For REI, inclusive design is becoming a baseline

REI is raising the bar on diversity and inclusivity in the retail industry.

A year after retailers like Target distanced themselves from DEI, the specialty outdoor retailer has announced its latest Product Impact Standards for 2026, which expand on existing expectations for both sustainability and inclusion across its sprawling network of more than 1,400 brand partners.

This includes guidelines for brand partners with regard to representation across race, age, gender identity, body size, and ability as well as stricter guidance to avoid cultural appropriation and ensure on-model imagery reflects a wider range of body types.

“Back in 2018, the focus was really on the climate and sustainability space,” Nani Vishwanath, REI’s senior strategist of inclusive design, told Retail Brew, “In 2020, we extended the scope of these product impact standards to also include expectations in the diversity and inclusion space.”

In 2023, the brand added some “expectations” around inclusive headwear.

“We listened really deeply to folks in the Black community about their experiences around helmets and headwear that didn’t allow space for high-volume or textured hair,” Vishwanath said. “So we changed that expectation to empower brands to include more diverse hair types in their design process.”

Size matters: The retailer has also extended sizing and pushed for price parity across sizes, including for wearable gear.

A key factor in creating inclusive apparel and gear, however, has been about 150,000 body scans of diverse American body types that REI referred to to rethink how gear is designed, challenging long-standing industry assumptions about sizing. That research helped inform products like its Magma sleeping bags, which now come in nine sizes, not just to fit different bodies, but to accommodate how people actually sleep outdoors.

However, enforcing these standards across a vast vendor network is no small task.

“We try not to position REI as the arbiter of what’s good or bad, but rather, set really clear expectations for what progress can look like, and allow for flexibility with these different vendors so that they can adapt to what’s authentic to them,” Vishwanath said.

That flexibility also allows REI to work with both large-scale global brands and vendors of smaller retailers that might need more time to build resources and mechanisms that can factor in the standards. Vishwanath said the company additionally offers brands support in the form of education across topics, subject matter expert access, and more open discussion on inclusion.

However, she believes there’s still plenty of ground to cover. Areas like gender-inclusive assortments, adaptive design, and universal sizing remain works in progress. REI sees its scale—and its co-op model—as a unique advantage in driving change.

“REI is evolving its own brand practices and design standards alongside these many other brands that are doing it with us,” Vishwanath said. “It’s an example of us not only meeting the needs of customers from a business sense, but really leaning into our co-op values of inclusion, of sustainability, and care for nature that really allows us to stand apart.”