Our guests want to know about the chemicals used to make their favorite products, and they look to Target for better options for their families. So in 2017, we launched a new strategy, including a chemical policy and goals, to help us manage chemicals across our assortment and operations.
our policy
Target is committed to driving transparency, proactive chemical management and innovation across all of our owned and national brand consumer products, and operations. We’ll do it through...
Transparency. We’ll strive for full visibility to chemicals contained in or used to make the products we sell and use in our operations.
Chemical management. We’ll work with business partners to implement policies, practices and tools that facilitate the management of chemicals throughout our supply chain and across our operations.
Innovation. We recognize that safer alternatives may not exist today for some chemicals, therefore we will actively pursue and promote new approaches to chemicals development and the commercialization of safer alternatives.
view our full chemical policy
our goals
We introduced our first set of goals in 2017, aimed at addressing unwanted chemicals with the biggest potential health impact, and factoring in their prevalence within our products. The goals also prioritize products guests tell us are most important to them—like the ones that go in, on and around their bodies.
Transparency
- Achieve transparency to all ingredients, including generics such as ‘fragrance’, in beauty, baby care, personal care and household cleaning formulated products by 2020.
Chemical Management
- Improve textile products by removing added Perfluorinated Chemicals (PFC’s) from products by 2022.
- Improve textile products by removing added flame retardants that are potential carcinogens or pose harm to the guest, workers or communities by 2022.
- Improve beauty, baby care, personal care and household cleaning product categories by formulating without phthalates, propyl-paraben, butyl-paraben, formaldehyde, formaldehyde-donors, or NPE’s by 2020.
- By 2025, remove intentionally added Perfluorinated Alky Substances (PFAS) from owned brand products including but not limited to textiles, formulated, cosmetics, beauty and cookware items.
Innovation
- Invest up to $5 million in green chemistry innovation by 2022.
read more about our reporting & progress
implementing our policy
Our chemical policy is an integral part of our enterprise-wide sustainability commitments and overarching responsible sourcing aspirations. We believe that by supporting our vendors in being more transparent about the ingredients in products, we can spur innovation across all of our product categories and operations and help reduce unwanted substances from the homes and workplaces of millions of guests.
One key principle of our chemical policy is the desire to find safer alternatives and avoid regrettable substitutions. We’ve made detailed guidance and resources available to our suppliers on how to find, assess, compare and select safer alternatives to harmful chemicals in their products and how to avoid regrettable substitutions. Another key principle that we use to implement our policy is to vary our approach based on the needs of the product category or part of our business.
textile product categories
As part of our chemical policy commitments, we are actively working to make progress toward greater transparency, better chemical management and innovation in our textiles products. When we announced our chemical policy in 2017, we set aspirational goals toward removing added perfluorinated chemicals (PFCs) and unwanted flame retardants from all of our textile products by 2022.
We also stated we would utilize a restricted substance list as applicable for Target product. This will be done by restricting chemicals in our manufacturing processes (MRSL) and through an additional list restricting chemicals in the product (RSL).
For our MRSL/RSL, this will apply to all Owned Brand Products for Target and includes the following product and facility types.
- Clothing (entire garment/textile product including trims)
- Non-clothing (furniture, bedding, footwear, umbrellas, etc.) fabric only
- Facility (MRSL only) – Clothing, non-clothing – fabric: dyeing/finishing forward
The effective date for RSL is product manufactured on or after January 1, 2020. As of 2018, Target became a signatory brand of the ZDHC Roadmap to Zero Programme and adopted the ZDHC MRSL. It is expected that our suppliers adopt, utilize and have access to the ZDHC tools (ZDHC Gateway, Reporting, etc.) and comply with these requirements.
We have and will continue to provide our vendors guidance on our RSL, MRSL and chemical management via our online supplier platform. We know that our vendors and manufacturing supply chain play the biggest part in ensuring we are driving continuous improvement in meeting our chemical policy expectations. We will continue to work with vendors and supply chain partners on our ongoing efforts toward meeting our chemical policy goals and objectives.
view additional information on our textiles work
formulated essentials product categories
To meet our 2020 goals, we are implementing solutions that facilitate increased access to ingredient information, remove unwanted chemicals in the products we sell and provide safer chemical alternatives. These are enormous tasks with no easy answers, so we are investing resources and expertise, especially where no viable solutions currently exist.
For example, our work during the GC3 Preservatives Challenge to drive innovation in the preservatives category, has helped to advance greener chemistry in beauty and personal care products. Furthermore, we will continue to use our chemical policy and goals as the foundation for our formulated products, and other initiatives will build on this foundation, such as our Wellness Icon work and Target Clean standard.
As our chemical policy states, “Target will approach transparency in the supply chain as an iterative process, continually adding more product categories and achieving increasing levels of transparency.” We encourage all supply chain partners to find paths allowing full material disclosure to consumers, and support those who are actively going above and beyond the current transparency regulations. View our three-page vendor guidance on meeting our current ingredient and transparency expectations, which represent a step-wise approach to the full consumer disclosure we ultimately seek.
our operations efforts
To continue our leadership and demonstrate our commitment to our Chemical Policy, we’ve identified areas within our operations where we’re taking action on driving transparency and chemical management.
- Receipt Paper: Later this year, Target will transition to phenol-free receipt paper for our stores. There is growing concern—backed by studies—around the negative health effects of handling BPA (Bisphenol A) and BPS (Bisphenol S), chemicals found in standard thermal receipt paper. By switching to a phenol-free receipt paper Target will be taking a significant step in proactively ensuring the ongoing safety and health of our team members and guests. By end of year 2020, Target will have fully converted to phenol-free receipt paper for use in all standard and mobile-device checkout lanes.
- Smart Salting: Target has revamped our salt application training at stores that experience snow and ice-related events during winter. This training helps ensure our team members apply salt appropriately, reducing any negative impact to local water bodies, while still maintaining a safe environment for the guest.
- Neonicotinoid management: In an effort to do our part to address the growing evidence suggesting that the use of neonicotinoids (neonics) insecticides may be harmful to bee populations, Target has implemented a system to increase transparency by tracking vendors’ use of this chemical on our properties. Our aim is to have an in-depth understanding of where neonics are used on Target properties in order to develop better risk management options and best practices around managing neonics in the future.
promoting pollinator health
In addition to the neonicotinoid work within our operations, we also provide the following guidance to partners in support of protecting pollinators.
The following guidance applies to all our produce, live plants and flowers supply chains (Owned Brand and National Brand):
- Suppliers are encouraged to limit non-essential use of pesticides and employ Integrated Pest Management (IPM) strategies whenever possible.
- Suppliers are encouraged to transition away from neonicotinoids and chlorpyrifos in favor of alternative solutions, unless mandated by law. When phasing out these pesticides, suppliers are encouraged to avoid regrettable substitutions. (This link contains the list of chemicals subject to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s policy to mitigate the acute risk to bees from pesticide products.)
- Live plant suppliers are encouraged to label pollinator-friendly plants (plants grown without neonicotinoids, flupyradifurone and sulfoxaflor) for sale in our retail stores.
- Continue to avoid selling invasive live plant species based on recognized regional lists.
- Application of any chemicals or pesticides must meet or exceed all local and federal laws, regulations, and guidelines. Suppliers may be asked for documentation at any time.
- We support and encourage the growth of the Organic Industry and the High Tech Hot House or Greenhouse Grown Industries with their primary reliance on the use of IPM.
green chemistry & safer alternatives innovation
One of the ways we’re meeting our Innovation commitment is by using our philanthropic resources to support the work of organizations driving innovation across the chemicals value chain.
We requested proposals from nonprofit organizations, schools or public agencies committed to driving systems change to advance green chemistry in any of the following four key areas: Awareness, Transparency, Chemical Assessment and Safer Alternatives.
view the grant recipients
it takes teamwork
How do we do it? We’re working closely with our vendors, supply chain partners, NGOs and other stakeholders across the industry to identify unwanted substances in products and operations, understand how they impact health, and work to develop safer alternatives.
Meet some of our partners: