One Year In, Target’s Future at Heart Strategy is Already Helping Create a Better Tomorrow

One year ago, Target unveiled our Future at Heart corporate responsibility strategy. The concept is simple: A commitment to put the needs of people, communities and the planet at the center of everything we do, to help create a better tomorrow.

Brand Provided | By Target | Published 5 years ago | About a 3 minute read

Image: Target

From the beginning, we knew this was an important business investment that would make our team and company stronger, too. And that’s already coming true, because beyond the impact we’re seeing against our ambitious corporate responsibility goals, the work is contributing to Target’s best financial performance in over a decade.

Today, we’re proud to share the next chapter of that story with the release of our 2019 Corporate Responsibility Report. Inside, you’ll find an overview of Target’s efforts within the four pillars of our strategy—Empower Teams, Serve Guests, Foster Communities and Design Tomorrow. You’ll also get an in-depth look at where we landed with our goals, and a look ahead at new commitments that will shape our future.

“Future at Heart was designed to fuel growth and create lasting value for our guests, our team members, our stakeholders and our planet,” says Brian Cornell, Target’s chairman and CEO. “Every action outlined in this report ties back to our ultimate aspiration—helping all families discover the joy of everyday life—and building a company that strengthens the communities we serve for generations to come.”

Among the notable results and highlights:

Empower teams

Introduced a new paid family leave policy and increased the amount of paid time off our team members can take to welcome a new child or care for a seriously ill family member. We also expanded affordable backup care solutions and doubled the reimbursement amount for adoption or surrogacy fees.
Increased our minimum hourly wage to $13 an hour this summer, another step on our way to our commitment to pay our team members $15 an hour by the end of 2020.
Achieved seven of our eight diversity and inclusion commitments across our team and business, made important progress on our eighth commitment, and will continue to make meaningful strides in the future with our next three-year set of commitments.

Serve guests

Launched household essentials brand Everspring, including products with ingredients and components that are derived from plants or use other renewable materials, as well as post-consumer recycled content.
Introduced Target Clean, our icon that simplifies shopping for products formulated without a group of commonly unwanted chemicals.
Continued our car seat trade-in program which has now collected more than half a million car seats, saving them from landfills and recycling the parts into new products.

Foster communities

Logged more than 1 million volunteer hours for the fifth consecutive year as our team members served in their communities.
Donated $204 million in cash and in-kind donations, with more than half going to underrepresented communities, and including the equivalent of more than 74 million meals.

Design tomorrow

Announced Science Based Targets Initiative-approved Scope 1, 2 and 3 goals to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions across our supply chain.
Committed to source 100% of our electricity from renewable sources by 2030 for our domestic operations.
Trained more than 1,000 team members on circular design principles, with more training on the way.

Ready to learn more about how Target is keeping the Future at Heart? Click here to read the full 2019 Corporate Responsibility Report.