Responsible Materials & Ingredients

Deforestation

Forests are critical to mitigating climate change, and Target recognizes that the ecosystem services provided by forests around the world are irreplaceable. We commit to working with our owned brand suppliers to protect forests by eliminating deforestation and forest degradation from our value chain. More specifically, we will focus on eliminating deforestation of primary forests and areas of High Conservation Value⁸, as well as High Carbon Stock⁹ forest areas and peatlands (regardless of depth). 

Commitment and targets

As a retailer with a wide variety of products, we understand the responsibility we have to protect forests around the world. We are committed to aiding in the global effort to end deforestation and forest degradation, and focus our efforts in the places we can have the most positive impact today — specifically, with palm oil and wood-based materials.  

We are committed to sustainably sourcing wood, paper and wood-based fibers in our priority owned brands; palm oil in all of our owned brands; and wood-based fibers in our owned brand packaging. We will build on our existing priority raw material commitments by evaluating high-risk commodities — including soy, leather and rubber — and their material significance to Target.  

Target recognizes that forests are not the only ecosystem under threat from commodity production. We are currently undertaking efforts to identify how and where conversion of other types of natural habitat, like grasslands and savannahs, touches our supply chain, such as our domestic beef supply chain. 

Implementation

As we learn more about our supply chains and the opportunities available to meet our commitments, we will adjust our activities as appropriate. Moving forward, teams across the company, alongside external partners, will continue to identify high-risk commodities, illuminate opportunities to amend our sourcing practices, and define verification, measurement and reporting processes for these commodities. Where appropriate, we will also partner with third parties, multi-stakeholder initiatives and other partners to address systemic issues. Finally, we’ll work collaboratively with our suppliers and critical business drivers and update stakeholders on the outcomes of our work via our reporting on sustainability and governance. 

Standards and certifications

Third-party standards help provide confidence in the practices used in our supply chain and help encourage positive change. To guide sourcing decisions for our owned brands, our suppliers utilize certifications including: 

• Forest Stewardship Council (FSC)  
• Marine Stewardship Council (MSC)  
• Aquaculture Stewardship Council  
• Best Aquaculture Practices  
• Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO)  
• Fair Trade USA  
• Better Cotton Initiative
• OEKO-TEX 

For our owned brand products to claim alignment with a standard, our vendors must have the same certification for the raw materials sourced for the product. We communicate sustainability-related information of interest to our guests using clear icons on product labels to highlight such certifications. 

Ingredients

We care deeply about what goes into our guests’ favorite products, and providing trusted choices for their families. We are committed to driving ingredient transparency and proactively managing chemicals across all of our owned and national brand consumer products — helping our guests to feel good about the products they buy. Our approach includes: 

• Following our comprehensive Chemicals Policy for the owned- and national-brand products we sell, as well as those used in our operations, which we launched in 2017. 
• Helping drive the identification and adoption of better options in essentials, beauty and apparel through participation in industry collaborations such as the Chemical Footprint Project, ChemFORWARD’s Know Better Do Better Collaborative and Safer Chemistry Impact Fund's Apparel Working Group. 
• Using certifications such as OEKO-TEX STANDARD 100 to independently test and certify products against a list of more than 1,000 specific substances. 
• Maintaining a Restricted Substance List (RSL) for owned brand textiles and the Target Priority Chemical List (TPCL) for formulated products, and incorporating both into business processes to proactively manage chemicals and accelerate the design of better options.  
• Encouraging supply chain partners¹⁰ to disclose the ingredients they use within their products to consumers and supporting those who voluntarily provide ingredient transparency beyond applicable regulatory requirements through guest-facing initiatives such as Target Clean.¹¹

Looking ahead, we will continue to advance these efforts to achieve measurable reductions in certain chemicals and materials¹² in our owned brand products and double our assortment of consciously formulated¹³ products in select categories.  

Improving chemical use in our supply chain

Target works with suppliers and industry partners to help reduce the use of certain chemicals in the manufacturing of our owned brand products, supporting better manufacturing practices for workers, surrounding communities and the environment. 

Beyond improving manufacturing practices, we continue to work toward reducing or eliminating certain chemicals and materials from our owned brand products and production processes as part of our broader chemical management approach.

Audits and verifications

Our Responsible Sourcing Program monitors the locations that produce our owned and exclusive brands, as well as those that produce national brand products for which Target is the importer of record. Environmental management indicators are part of our Standards of Vendor Engagement and are inclusive of but not limited to: possession of the appropriate permits, proper waste management methods, safe chemical usage and responsible wastewater stewardship practices. Read more about audits and continuous improvement. 

_{1 “Sustainable brands” refers to industry-leading products or services that have context-specific environmental and/or socially beneficial features, backed by credible standards and/or impact metrics.}

_{2 Leading raw materials include cotton, polyester, wood, paper, MMCF fibers, palm oil, polypropylene (PP), HD polyethylene (HDPE), seafood.}  

_{3 Target recognizes Forest Stewardship Council, Sustainable Forestry Initiative and PEFC certifications as credible forest certification systems, with a preference for FSC. Other certifications may be considered on a case-by-case basis.}   

_{4 Target recognizes Forest Stewardship Council, Sustainable Forestry Initiative and PEFC certifications as credible forest certification systems, with a preference for FSC. Other certifications may be considered on a case-by-case basis.}  

_{5 Sustainable palm oil from certified sources is mixed with non-certified palm oil throughout supply chain.}    

_{6 Sustainable palm oil from different certified sources is kept separate from non-certified palm oil throughout supply chain.} 

_{7 Sustainable palm oil from a single identifiable certified source is kept separate from non-certified palm oil throughout supply chain.} 

_{8 High Conservation Values (HCVs) are biological, ecological, social or cultural values which are outstandingly significant or critically important at the national, regional or global level. There are six defined types of HCV areas; visit the HCV Resource Network for more information.}  

_{9 High Carbon Stock (HCS) forests can be identified through a standardized methodology based on analysis of satellite data and ground survey measurement. Visit the HCS Approach website for more information.}  

_{10 Given our role as a retailer and that we source all materials used in our owned brand products from third-party business partners, Target does not manufacture any chemicals.} 

_{11 A Target-created program denoting select owned and national brand products formulated or made without specific ingredients that meet Target Clean criteria and, where applicable, animal welfare requirements. Program criteria varies by product category. See the Target Clean program webpage for eligibility requirements.}   

_{12 As rated by ChemFORWARD.} 

_{13 Third-party validated products formulated without Target’s priority chemicals (e.g., Target Clean).}