assessment also asked stakeholders about the importance of key topics, including human rights, responsible purchasing practices and decent wages, greenhouse gas emissions, sustainable raw materials, and recycled materials. Assessment results are shown in the materiality matrix.

2021-2022 Materiality Assessment

We engaged with the external service provider UL Solutions to conduct the 2021-2022 materiality assessment. Doing so enables us to better align our materiality work with our data management approach, by using a holistic methodology considering all aspects of the business to track and analyse our sustainability performance data.

Material topics are considering both C&A’s actual and potential impacts on people, society and the environment, as well as risks and opportunities which can affect the financial condition, operating performance, or risk profile of C&A.

Scope: Our materiality assessment applies to C&A Europe and considers risks, opportunities and impacts relating to our operations and supply chain.

Due diligence: In 2021, C&A completed its first OECD due diligence risk assessment process.

For details on approach and findings please refer to our website or to this link and choose “Roadmap”.

In early 2023, C&A has conducted a second OECD Due Diligence risk assessment, taking into account requirements of the German Supply Chain Due Diligence Act and respective guidance published by Federal Office for Economic Affairs and Export Control.

Our Stakeholders

Stakeholder input is a key part of our materiality assessment to make sure we continue focusing on the issues of greatest importance to our employees, customers, government bodies, suppliers, and communities where we operate. Beyond our annual materiality assessment, we engage with stakeholders to understand their perspectives on key issues in the apparel industry. Through this engagement, we can work together to find solutions and to continually improve our strategy. Our stakeholder engagement process includes the following steps:

1. Identify stakeholders and understand their scope and perspective.

2. Prioritize stakeholders.

3. Engage with our stakeholders and maintain an active dialogue, including them in consultations to ensure continuous improvement of our sustainability strategy and programs.

Please see our 2022 Sustainability report for more about our partnerships and collaborations to drive widespread improvements.

Materiality Assessment Process

The materiality assessment included:

Step 1: Identifying potential material topics and boundaries — considering, amongst other factors, external standards, sector topics, legislation, NGO questionnaires, stakeholder dialogues and reports, and business intelligence, whilst also incorporating our OECD risk assessment findings and related stakeholder consultations.

Step 2: Selecting a wide range of stakeholders (internal and external) to understand social, environmental, and economic impacts from a stakeholder perspective as well as the level of importance of a topic to the stakeholder. This stakeholder feedback is extremely valuable to determine impact and importance of issues for different stakeholder groups and, hence, for assessing the materiality of different concerns. All stakeholder consultations and discussions took place in a confidential and trustful manner, and associated data and outcomes were aggregated methodically. The Stakeholder consultation included beside others consumer, NGO, Industry initiatives, Policy maker, C&A supplier and C&A employees.

Step 3: Conducting a stakeholder survey to gain additional insights about the impacts to society and the environment of C&A business activities on stakeholder groups, including the level of importance given to a certain topic, whilst being sure to identify any blind spots or risks we had not otherwise identified.

Step 4: Conducting internal expert workshops and surveys to understand impact of potential material topics on enterprise value.

Step 5: Weighting of the different stakeholder groups per topic to allow a fair representation of stakeholder expertise and potential impact.

Step 6: Weighting of impact of business activities (70%) vs. importance (30%) to ensure an impact-driven view.

Step 7: Analysing stakeholder survey outcome vs. risks identified in OECD risk assessment to ensure that any actual risks identified are being thoroughly considered.

Step 8: Analysing the social, environmental, and economic impacts along our value chain to inform our strategy and adapt policies and procedure. In 2021, as in 2020, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic influenced this evaluation.

Step 9: Aiming to make the stakeholder surveys valuable to our external stakeholders. To this end, we will provide feedback, where feasible, about how the information they provided has been incorporated in the final materiality matrix with a view to ensure a mutually fruitful, continuous dialogue. All feedback from external stakeholders is treated as strictly confidential. Insights drawn from the feedback of an individual stakeholder group or organization will not be publicly linked to the person or organization.

The relative priorities of the material topics are shown in our materiality matrix and reflected in our sustainability focus areas. All the potential material topics are addressed by C&A’s 2028 Sustainability Strategy except for diversity, equity and Human rights (DE&HR) in C&A’s own operations, and quality. However, these are addressed as part of a dedicated DE&HR strategy and a product quality strategy, respectively. We are using the outcome of the materiality assessment to assess the need to adapt priorities and activities as we continue implementing programs in support of our 2028 Sustainability Strategy.