As a responsible sustainable manager, I engage and manage suppliers whilst taking responsibility for sourcing new suppliers that deliver the best offer in terms of value, service, and quality for the business. While working collaboratively with the product teams to commercially validate new suppliers completing costing and pricing exercises comprehensively. Ensuring new and existing suppliers work to and meet brand standards and objectives ‘Social Compliance, Transparency, Traceability, and Sustainable sourcing.’
With a strong awareness of supply chain management including knowledge of commercial retail suppliers far and close I can Manage day-to-day sourcing activities and projects, delivering both countries of origin and supply base mixes in line with seasonal plans – creating a highly flexible and sustainable supply base.
While developing and implementing sourcing strategy processes whereby suppliers set up right the first time, supporting sustainability I establish business growth & margins.
I have organized and convened sustainability as a key topic for Supplier Conference and training programs for vendors and sourcing managers to help grow the partnership while rewarding with points for better business scenarios. A win-win situation for everyone.
As a sustainable sourcing manager, I build partnerships with strategic suppliers and create a pipeline of suppliers with demonstrable compliance and sustainable innovations. Managing certification processes for raw materials – specifically to drive efficiencies, while improving the traceability of sustainable materials.
I was responsible for assessing and communicating sustainability-related risk, ensuring effective mitigation and management of impact. Work with laundry, and raw material team to create new sustainable washes. Also, Work with Chemical and Dye manufacturers for experimenting with new product trials.
Role of Sustainable Sourcing Manager for Brand Management
The sourcing process can help develop a set of best practices that are adapted to the Brand’s supply chain specificities and engage with categories to implement while Contributing to the Brand’s overall social sustainability agenda, ambition, and targets for the development.
Bring insight, and knowledge of global trends and emerging social topics with Support human rights lead to conduct an annual review of the Brand’s salient risks, and implementation plan and Track and report on the Brand’s initiatives and implementation of human rights policy, focusing on the supply chain.
Support internal and external reporting such as the Brand’s annual report and investors’ indices, Work with internal and external stakeholders and represent the Brand in relevant coalitions such as Consumer Goods Forum, and Business for Inclusive Growth.
Developing and delivering training and engagement programs for buyers and suppliers and making the information accessible for further engagement and suggestions can improve and help deliver the program successfully while achieving a global sustainability impact.
Tools and Systems for Responsible Sustainability
As a responsible sustainable sourcing manager, I can investigate new supplier opportunities in line with current and future sourcing requirements and set the factory approval, systems, and upgradations as per brand Social, Environmental, and Economic (SEE) principles while working in partnership with all relevant internal and external teams to seamlessly deliver the sourcing strategy.
As a responsible sustainable sourcing manager, I have a good knowledge of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act. In the USA, in France, focusing on recyclability and material composition (Anti-waste and Circular Economy Law) and factory certification for IS0 50001, etc.
Various factories, Mills, Tanneries, and laundries in India developed CSR scorecards and partnered with them to improve sustainability performance.
Utilizing LWG, Higg FEM, traceability, certifications, and other initiatives. Leather Working Group (LWG) certified leather claims to offer more sustainable and transparent leather goods. The LWG auditing process and certification helps to make leather suppliers sustainable partner in the sustainability programs.
The Higg Facility Environmental Module (Higg FEM). A sustainability assessment tool that standardizes how facilities measure and evaluate their environmental performance, year over year.
The LEED Certification process is another important factor to help and grade the factories and mills for a better sustainable partnership in the supply chain process.
Many systems and 3rd party organizations are helping reinstate the de facto sustainability agenda.
3rd Party Compliance Systems and Initiatives
- BSCIC Management Systems Certification
- Business Social Compliance Initiative (BSCI)
- Global Recycled Standard
- International Organization for Standardization (ISO)
- Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS)
- SA8000 Standard
- Supplier Ethical Data Exchange (SEDEX)
- Worldwide Responsible Accredited Production (WRAP)
There are various ways to improve the efficacy of sustainability.
Transportation
Through improved planning and discipline, I reduced airfreight in 2019/20 by 52% while getting products from the factory to the distribution center (‘DC’), saving more than 16,000 tons of CO2e each year.
In the case study of Promod, French Brand shipping for example 39% of garments from the factories took the final leg of their journey by barge, avoiding congestion and delays, while simultaneously reducing the CO2 emissions from these journeys by 56%.
Intermodal in the case of transportation, from Turkey, we have introduced an intermodal route for delivering to European DCs. A mix of sea and rail minimizes carbon and reduces reliance on road transport, which emits nearly five times more carbon comparatively. 500,000 garments moved this way in FY20, reducing emissions by 47 tons.
Use of Poly bags
Polybags are typically made from LDPE – a technically recyclable type of plastic that was introduced to make the supply chain process more sustainable.
With traceability, the final used poly bags were also now dumped with a controlled process with the final decomposition process. The recycling plant was put close to the DC which not only saved time and carbon footprint but also made the end-to-end process more seamlessly sustainable.
Recycled waste into Yarns
Fabric waste and the rejected garment were always a challenging part of the sustainability agenda. The process was not easy but worth the recycling thru collecting, sorting, and selling the waste and converting it into a new fabric, rather than the common practice of incineration or landfill.
In the sustainability drive social compliance always played a major role with mills and factories.
My strategy has been:
Work with Commercial teams to design and implement sourcing strategies that drive prioritized sustainability impacts in global raw material categories.
Through the Plan, ensure compliance with the impact on environment deforestation-free approach and drive innovation in respect for human rights, including breakthrough strategies on responsible recruitment.
Take human rights programming in factories to the next level- moving across key origins, with a focus on addressing child labor, forced labor, and health and safety risks.
Create a thriving ecosystem for mills and factory workers while scaling our strategy to improve incomes and opportunities for women.
Establish a strong supplier relationship and performance management approach across the key categories- building supplier capacity and incentives to drive impact.
Through a partnership with the line manager on the evolution of our Thriving People and Healthy Planet ambitions.
Monitor and assess trends and Issues across key Impact areas, providing guidance to business and functional leaders to help manage risks and opportunities.
Program design and deployment:
Ensure effective deployment of category sustainability strategies together with team members in origin.
Support performance management and escalations, management of implementation partners and external advisors, and overall budget oversight.
Increase visibility and measurement of Impact KPIs across these programs in partnership with the Brand, Incorporated sustainability team, and external partners.
Manage key global relationships to support sustainability programs and apply the latest breakthrough thinking in emerging trends to our strategies and program designs.
Sustainable Goals
Some examples of successful attainable, and achievable goals.
REAL Good Badge
The “REAL Good” badge was developed to identify AE and Aerie products made from more sustainable raw materials, like recycled fibers, or products that were manufactured using more sustainable techniques, such as in a factory that meets expectations for Water Leadership Program.
REAL Good styles include lots of feel-good, good-for-the-planet materials that have been sustainably produced and/or sourced.
American Eagle’s Real Good Jeans are manufactured in factories and fabric mills that meet the expectations of the Water Leadership Program, which includes:
- Water reduction and management
- Less wastewater that is without restricted or hazardous chemicals
- Water recycling
For other apparel items, Real Good means that it is made with most materials that our sustainably sourced, including:
- Recycled polyester
- Recycled nylon
- Cotton that’s recycled, organic, and/or sourced as Better Cotton
Product Manufacturing
AEO started the journey to meet the ambitious 40% emissions reduction target for manufacturing by collecting metrics on supplier energy performance via the SAC’s Higg Facility Environmental Module (FEM). These tools helped measure the environmental impacts of factory operations at over 300 factories, mills, and laundries.
We collaborated with the AEO and Apparel Impact Institute (AII) to pilot improvement programs at fabric mills to help manufacturing partners improve the efficiency of their operations and reduce their environmental impact, including GHG emissions.
In 2020, we started a pilot with seven facilities with the AII Clean by Design program. Facilities completed 63 improvement actions and together saved 215,000 m3 of water and 1,782,370 kWh of electricity per year.
Carbon Leadership Program
Additionally in 2020, the AII Carbon Leadership Program helped five fabric mills in a pilot project to identify 71 improvement actions and set an average GHG reduction target of 22% by 2025 and 26% by 2030. The plan is to expand engagement with all strategic suppliers through this industry collective program from 2022 onward to drive emissions reductions in manufacturing facilities, aligned with a science-based target.
Taking these learnings, in 2021 with AEO we launched the Carbon Leadership (CLP) Program for strategic factories that represent approximately 80% of procurement volume. The CLP program encourages suppliers to develop their own GHG inventory and commit to reduction targets and long-term climate mitigation plans. This includes energy efficiency improvement, renewable energy use, and phasing out coal-powered processes and equipment. Factories that meet the requirements receive higher scores on the vendor scorecard and are prioritized for receiving business.
Acknowledging the contributions to carbon emissions coming from coal use, in 2022 AEO committed to not accepting any new factories into the AEO supply chain with coal-fired boilers after 2025. AEO is working with the existing factory base to phase out coal-fired boilers entirely by 2030.
LEED Certified Facilities
LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) is a green building rating system that provides a framework for healthy, highly efficient, and cost-saving green buildings. AEO is making sure all the suppliers and factories are also LEED certified and the process is on to evaluate and help factories achieve this goal by 2025.
Sustainable Denim Washing
Garment finishing and washing is the last step in the manufacturing process to give jeans the final look. We worked with key laundries to implement new technologies and equipment that dramatically decrease the overall water needs for this type of processing. Laundries with work have installed new washing machines that use a fraction of the water used by conventional washers, as well as others technologies such as lasers and ozone. Many laundries are using Jeanologia’s environmental impact monitoring (EIM) software as an initial step toward measuring and building more sustainable processes. The EIM software assesses the environmental impact of the garment finishing process in four areas: water consumption, energy consumption, chemical use, and worker health.
Water Leadership Program
Apparel production involves a large quantity of water and needs to be adequately treated. In 2013, we launched the AEO Wastewater Management Standard to provide factories with guidance on how to properly manage water and make sure that water is safe before it is discharged.
In 2017 we launched the Water Leadership Program with our denim factories. This program sets expectations for our factories on wastewater, water reduction, water recycling, and chemical management. Each year, our expectations increase as we work with our factories toward meeting our overall water goals.
Through this program, we have decreased the water used per jean by 36% and ensured all active denim laundries with onsite wastewater treatment are using recycled water back to production processes, with an average water-recycling rate of 44%. With these efforts, our factories have saved over one billion gallons of fresh water a year. From 2018, we have expanded the program to cover strategic denim and woven mills.
US Cotton trust Protocol
American Eagle joined brands like J.Crew as a member of the U.S. Cotton Trust Protocol.
The Trust Protocol is an article-level traceability tool that enables enrolled farmers to track and measure cotton bale sustainability progress across several areas: water use, soil carbon, greenhouse gas emissions, and energy efficiency. For the past growing season, 1.1 million acres were enrolled in the program.
Through its Protocol Consumption Management Solution, Trust Protocol links each cotton bale to a unique Permanent Bale number or “PBI.” This data is then matched against the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s cotton database. In a partnership with technology player Textile Genesis, the Trust Protocol can trace each level of the supply chain from bale to retail.
The U.S. Cotton Trust Protocol’s vision is to set a new standard in sustainable cotton production where full transparency is a reality and continuous improvement to improve our environmental footprint is the central goal.
Launched in 2020, the U.S. Cotton Trust Protocol is built on a foundation of robust data capture, aggregation, and reporting that drives continuous improvement across six key sustainability metrics – water use, energy efficiency, greenhouse gas emissions, soil conservation, soil carbon, and land use – and is the world’s first sustainable cotton fiber program to offer article-level supply chain transparency.
These program elements make the Trust Protocol the first program to provide both access to full supply chain transparency and science-based field-level, verified data.
Certifications still seem to be a hard-and-fast way to signal ESG efforts.
What is ESG and why does it matter? ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) has become a major issue of interest in the modern corporate world. Usually associated with things like climate change, pollution, and resource scarcity, in reality, ESG covers a much wider spectrum of socio-economic issues like employability practices, diversity, social and cultural ethics, data security, and sustainability.
Conclusion
Centered on three key areas — planet, people, and practices — while using these tools we can help better fine-tune its ESG strategies across the raw material stage. Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance and impact report.
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