How Ethical Is Aritzia?
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Aritzia’s revenue and popularity is rising, and its rating summary is one of the most-viewed in our directory. So how sustainable is the Canadian brand that describes its clothing as “everyday luxury”? Sadly, Aritzia misses the mark on sustainability disclosures. Keep reading to understand why Aritzia rates “Not Good Enough”.
This article is based on the Aritzia rating published in June 2026 and may not reflect claims the brand has made since then. Our ratings analysts are constantly rerating the thousands of brands you can check on our directory.
Dabbling in sustainability but not doing enough
Aritzia was founded in 1984 and spent two decades establishing itself as a mainstay in Canadian malls before expanding to the US. The brand makes sharp tailoring, stylish ready-to-wear for everything from casual occasions to going out-out, and offers activewear and denim, too. Aritzia’s mission has long been to offer luxury clothes in aspirational spaces at what it says are attainable prices. But we have to ask: how does it achieve low prices for so-called luxury?
Aritzia has been dabbling in sustainability and ethics for a while, creating more sustainable denim and using lower-impact materials. Back in 2020, the brand announced it would be donating 1,000 of its popular Super Puff jackets to Canadian women and girls during the holidays as part of the company’s Community Giving Program, which aims to empower and positively impact members of the local community.
These things are commendable, but when we drilled down into the brand’s actual disclosures about its actions, most of it amounted to little more than shiny sales copy. So, how ethical is Aritzia?
Environmental impact
Aritzia’s environmental initiatives get an “It’s a Start” rating. The brand does use some lower-impact materials, including organic cotton, and it discloses the proportion of total materials that they represent, which is good disclosure, but it doesn’t mean a whole lot if it also continues to use a significant amount of synthetics in its products, for instance polyester in its Crepette fabric and polyamide in its Original Contour material.
Aritzia has also set a science-based target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in both its direct operations and supply chain but it hasn’t shared whether it’s on track, nor does it detail any progress towards eliminating hazardous chemicals from its supply chain. Disclosing progress on key sustainability issues is vital in remaining accountable to those who purchase a brand’s clothes, and to the wider world. On top of that, the brand doesn’t appear to be taking action to embed strong circularity principles into its pre- and post-consumer cycle, nor to to protect biodiversity in its supply chain or to minimise non-textile waste.
Some progress is better than nothing, but we’d like to see Aritzia sharing more concrete details about its efforts to reach goals and doing more to improve the longevity and circularity of its products, particularly given it regularly releases new items, which can promote overconsumption.
Labour conditions
Aritzia scores poorly (“Not Good Enough”) for labour conditions because it discloses so little about its actions and supply chain.
Ideally, a brand evidences its payment of a living wage to everyone in the supply chain; ensures financial security to suppliers; implements worker empowerment initiatives and supports diversity and inclusion. But we couldn’t find enough evidence of any of these key labour issues.
What’s more, in 2023, Business Insider published a report detailing allegations of racism, discrimination, and a “culture of fear” linked to its founder Brian Hill, so it’s particularly concerning that the brand hasn’t subsequently gone to greater efforts to disclose more about what its culture for employees and garment workers looks like today. The brand must do better here.
Animal welfare
Aritzia’s animal rating is “It’s a Start”, which is an improvement from its previous rating. The brand has a formal animal welfare policy but it is not aligned with the Five Freedoms of animal welfare. The brand uses leather, wool, cashmere, and down in its products, and we found that roughly 30% of these are from either certified or recycled sources.
Disappointingly, Aritzia doesn’t provide any indication that it sources wool from non-mulesed sheep, nor does it have a leather certification programme in place. Any brand using animal-derived materials should have strong assurances in place that the animals in its supply chain are being treated with dignity. The brand doesn’t use fur, angora, shearling, alpaca, or mohair, and we hope to see other animal-derived materials added to this list soon, because there are plenty of viable alternatives.
Overall rating: ‘Not Good Enough’
We rated Aritzia “Not Good Enough” overall, based on information from the research done by our team at Good On You. The brand has slightly improved over the years, but overall, Aritzia’s rating hasn’t changed much and it’s not enough for us to give a higher rating to the Canadian brand this time round.
For its clothes to be truly beautiful, inside and out, Aritzia needs to improve its impact on the planet while also making sure its workers are treated fairly and paid a living wage. In reality, the brand isn’t communicating much more about its sustainability impacts than fast fashion brands and cannot move beyond “Not Good Enough” until it makes some significant changes.
Note that Good On You ratings consider hundreds of issues, and it is not possible to list every relevant issue in a summary of the brand’s performance. For more information, see our How We Rate page and our FAQs.
If you’re into Aritzia’s aesthetics but don’t like its ethics, check out our top-rated more responsible and sustainable alternatives to Aritzia.
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