Chemical Statement

In order to obtain the functionality in our products that our customers have come to expect, it is sometimes necessary to use chemicals. At Fossil, our approach to chemicals is grounded in ensuring compliance with global laws and regulations as well as protecting the health and safety of our employees, consumers and the environment. Product testing provides guardrails for Fossil and its suppliers to manage the responsible use of chemicals. It also informs our decisions on sourcing, manufacturing and innovation. Below is a summary of our methodology and implementation practices.

We expect our suppliers to ensure that their components and materials comply with applicable requirements before use in our products and we outline this expectation in our Manufacturer’s Code of Conduct. Each supplier is provided with Product Guidelines and a Restricted and Declarable Substance List (RDSL) which identifies potentially harmful chemicals used in our industry and specifies safe concentration limit values. Our RDSL complies with applicable global regulations for safe levels of substances of highest concern in our products, including, but not limited to, REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals), RoHs (Restriction of Hazardous Substances Directive 2011/65/EU) and California Proposition 65. This list was developed with the guidance of outside experts. The purpose of these guidelines is to clearly communicate and define our expectations to our suppliers. These guidelines are regularly updated. Suppliers also sign our Manufacturer’s Agreement verifying that they understand and will follow these expectations. The information is also reinforced in our supplier trainings.

We believe product compliance should occur in the initial stages of the product development process to ensure new materials and suppliers are vetted thoroughly. However, we have our own product testing program in place for both component testing and finished goods testing to ensure compliance by our suppliers. Product is reviewed with our internal teams and selected for testing with an accredited third party lab.

Items selected for testing will be tested at third party accredited labs SGS, BV and Intertek. If a failure is found during the testing phase, the items will not be released from the supplier. Supplier Compliance will then work with the supplier and internal product development teams to understand the source of the failure and to correct it. Corrected product must be re-tested before it can be released.

Our Supplier Compliance team works closely with all product development teams to ensure they understand our requirements related to the RDSL. They conduct in-person meetings each season and also work closely with the product development teams throughout the year. When new materials are identified to be introduced, we conduct testing of the material prior to production, to ensure the material will be compliant.

For any questions related to our product compliance, please contact [email protected].