Cascale, the leading cross-industry, global non-profit alliance for safe and sustainable business practices in consumer goods, has further extended its commitment to safer chemistry through an innovative collaboration with the ZDHC Foundation, the global environmental stewardship leader in sustainable chemical management. For environmental sustainability, key initiatives shall be aligned to make the industry better in managing chemicals, wastewater, and air quality.
They have a history of collaborating together in the past. Several years ago, ZDHC’s BRM was aligned with Cascale’s Higg Brand and Retail Module, and as of November 2023, the organization’s Supplier to Zero Programme will also align with Cascale’s Higg Facility Environmental Module (FEM) 4.0. This alignment signals a new depth in their collaboration, focusing on how to integrate processes to utilize their strengths in creating one coherent approach to environmental sustainability at a facility level.
Some of the key areas that Cascale and ZDHC will collaborate on include:
Streamlining Environmental Sustainability Initiatives. There are several environmental sustainability initiatives within the general consumer goods industry that can be streamlined through a partnership of effort. It eliminates redundancy, guarantees that all facilities will follow best practices without a hitch.
Alignment of verification processes. With the alignment of these two verification processes, both Cascale and ZDHC assure the betterment of data quality for the environmental standards and assures that all facilities have met the set standards.
Develop a Harmonised Education Framework: Both organizations will collaborate and develop a consistent education framework for chemical management and execute it, with the aim to help industry players understand and undertake sustainable management practices of chemicals.
Engage the Industry: Together, Cascale and ZDHC will engage the larger industry in these activities, bringing more companies into practicing sustainable methodologies with their end goals also being beneficial to the environment.
Establish a data model: Develop a holistic data model that will be used to trace environmental performance across the value chain. Through this model, identification of areas to improve is established, and the measurement of the sustainability impacts has been done.
Coordinating in the apparel industry for sustainability will therefore ensure harmonized efforts with stakeholders in this industry so that we can contribute to a more sustainable future in the sector. It will look into some of the most urgent environmental matters that are key to sustaining them, such as management of wastewater, sustainable usage of chemicals, and improvement in air quality.
Together, Cascale and ZDHC aim to save companies from redundant efforts, provide better environmental data quality, and reinforce a common approach to chemical management. The partnership is going to be pivotal for the consumer goods industry in how it can approach environmental sustainability in its practices.
All the more, the partnership extends the global effort toward making consumer goods practices more sustainable. By combining their own efforts and merging their expertise, Cascale and ZDHC will pool their contributions to create greater impact and improve environmental outcomes at scale. The collaboration also highlights the role of industry-wide collaboration in meeting the goals of sustainability, asserting that it is collective action that needs to be a must for leaving an imprint.
Those partnerships, such as ZDHC’s with Cascale, in the consumer goods industry will start to shape a dramatically different tomorrow as the globe transforms into a more sustainable powerhouse through collaborative micropreneurs.
Source: Cascale