Supply Chain Traceability & Transparency
Target’s responsible sourcing strategy is grounded in our commitment to increased supply chain transparency and to embracing opportunities to drive positive change.
Traceability program
We aim to take care of the resources we have today and reduce the impact our product manufacturing has on workers throughout the supply chain and on the environment.
Our initiatives are grounded in traceability to enable holistic engagement between people and planet. Target works with our owned brand suppliers to conduct supply chain mapping for key commodities and enable our ability to track the journey from raw materials to finished product. We aim to achieve full visibility not only to where our raw materials originate, but also across our suppliers throughout each tier of our supply chain, their locations and how those locations may evolve over time. To accomplish this, we have increased our requirements further back in the supply chain through location disclosure.
Location disclosure
Target’s Location Disclosure requirements for our Responsible Sourcing Program ensures we have visibility to locations to enable oversight against Target's Standards of Vendor Engagement (SOVE).
All suppliers that fall into one of the below categories are required to comply with Target’s Location Disclosure requirements:
Target owned brand products (Tier 1)
Target owned brand apparel and home Tier 2 (fabric, branded trim and packaging)
Target-exclusive products
Nationally branded products for which Target is the importer of record
All disclosed manufacturing locations must comply with our Responsible Sourcing Program.
Mapping the supply chain and global factory list
We publish a list of all Tier 1 locations that produce our owned brand products. This list is subject to change, and updates are made on a quarterly basis.
Download Target's global factory list (.xls)
We are committed to industry-aligned approaches and actively contribute to industry data tools and platforms that support data sharing, data accuracy and enhanced transparency for the industry as a whole. As an example, we upload our global factory list to the Open Supply Hub registry every quarter.
We support the Institute of Public & Environmental Affairs (IPE)’s Green Supply Chain Map initiative. Using credible, publicly available data, IPE’s Map provides both real-time performance data and historical trend information related to air pollution emissions and wastewater discharge for manufacturing locations. Target contributes by sharing our apparel fabric supplier factory list and maintaining updates for use in IPE’s mapping efforts. Map users can click the Target logos to access information on those factories’ environmental performance and sustainability efforts.
Material tracing
To help our suppliers source responsibly while minimizing harm to the planet and supporting communities, we have developed policies and programs including material-tracing programs for key materials like cotton, palm oil and seafood. Our key material prioritization is based on risk criteria and in service of achieving our sustainability efforts.
Cotton: We focus on cotton due to its prevalence in our assortment, the regulatory requirements surrounding cotton and our commitment to source cotton more sustainably for owned brands.
Palm oil: We are supporting our palm oil sustainability work to trace palm oil to the mill level. Given the challenges upstream in this supply chain, understanding where our suppliers source palm oil is essential.
Seafood: Our commitment to Sustainable Seafood outlines Target's environmental sourcing criteria and vendor expectations for traceability and social responsibility within our seafood supply chains. The commitment applies to all fresh, frozen, shelf-stable, and sushi seafood products, as well as frozen meals containing seafood. It also covers owned-brand pet food and fish and krill oil supplements.
Learn more about our approach to responsible materials and ingredients.
Transparency in supply chains disclosure
Our commitment to supply chain transparency can be found in our annual Transparency in Supply Chains disclosure: