Corporate Responsibility

We want you to be proud to wear our products, and use our accessories and equipment anytime you step into the Greater Outdoors. Stakeholder input is invaluable to the continuous improvement of our corporate responsibility programs. I invite you to learn what we’ve been doing and participate in making our programs better by providing your feedback at cr@columbia.com.

—Tim Boyle, President, CEO, and Director

HERproject (Health Enables Returns)

If you could triple your investment and help people at the same time, would you do it?

That’s the concept of HERproject (or Health Enables Returns).

In 2007, United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Bureau for Global Health funded a study in a Bangladeshi factory that found “an indicative savings to the company of $3 for every $1 it spent on the health services.” Business for Social Responsibility (BSR) has taken over the reigns through the HERproject, which links global companies, factories and local non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in partnerships to improve women’s reproductive health awareness and access to services. HERProjects are operating in China, India, Mexico, Pakistan, and Vietnam.

Columbia Sportswear is proud to be the first company to partner with BSR in India. We’ve started working with factories in Chennai and Bangalore to implement the HERProject through a local partner, St. John’s Medical College, Department of Community Health.

HERProject works like this:

1. BSR partners with Columbia, which identifies factories that volunteer to participate in the project.
2. BSR identifies a local partner, St. John's Medical College, with expertise in health education in the factory setting.
3. Columbia, St. John's, and factory discuss factory's needs.
4. St. John's interviews workers and conducts women's health needs assessment.
5. Factory, workers, and St. John's identifies volunteers to be the peer educators and provides in-depth training as well as training materials to the workers.
6. St. John's and peer trainer meet every other month for further training and feedback.
7. St. John's conducts measurement on health awareness among workers.

“The HERProject model of using peer educators is exciting because it can be sustained long after the project’s completion. Once the factory sets up an education system, they can replicate it with any other training they might need – like occupational safety training. Not only that, using the factory’s own workers build up the morale and confidence of the workforce,” said KR Leslie, corporate responsibility specialist in India.

Sridevi Kalavakolanu of ResponsibleBiz.com and a BSR HERproject consultant states, “In health education, there is very little available to women beyond the two-child family planning program. Typically women only seek medical care and go to a hospital at the time of childbirth. Most lack knowledge about basic rights and required provisions for women, such as the right to move to seated or less strenuous work during pregnancy, maternity leave, childcare facilities, nursing breaks, and so on.”

We’ve completed half of the program in India so far with great feedback from the factory manager and workers. We at Columbia believe that providing factories and their workers the opportunity to help and develop themselves makes a greater and longer impact than simply telling them what to do.

We’ll keep you posted on the final results but in the meantime, please visit www.herproject.org for more information on the HERProject.