RISE
Reimagining Industry to Support Equality
At Columbia Sportswear, we believe we can have a positive impact on the world by improving the lives of women and men in our supply chain.
We specifically engage with programs that improve the lives of women as they represent upwards of 75% of Columbia’s global supply chain workforce. In Asia, the garment, footwear, and textile sector employs an estimated 60 million workers.
That's why we partner with our suppliers and the collaborative initiative RISE (Reimagining Industry to Support Equality). Together with RISE we support collaborative industry action to advance gender equality for women workers across garment and footwear supply chains.
RISE’s mission is to empower women workers, embed gender equality in business practices, and catalyze systems change. RISE pursues its mission through three core strategies:
> 1. Capacity Strengthening: Strengthening knowledge and skills for workers and managers through workplace programs in factories
> 2. Market Transformation: Embedding gender equality in business practices through industry collaboration and commitments
> 3. Influencing Policy: Influencing industry and public policy
Financial Health
RISE Financial Health supports workers to access, use and benefit from financial products and services, and build their financial capability to improve their financial health and resilience.
Respect
RISE Respect is a comprehensive program for preventing and remediating gender-based violence and harassment in the garment industry.
Foundations
RISE Foundations is a life skills development program that builds women's confidence and capability, raises awareness on various health and financial literacy topics, and increases the overall capacity of workers to excel in life.
Digital
RISE Digital is a training program centered around a tablet-based app which provides critical training on topics to increase technology literacy and comfortability.
Peer education is central to RISE’s delivery, in order to effectively build capacity and distribute knowledge and helpful support across communities. This includes training trusted peer educators so they can communicate with other workers on financial, health, respect, and digital technology education.
Columbia's Impact
Since 2008, Columbia has supported 46 workplace programs in 5 countries. Through these programs, over 101,000 workers have benefitted from the education and resources that RISE provides. Of this total, women-identifying workers made up over 80,000 of the RISE program participants.
Unified Approach
RISE aims for sustained progress on gender equality and women’s empowerment in the supply chain through continual learning from partners and members, adapting to industry changes, and responding to the evolving needs and priorities of women workers.
RISE brought together the four largest women’s empowerment programs in the apparel industry - BSR’s HERproject, Gap Inc. P.A.C.E, CARE and Better Work - to build from proven approaches, scale impact, and improve efficiency. These organizations have worked with over 50 of the world’s largest apparel brands and have reached over five million women workers around the world.
Columbia is making this commitment to women's health and empowerment because it is the right thing to do.
Workers are a critical part of our supply chain and it is important for us to contribute to their health and well-being on and off the factory floor. This benefits not only the workers, but their families and their communities.
– Tim Boyle, Chairman, President and CEO of Columbia Sportswear Company
