Environmental Impact

Forests are vital to humanity and our planet—providing clean air and water; mitigating climate change; reducing the impacts of floods; providing wildlife habitats; and directly supporting approximately 1.6 billion people who depend on forest ecosystems for food, fresh water, clothing, medicine and shelter. But forests are also threatened: every minute, approximately 85 acres are destroyed, which means we lose millions of acres each year.

To help halt forest destruction and create a more sustainable client experience, we are dedicated to sourcing sustainable packaging and catalogues. Beginning in 2004, Tiffany started requesting third-party certifications for our blue bags, with a preference for Forest Stewardship Council® (FSC®) certification—which is considered the premier standard in responsible forestry management—and started requiring all new global print suppliers to have FSC® certification. In 2015, we set a goal to remove commodity-driven deforestation from our key wood and paper supply chains by the end of 2020. We are proud to have made significant progress by sourcing 100% Blue Boxes, blue bags, marketing collateral and catalogues from sustainable sources and look forward to continuing to advance our efforts.

To define our metrics, we partnered with the Rainforest Alliance in 2017 to create our Sustainable Wood and Paper Sourcing Guidance, which uses “Best” and “Better” categories to help us measure our performance.

The “Best” category includes products certified by the Forest Stewardship Council® (FSC®) and 100% verified recycled content.

The “Better” category includes products that meet one of several criteria: they include fibre from controlled sources (such as legally harvested and protected high conservation value forests); products certified by the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC) standard (which assures legality and chain of custody) and that comes from a “low risk” country of origin per NEPCon’s Sourcing Hub (previously the Global Forest Registry); content recycled from products that were originally FSC® certified; and reclaimed or repurposed wood and uncertified recycled paper. In 2020, 100%* of our catalogues and marketing collateral and 100%* of our Blue Boxes and bags were also sustainably sourced. Our Tiffany Blue Boxes and bags are also made with at least 50% recycled content. In addition, all of our corrugated cardboard was made with 100% recycled content.

*See the Report of Independent Accountants

Circularity is an important way for businesses to improve their sustainability footprint, which can reduce waste, save precious raw materials and contribute to the regeneration of biodiversity. Tiffany & Co. has always believed in circular principles, as our jewellery is designed to be passed down from generation to generation, and conscientious material use is core to how we operate.

With the emergence of more sustainable models to design, craft, use and dispose of our packaging and products, Tiffany incorporates certain circularity principles into our operations. For example, we reuse or recycle precious metals left over in the crafting process in future products.   

Our 2025 Sustainability Goals also include the objective to further reduce our environmental footprint; we are continuing to explore, identify and implement circular economy principles to reduce material waste use and key waste streams in the most critical parts of our business by 2025.

Our commitment to people and planet begins with creating safe and environmentally responsible operations for our own people. In 2018, Tiffany & Co. codified global Occupational Safety and Environmental Management Standards to articulate our expectations around managing safety and environmental aspects of all retail stores, offices, distribution facilities and manufacturing locations we operate worldwide. The Standards align with the globally recognised ISO 14001 environmental management and ISO 45001 occupational health and safety standards. This provides a more structured and disciplined approach and helps us continue to integrate environmental considerations into our daily operations, including energy, waste and water management. Although our operational waste and water impacts are relatively low, we seek opportunities to increase our efficiency and reduce our resource use.