Welcome Letter from Sally Jewell

When Lloyd and Mary Anderson founded REI as a consumer co-op in 1938, they began a "virtuous cycle" by which REI's success translates into value for our members, customers, and communities. Seventy years later, we are proud to continue the Andersons' legacy by working to conserve nature and encourage the responsible use of the outdoors for the enjoyment of future generations. Our core purpose to inspire, educate and outfit people for a lifetime of outdoor adventure and stewardship guides our business operations and relationships with our members and communities.

As part of our commitment, we are pleased to publish our second annual stewardship report. This document reflects your co-op's strategic priorities on the social and environmental impacts of our business and how we are working to better serve our communities and identify opportunities to improve our operations. We recognize that our stewardship efforts are a journey. While our report shows progress, we also want to be transparent about areas where we have work left to do.

We invite you to read more about our work in the following:

Community — This section describes our efforts to encourage active hands-on conservation efforts and grow participation in responsible outdoor recreation, with a particular focus on engaging youth.

Environment — This section describes our achievements and opportunities in reducing the impact of our business operations on the environment, specifically, energy use, green building, paper use, waste reduction and responsible products.

People — This section describes REI's commitment to being a welcoming and rewarding place to work, and how the cooperative supports socially responsible factory manufacturing around the world for the REI brand and in collaboration with other companies.

We welcome your thoughts about our progress, and invite you to take our online survey or send us your comments at stewardship@rei.com.

Warmly,

Sally Jewell

REI President and CEO