Bath & Body Works
At a Glance
Industry
Retail and Apparel
Project Types
Goals/Targets, Sustainability and Energy Management Strategy
Year
2023
Location
Reynoldsburg, OH
Summary
Gale Chareancholwanich performed water usage baseline and assessed biodiversity strategy opportunities for Bath & Body Works (BBW), which is a specialty retailer and a global leader in personal care and home fragrance products.
Goals
Project I: Calculate water baseline for direct (stores and offices across the US) and indirect consumption (commodities, production, and manufacturing sites). Then, assess baseline water-stressed risk areas, benchmark peers, and recommend a mitigation plan.
Project II: Define key pressures in priority ingredients, including intersectionality with climate, sustainable sourcing, and business impact on biodiversity. The goal is to propose ideas to mitigate biodiversity impacts across the supply chain, recommend partners, and benchmark peers.
Solutions
Project I: Water
- Recommended creating more engagement with suppliers to improve data collection and visibility across the supply chain.
- Recommended focus areas and potential organizations to partner with to mitigate impacts in river basins located in areas of extremely high baseline water stress.
- Provided examples of best practices to implement water efficiency programs on reducing water consumption/water withdrawal.
Project II: Biodiversity
- Identified pressures on primary agricultural ingredients and provided lists of impacts to specific habitats, species, and ecosystem services.
- Suggested short term and long-term biodiversity strategy approach:
- In the short term incorporate biodiversity into current strategy under sustainable sourcing and climate change pillars of ESG strategy.
- In the long term launch a nature commitment involving regeneration/restoration of lands or forests or support for regenerative agriculture and deforestation-free practices in the supply chain.
Potential Impact
This project provided BBW with a baseline water footprint for directly used water and insights into indirect water use and biodiversity risks in the upstream supply chain. The solutions provided visibility into potential focus areas for BBW to mitigate risks in water stressed areas and biodiversity in the supply chain.
In complement, qualitative "policy” foundations, as well as the foundations to develop a comprehensive water and biodiversity strategy were also proposed.