Why the Sustainable Apparel Coalition ‘Evolved’ Its Strategic Plan
Amina Razvi, CEO of the Sustainable Apparel Coalition (SAC), believes that fashion is at an inflection point, one that requires an “evolution” of the way it has promoted business transformation in the face of the planet’s most pressing issues.
On Tuesday, the influential trade group, whose members include heavy hitters like H&M Group, Nike and Walmart, announced a rejiggering of its strategic plan, which it developed in 2020 and launched in 2021 to drive transparency and collective action through the use of its integrated tools, including the controversy-racked Higg Materials Sustainability Index, or MSI.
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It was during a reflective pause at the midpoint of its roadmap that the SAC found that so much has shifted, both within the industry itself and the world at large. Climate change has deteriorated into climate breakdown. The war in Ukraine has caused energy prices to spiral, triggering untrammeled inflation that has refused to be tamed. A deadly global pandemic has exacerbated disparities across society, threatening livelihoods and deepening exploitation.
“It was a good process for us to go through to help us sharpen our focus and really ensure that we are working on the things that we believe drive impact,” Razvi said during a break in New York Climate Week’s whirlwind of events. “At the end of the day, our mission is to drive exponential impact across our industry. And we wanted to make sure that our strategy actually was focused on those efforts.”
The updated strategic plan centers around three pillars. The first, combating climate change, involves data systems development and target-setting refinement that support brand and manufacturer decarbonization efforts, with the goal of slashing industry emissions by 45 percent across its membership by 2030. The second, ensuring decent work for all, supports the integration of what the SAC describes as “effective foundational management systems,” such as those involving health and safety, across the manufacturing base while promoting the adoption of more responsible purchasing practices. The third, championing a so-called “nature positive” future, encourages the advancement of circular product design and “sound foundational environmental management systems”—think renewable energy deployment or minimizing chemical discharge—for suppliers and their facilities.
Spotlighting these topics is a way of saying that these are the evergreen issues the industry needs to be working on consistently, Razvi said. While the specific targets they contain might change for 2025, 2030 and beyond, the overarching themes will remain the same.
Data—primary, especially—remains central to the SAC’s efforts, she said, whether it’s insights about purchasing practices from the Higg Brand & Retail Module (BRM), information about health and safety from the Higg Facility Social & Labor Module or performance baselines from the Higg Facility Environmental Module (FEM).
“What we believe is really important is that we are focusing our efforts on and leveraging the data and the insights that we have to drive collective action at scale,” Razvi said.
The Higg MSI’s greenwashing brouhaha, which brought into focus questions about the use of partial or misleading data to inform fiber and material sourcing decisions, has, in fact, helped shape the SAC’s approach, she noted, adding that the third-party review of the tool’s methodology will be released sometime next week.
“So there are two parts to this,” Razvi said. “There is the data that is collected and how we ensure that that data is accurate and credible. And then there are areas where we believe the industry needs to be collecting more data and updated data, such as the MSI.”
The SAC has been engaging with partners such as Textile Exchange on how to amass better life-cycle assessment data, though she admitted that this isn’t a process that will happen overnight.
“LCAs are a long process, but we’ve already started the work,” Razvi said.
Similar reviews are also happening with other modules, including the Higg BRM and FEM, to “help inform how our tools need to evolve in line with our strategy and in line with what the industry needs to be able to drive performance improvement,” she added.
Case in point: In November, the SAC will be releasing the fourth iteration of its Higg FEM, an update, two years in the making, that is the culmination of “thousands of pieces” of feedback from a host of stakeholders. Users of the platform can expect more accurate environmental Scope 1 and Scope 2 assessments; compliance with industry standards such as the GHG Protocol and ZDHC’s Roadmap to Zero; expanded coverage of environmental issues, from groundwater to soil contamination; a streamlined, more intuitive interface; and a significant reduction in the need for repetitive audits.
“We believe it’s very much reflective of not only the feedback that we’ve gotten but also where the industry needs to go,” she said. “We do think it will absolutely be a pretty big shift and a massive improvement.”
Razvi said that as the SAC heads into its annual meeting, which takes place next week in Boston, partnerships have emerged as a key lever of how it will achieve success. There’s just so much work to be done, she said, and organizations cannot be distracted by doing too much on their own but rather “focus, lean into our strengths” and, most important, overcome the obstacles together.
“We want to look for areas where we lead and areas where others are doing work that we want to support and ultimately ensure is accelerated,” she said, pointing to the work of the Apparel Impact Institute and ZDHC, in addition to that of Textile Exchange, as providing opportunities for alignment.
Since last year’s annual meeting in Singapore, the nonprofit alliance has had plenty to reflect on, Razvi said, calling the challenges it’s faced a good thing because they have helped it “learn, grow and, ultimately, to evolve.”
That is not only the theme of the SAC’s strategy, she said, but also the theme of its annual meeting: how can the organization, and indeed the industry, evolve to “meet this moment.”
“I think that is incredibly important,” Razvi added. “Because, as an organization, if you cannot learn and grow and evolve, then I think we are not going to succeed in trying to solve these systemic challenges that we’re facing.”
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