REI sources manufactured products both domestically and globally.

Increasingly, consumer goods are being manufactured around the world, often in emerging markets. While global manufacturing benefits consumers by delivering high-quality products at competitive prices, there have been justified concerns about the conditions workers face in contracted manufacturing facilities.

Over the past decade, global companies and contract suppliers have sought to move factory standards for labor and safety to globally accepted standards. Addressing the global manufacturing process, also known as the supply chain, is extremely complex because it crosses vast geography, cultures, and government and political systems.

REI has been working for over a decade with the goal of assuring that factory working conditions where REI brand gear and apparel are made meet our expectations. Our focus is two-fold:

• Working to achieve factory compliance in the contract facilities where our products are manufactured
• Working collaboratively with our industry peers on a common set of compliance standards where non-REI branded products are manufactured

We are pursuing this work with the longer range goal that all goods sold in REI stores be manufactured in factories with a demonstrated track record of meeting internationally recognized labor and safety standards. We have two interim goals to pursue compliance in the factories that produce REI branded gear and the other products we sell.

• Annual improvement by our manufacturing locations regarding internationally recognized labor and safety standards.
• For other branded products sold at REI, we have set a goal that, by the end of 2009, will require documented evidence of labor compliance for the factories where these products are made. When issues are uncovered, we will take remedial action as needed.