1. Foreword

Our second Impact Report

“Sustainable chemical management stands at the core of environmental performance indicators such as water quality, air- and GHG emissions, energy and water pollution. ZDHC enables the global fashion and footwear industry to improve its environmental impact by implementing sustainable chemical management systems within their supply chains."

Frank Michel, Executive Director, the ZDHC Foundation

Read Disclaimer

Alongside profound challenges and suffering, the pandemic has also brought with it hope inspired by responses to this global crisis. It is found in the cooperation between governments, the pharmaceutical industry and academia to develop vaccines at an unprecedented speed. It is also found in the everyday compassion and resilience of friends, families and communities all around the world.

It has also revealed with absolute clarity how vulnerable our modern civilisation is; long confinements, travel restrictions and disrupted supply chains have deeply impacted lives and businesses across the globe.  

The scale of this impact is, worryingly, only partially indicative of the severe effects the multiple environmental crises we are facing could have on humanity and the world at large. The speed of it confronts us with the urgency of now - the fact that we do not have much time left as we reach an environmental tipping point.

Thankfully across the world many of us are tangibly heeding the warning signs and sustainability has dramatically risen up the global agenda.

At ZDHC we are inspired by this vital development and continue with our community to take collective action to effect positive change. Increasing collaboration powers our work forward in promoting and implementing sustainable chemistry throughout the global fashion and footwear industry in order to fight climate change, support biodiversity and protect the oceans and drinking water across the planet.

To achieve our mission, ZDHC is driving industry convergence towards exacting standards of sustainable chemical management. We are continuously scaling the initiative across the supply chain and we are increasing transparency on sustainability performance within the industry.


Increased collaboration
powers our work forward in promoting and implementing sustainable chemical management.

In our first Impact Report in 2019, we put out a call to action within our industry for “collaboration at an unprecedented scale” to create toxic-free supply chains to protect consumers, workers and the environment.

In this, our second Impact Report, we report on implementation progress and present recent developments within ZDHC and the industry at large.

We welcome the growing awareness in environmental sustainability within the global community of brands, customers and policy makers and progress in the regulatory environment for chemical sustainability such as the new EU legislation on due-diligence and governance in supply chains.

We report on ZDHC’s evolution into a multi-stakeholder organisation; we bring together businesses, civil society, governments, research institutions and non-government organisations to cooperate in the joint engagement and implementation efforts of the ZDHC Roadmap to Zero Programme.

We review our Programme implementation in 2020 by evaluating the industries’ efforts in eliminating toxic chemicals from their supply chains and the uptake of the ZDHC Sustainable Chemical Management Framework. Along with the scaling of our tools we also report on improvements and enhancements in our toolbox of chemical management solutions, grounded in manufacturing realities.

We see the deepening engagement and continuing growth in numbers of committed organisations joining our ZDHC community across all major stakeholder categories; Brands, Suppliers and Chemical Suppliers.

We detail the progress of our three ZDHC Leader Programmes; Brands to Zero, Supplier to Zero and our forthcoming leader programme for chemical suppliers. They comprise a self-reinforcing mechanism designed to foster an industry-wide momentum towards holistic, sustainable chemical management.

Whilst highlighting our collective impact we also renew, with increased urgency, our call for collaborative action and commitment to safer chemistry to all supply chain partners. Why? In the post-pandemic recovery period, the global fashion market is likely to grow again at an impressive rate, and as it does so, so too will its impact on the environment, from which it is not yet decoupled.

The quality of our shared future depends upon what we, together, do. We invite you to commit to a sustainable future for fashion. We share an individual and collective responsibility to act now.

2. VOICES IN FASHION

External perspectives

Our Impact -
Groundwork

Empowering consumers and fashion industry professionals with knowledge about the essential need for sustainable chemistry is a critical task in accelerating the shift to sustainable fashion globally.  

For some, chemistry can be a forbidding subject (perhaps bringing back unwelcome memories of school chemistry lessons!). We know that we have a challenging but vital communications task ahead of us. To bring some external perspectives to this process we reached out to a fashion designer, an academic and a fashion editor. We talked to them to find out what sustainability means to them and introduce them to ZDHC and its mission to detox the fashion industry.

Julia Hobbs
Vogue senior fashion & trends editor

Over the last decade, ‘sustainability’ has gone from an outlying criteria adopted by ‘sustainable brands’ to a measure by which the fashion industry as a whole now has to adhere to.

Nathalie Khan
Central Saint Martins lecturer, fashion historian, curator

Sustainability has become an incredibly important topic in fashion education as we instil and promote ways of thinking about critical practice and a more conscious engagement with process and making. Debates surrounding an open and transparent approach when it comes to fashion production is not new, but more needs to be done when engaging with manufacture as well. We teach our students that everything tells a story, and this goes beyond image. Every button, and every thread is part of the narrative as well.

Edeline Lee
a London Week Fashion designer

As an independent designer your business is your life, so I wanted to create a sustainable company that can feed itself, feed its employees, pay everyone properly and make things that are beautiful, have meaning and are sustainably produced. It’s all connected. It’s about how I want to spend my time and live my life.

3. experts  IN FASHION

Industry experts perspectives

Our Impact -
Groundwork

ZDHC is a community that brings together professionals and experts united in a mission to create a truly sustainable fashion industry. Essential to our collective effort is clear communication between all of us - the sharing of insights into the problems, innovations and solutions that comprise the task at hand.

4. community growth

Our global coverage

From its inception in 2011 with six founding brands, the ZDHC Roadmap to Zero Programme has grown rapidly and is now adopted by 163 contributors, comprising brands, manufacturers, chemical suppliers and solutions providers. Our movement continues to gather critical mass as we expand.

New stakeholders from across the world are regularly joining our community. During 2020, 15 new contributors and 3 new Friends joined ZDHC on our collective journey towards sustainable chemistry.

As of the end of May 2021, we are now a collaboration between 30 brands, 114 value chain affiliates and 18 associates – all organisations that are active in the textile, apparel, leather and footwear industry. We’re also pleased to welcome 11 brands who have joined as Friends of ZDHC for an initial 12-month period, as they consider making a more lasting commitment to the programme.

This growth has broadened ZDHC’s global representation and the continuing growth in traffic to the ZDHC Gateway underlines our relevance to the industry, globally.

How we Started -
About ZDHC

Many of the world’s top selling brands are part of ZDHC, collectively accounting for around a fifth of the global apparel and footwear market in revenue ¹

ZDHC is active in all the top textile exporting regions (China, Europe, India, U.S.) ²

  • China maintains its position as the top producer and exporter of textiles
  • The U.S. remains the world’s largest producer and exporter of raw cotton
  • The E.U. continues to hold its position on in the world, as one of the most important markets in terms of size, quality and design, demanding higher value added products

Our community of chemical supplier stakeholders is growing: 6 out of the top 10 key textile dyestuff companies in the world are ZDHC stakeholders ¹

  1. Statista, April 2021
  2. WTO 2020

“The team, too, has grown and we now have over 30 employees. While this is substantial progress and growth, we are at the beginning of another growth phase. In the coming years, we will further scale ZDHC’s guidelines, platforms and solutions to increase our collaborative impact. This means working with more organisations, brands, suppliers and manufacturers to continue to effect change within the fashion and apparel industry.”

Philipp Meister,
Chair, Board of Directors,
the ZDHC Foundation

5. ENGAGING THE ENVIRONMENTAL MOVEMENT

Global
impact areas

Our Impact -
Less discharge

As we continue to successfully scale and implement our programme, an emerging focus of our communications is to explain to the ZDHC community, consumers and the fashion industry at large, how our collective work plays a critical role in achieving sustainability on a global scale. We’ve identified four key impact areas where sustainable chemical management makes a critical difference through systems change: 

Interview with
Manfred Santen, Toxics Campaigner

In conversation with Greenpeace:

Chemistry expert and Toxics Campaigner from Greenpeace Germany, Manfred Santen, talks to us about the industry’s progress and responsibility in detoxing its supply chain.

6. MEASURING IMPACT

Data is
our power

How we Started -
Article by Lydia Lin

Gathering reliable data at scale is critical to our mission to increase transparency throughout the fashion value chain. We are continually investing in and developing our platforms and tools to achieve this.

The ZDHC gateway has grown to become the world’s largest database dedicated to enabling safer choices of chemical products available to the textile, apparel and footwear industry. By the end of 2020, 1,427 chemical formulators are using the ZDHC Gateway, and it publishes data on 42,939 chemical products. The suppliers who use it, standing at 4,670 in number at the end of last year, are able to review and analyse key information on chemical products to determine whether they conform with the ZDHC MRSL. The ZDHC Gateway which provides the data to verify compliance with ZDHC MRSL requirements, includes, at the end of 2020, nearly 7,500 published wastewater test reports from 87 ZDHC accepted wastewater testing labs across 4 continents. 

Our Impact -
Groundwork

quote TBD :  on Gateway API - “now we can all measure impact with the same tools.”

Nike representative

“By providing us with the necessary data and tools, ZDHC Gateway has been instrumental for H&M Group in securing our supply chain is free from hazardous chemicals. Through ZDHC Gateway, our suppliers’ 500+ facilities are able to select chemicals that are tested and reviewed according to ZDHC MRSL. This has been the key step in securing 100% ZDHC MRSL compliance. Drawing from the concept of MRSL, we believe that a proper management of chemical input is essential for the subsequent processes to achieve sustainable production.”

Mia Gunawan

Sustainability Program Manager for Chemical, Global Sustainability, H&M Group

Our Impact

How we Started -
How we started
introduction

Our Story

Ten years ago, Greenpeace issued a wake-up call to the fashion industry with its “Detox My Fashion” campaign. It revealed the disastrous impact the manufacturing of clothes and shoes has on the environment. Especially alarming, Greenpeace’s “Dirty Laundry” report exposed how suppliers in China working for global fashion brands were directly contributing to water pollution by dumping toxic wastewater into rivers and streams.

The industry immediately took action. A coalition of leading fashion brands pledged to eliminate hazardous chemicals from their supply chains and stop polluting waterways by 2020. This was the start of the ‘zero discharge of hazardous chemicals’ now known today as just ZDHC.

Now, a decade on, ZDHC is firmly established as a multi-stakeholder organisation based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, with a clear mission: enabling brands and suppliers throughout the industry to detox their supply chains and protect workers, consumers, and our planet. To achieve this we created our Roadmap to Zero Programme and are working with a growing number of stakeholders.

At the end of 2019, as we approached our initial milestone of our roadmap 2020, we published our first Impact Report. We found that we’d created a mindshift in the fashion industry, moving the focus from harmful substances in finished products, to eliminating hazardous chemicals throughout the manufacturing process. Our wastewater testing data showed that 98% of facilities following our programme had no detections of chemicals included on our MRSL (manufacturing restricted substance list) wastewater parameters. In other words, our programme is working.

Building on these successful foundations, we shifted gear with a renewed industry commitment towards delivering an infinite Roadmap to Zero Programme. We’ve set ourselves the goals of expanding ZDHC’s reach by bringing more stakeholders on board, improving the quality of our data, converging initiatives and brand programmes to minimise duplication of effort and to enable the rapid scaling of the Roadmap to Zero Programme.

Keep reading to learn about what we’ve achieved in 2020, and the goals we’re working on for the way ahead

1. key message

Affirming our positive impact

How we Started -
How we started

Since publishing our first Impact Report, we are pleased to report our positive impact in eliminating hazardous chemicals from the textile, apparel and footwear supply chain has proved resilient and ongoing. 

Our findings underline the practical and holistic impact that the ZDHC guidelines, platforms and solutions implemented by the ZDHC community are having on creating positive change and confirms that companies pursued sustainability improvements even during the challenges of the 2020 global pandemic.

98% of suppliers who carried out wastewater testing in 2020 had no detections of restricted substances from the ZDHC MRSL parameters for wastewater.

In 2020 we saw an noticeable increase in the active engagement between brands and suppliers. This reflects the broadening movement throughout the industry towards sustainable chemistry and its thorough implementation at operational level.

As we scaled the Roadmap to Zero Programme, the number of active manufacturing facilities Suppliers on the ZDHC Gateway increased by 41% in 2020 compared to the previous year. The ZDHC Gateway, the world’s largest database of sustainable chemical products for the fashion industry, is being used more than ever. The number of wastewater test reports published on the platform has increased 52% since 2019.

“It’s been wonderful to see the progress that has been made across the industry, as more companies come to see how important sustainable chemical management is to their business, their sustainability aspirations, and the communities where they operate. It’s been a priority of ours for many years and will continue to be, because there is still much work to be done to get us where we need to be.”

Manuel Baigorri
Senior Director Global Sustainability Value Chain, Levi Strauss & Co.

2. key message

Improving supply chain transparency

How we Started -
How we started

To effect positive change we rely on clear, verifiable data on sustainability performance. With the help of the ZDHC Implementation Toolbox, brands are effectively implementing our sustainable chemical management framework requirements throughout their supply chain.

Accordingly we are constantly evolving our tools and increasing the transparency of wastewater reporting to verify suppliers’ compliance with our guidelines. In 2020, we introduced electronic data reporting (EDR) for laboratories that conduct suppliers’ wastewater tests. This has resulted in significantly better quality and more complete data on the ZDHC Gateway.

This platform is also evolving to enable increasingly
efficient data flow, by integrating a API (Application Programming Interface) technology it now allows equal access to the data for Brands and Suppliers. By October 2020, 63% of suppliers fully complied with all ZDHC MRSL parameters for wastewater, up from 55% in the previous reporting period April 2020.

Our DETOX.Live map shows, via colour coding, suppliers that are on the ZDHC Gateway and who have verified test results. The real-time data is checked in line with requirements set in the ZDHC Wastewater Guidelines, so it’s transparent, accepted by everyone and easily shared.

3. key message

Spearheading industry-wide convergence

How we Started -
How we started

Reaching the next milestone on our journey, requires us to play a pivotal role in enabling collaboration across the industry to converge initiatives and brand programmes towards our global framework for sustainable chemical management. By implementing the ZDHC MRSL, uniformly across the industry, the duplication of effort previously caused by suppliers adhering to their customers’ varying requirements, is eliminated. Over the past years, global brands including Levi Strauss&Co., H&M and Inditex have converged their individual initiatives with ZDHC’s Roadmap to Zero programme.

To accelerate industry wide convergence and ZDHC’s positive impact, we have conceived three leader programmes:

Brands to Zero is our leader programme for brands. Each year, they are assessed on their progress in implementing ZDHC guidelines, according to a set of key performance indicators. The 2020 assessment confirms around 80% of Brands have specified their implementation plans leveraging ZDHC tools, and the majority set key performance indicators (KPIs) for their procurement-related teams. Furthermore we found that our Brands’ commitment to safer chemistry is embraced throughout their corporate cultures, and they actively monitor goals and results.
To ensure a fair and neutral assessment process, we mandate KPMG to carry out the Brands to Zero evaluations based on qualitative and quantitative data.

Visit Brands to Zero to learn more about this leader programme
How we Started -
Article by Lydia Lin

Launched in June 2020, Supplier to Zero is our leader programme designed to align and speed up supply chain implementation of ZDHC guidelines and solutions. It helps us to closely monitor the Roadmap to Zero performance on the ground, at factory level, a vital expansion of ZDHC’s reach and ability to effect long-term change.

Since its launch, Brands are increasingly monitoring the implementation of ZDHC guidelines throughout their supply chain – 70% of Brands require their suppliers to adopt the Wastewater Guidelines. Additionally the adoption rate of the ZDHC Gateway and its tools by ZDHC contributors across the supply chain is increasing.

Visit Supplier to Zero Programme to learn more about this leader programme

Prasad Pant’s experience of the textile industry spans no less than 3 decades. With a degree in Textile Chemistry he has worked for chemical companies, consulted textile processing, dye and auxiliaries manufacturers on better chemicals management for much of his career. Pant has made it his life’s mission is to raise awareness of the health and environmental impacts of hazardous chemical substances still commonly used by various industries in a region that lacks legislation. Although he believes regulations can put pressure on the industry to comply, Pant firmly believes that the urge for safe and sustainable chemistry should come through voluntary means.

In 2018 Pant therefore welcomed the opportunity to join ZDHC, as Mumbai-based regional director promoting the programme’s common standards throughout South Asia. When he first began liaising with textile companies on behalf of ZDHC, one of the first challenge he faced was clearing up misconceptions about what the organisation does.

“When I started talking to stakeholders about ZDHC, some were confusing it with India’s Zero Liquid Discharge wastewater strategy, while others thought it was a certification program, such as OEKO-TEX,” saidPant. “I had to explain that ZDHC is a holistic program for chemical management; it’s not a certificate you can hang on the wall, it’s about actions that you have to take.”

After just 18 months on the job, he said clarity and understanding of the program have increased greatly. That’s also because the seeds for change in South Asia were sown earlier, following the establishment of the ZDHC Foundation in 2016.

Friends of ZDHC, December 2018 - Amsterdam

“That’s when the biggest impact started, also because the onus shifted to the chemical industry. The MRSL has expanded the mindset from the end of pipe to the beginning of the manufacturing process,” he said.

This mind shift is essential, given the sheer size of the fashion and footwear manufacturing sector in the countries Pant oversees. India alone is the world’s second-largest producer of textiles and garments after China. It’s a growing sector, estimated to surpass US $200 billion by 2021. In addition, Pant oversees ZDHC’s activities in Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

Aside from increasing the number of ZDHC value chain affiliates throughout the region, he said the biggest challenge now is getting more people to understand how to use ZDHC tools, and how best to take corrective action should wastewater testing reveal nonconformities. This is where ZDHC’s Implementation Hub comes into play. “Via the hub, we’re raising awareness of the ZDHC program through workshops, roadshows and other forms of engagement with stakeholders,” said Pant.

He sees a willingness to initiate lasting change – especially among South Asia’s younger generation of business leaders. They are not conforming to the traditional way of doing business in this part of the world. “They have a global outlook and want to align with a more global way of doing things,” he said.

“I know it’s a mammoth task, and that it can’t be done overnight,” Pant said. “But I know that creating a better understanding of the impact of safe chemical management will lead to better conformance. People in the industry are starting to understand that they’re not just doing it to conform with some mandatory push by the brands they supply. Rather, they understand that what they’re doing affects themselves, and the next generation.”

Looking ahead, Pant said he and his colleagues in South Asia have defined several targets.

He plans to scale up the work he’s already doing by approving more consultants who can continue to engage with manufacturers in the textile supply chain. And he said there’ll be a greater push to start tackling the leather industry in India and Bangladesh, including a ZDHC training module specifically for tanneries. Plus, he said it’s time to expand ZDHC’s impact focus from companies serving the export market to the domestic fashion and footwear industry, particularly in India.

Our Impact -
Article featuring Prasad Pant
How we Started -
How we started

ZDHC Brands, Retailers and Value Chain Affiliates work together to create a culture of change and accelerate collaborative impact to progress towards zero discharge.

For each of the three programmes, we will launch leaderboards, showing how ZDHC Contributors are performing on the Roadmap to Zero Leader Programme, based on our KPIs. Those who reach the Aspirational Level serve as clear, leading role models within the ZDHC community and enjoy public credibility. Read more about this in the next chapter.

4. key message

Continuing to grow our impact

How we Started -
How we started

To capitalise on the momentum created by the strong growth we are seeing in the number of stakeholders committing to ZDHC across all three key segments, it is vital we continuously improve and scale the tools that maximise impact:

We made it easier for brands and suppliers to harmonise and communicate the requirements for sustainable chemical management practices with our ZDHC CMS Technical Industry Guide. Launched earlier this year, it provides simple, structured, hands-on guidelines to all manner of facilities, from tanneries, dye-houses and mills to printers and footwear assembly units.

We introduced guidelines to the Performance InCheck to help suppliers reference their chemical product listings at their respective ZDHC MRSL Conformance Level. Standardising this process helps enhance the accuracy of listings and triggers performance improvements for the suppliers.

The updated ClearStream - the wastewater test report summary generated by the ZDHC Gateway - will help suppliers interpret their performance and aid brands to more closely monitor the implementation of ZDHC Wastewater Guidelines throughout their supply chain on an ongoing basis.

Alongside these developments we also see room for improvement in relation to overall water quality. While our data shows we have successfully reduced the presence of hazardous chemicals in wastewater samples, when it comes to conventional wastewater parameters we need to help the industry improve its performance. We will start discussing this in our meetings with ZDHC Advisory Groups to help the fashion industry achieve sustainable practices that preserve our planet’s aquatic system and improve the water quality holistically.

The way forward

Whilst affirming our positive, collective impact so far, it is imperative that we continuously develop our tools, strategies and implementation of effective sustainable chemistry. We believe in a mindset that strives towards ever increasing levels of sustainability. In this chapter we set out the four key areas of our current focus.

We believe in a future for fashion that is driven by the “consumer right to know”. To realise this vision and empower the industry to become increasingly sustainable, we invest in processes that maximise transparency and the traceability of chemical inputs in the supply chain, innovate to enable effective chemical substitution and encourage our stakeholders to regularly communicate their chemical footprint.

1. focus area

Enabling transparency and traceability

Numerous chemicals are used throughout the value chain to help produce functioning and fashionable apparel and footwear. They are needed to spin fibre into yarn, pre-treat, dye and finish fabrics, or produce leather used to make accessories or shoes. Understanding their varying impact on the environment and people is extremely complex.

Transparency of the manufacturing processes of textile and leather is key

Digital technology makes such ambitions achievable. Through chemical traceability it is possible to dissect the life cycle of a product, revealing: its purchase date, the origin of each of its components, which farm grew the cotton from which it is made, the mill that processed it into a textile and the chemical plant that dyed its colour. 

ZDHC is mapping the use of blockchain technology to evaluate the chemical footprint of fashion. In 2019, we commissioned the London-based consultancy, A Transparent Company, to explore ways to increase transparency within supply chains and enable product traceability to ultimately accelerate the transition to a circular economy. 

Our work resulted in the launch of a set of guidelines in 2020 for a Multi-stakeholder Ledger: the catalyst for data harmonisation and alignment of entry points across stakeholders including but not limited to social, environmental, governance and finance. 

Learn more on Blockchain technology project: read the “Proof of Trust in Fashion” report

In 2020, ZDHC started a collaboration with The Sustainable Angle to address the knowledge gap on chemical performance that exists within the textile industry, through business-to-business methods. During the Future Fabric Expo 2021, a global fair for textile sourcing, the ‘Chemical Criteria stamp’ will be launched to enable suppliers to inform designers, product developers, clients and customers about their chemical performance. The performance criteria are based on current measures defined by the ZDHC leader programme Suppliers to Zero.     

January 2020

"Proof of Trust in Fashion" report

Download the executive summary

February 2020

Joined forces with UNECE

March 2020

Started the collaboration with The sustainable Angle

April 2020

public launch of “Detoxing the Fashion Industry - for Dummies

Download your free copy

Going forward, ZDHC will continue to invest in promoting and enabling supply chain chemical transparency and traceability. We are working towards creating visibility on the product's footprint. Imagine a future in which we are able to communicate each and every product’s impact. 

ZDHC’s ultimate goal is to strengthen consumer rights. Thereby we will actively contribute to the key chemical control regulation in the European Union under REACH, most specifically the “consumer’s right to know” how safe their products are.

2. focus area

Introducing systemic innovation

Eliminating hazardous chemicals across the global value chain is an epic challenge. At ZDHC we meet the gravity and complexity of this task with a culture of innovative systems design that strives for ever more sustainable chemistry.

One of our key strategies to effect change swiftly and at scale is to address the problem at source. The forthcoming launch of the ZDHC leader programme for chemical suppliers, will provide a comprehensive platform for the chemical industry to source safer chemical products at the entry point to production in accordance with the ZDHC MRSL requirements. The programme aims to further catalyse innovation that moves the entire fashion supply chain towards more sustainable chemistry, minimising pollution and waste and increasing fashion circularity at scale.

The goal of the ZDHC leader programme for chemical suppliers is to ‘design a credible, transparent, science-based, simple and suitable system that evaluates chemical formulations, while holistically supporting the development of more sustainable chemistry and preventive strategies to replace undesired substances (according to the ZDHC MRSL).’

Chemical Supplier Advisory Group

On the importance of the leader programme for sustainable chemistry

We interviewed two representatives of the ZDHC Advisory Group of Chemical Suppliers - Dr. Pierfrancesco Fois, Executive Director, ETAD, Ecological and Toxicological Association of Dyes and Organic Pigments Manufacturers and Andreas Bayer, Head of Division, German Chemical Industry Association (VCI)  about sustainable chemistry and the role of the forthcoming leader programme in improving sustainability performance among chemical suppliers.

In a circular fashion economy, processes such as reusing, repurposing or mending products create material loops that help keep the chemicals embodied in the products in use for longer.

read about the roadmap to circularity
3. focus area

Fostering a culture of leadership in sustainability

Our Impact Report 2020 marks the second, annual assessment of our Brands to Zero leader programme in which we highlight the achievements of the best performing brands. 

By celebrating the success of the most effective Brands through our leaderboard, ZDHC is proactively working to foster a culture of progressive and aspirational leadership in the fashion industry.

In our Brands to Zero Assessment 2021, a brand achieves the ‘Aspirational Level’, the highest of the three possible categories of success, when they attain a sufficient total score on all KPIs and fulfils selected KPIs determined by ZDHC. The KPIs are focused on assessing the way ZDHC guidelines, platforms and solutions are embedded into a Brand’s corporate strategy, and implemented in their supply chain practices. The leaderboard will highlight the top performers and provide background information to KPIs and metrics.

The Brands to Zero leaderboard will move the perception of impact from performance reporting towards creating public credibility to give the brands the opportunity to share their rating and highlight their contribution within the community.

The Way Ahead -
Engage, Educate, Expand
4. focus area

Unifying Forces

If you want to go quickly, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. Old proverb

The fashion supply chain is complex. To effectively amplify positive impact and minimise its negative effects on people and the environment, collective and synchronised efforts are both necessary and desirable. 

To accelerate our positive impact, ZDHC is co-creating and collaborating with like-minded organisations within the industry to converge initiatives that increase sustainability throughout the fashion supply chain. 

ZDHC co-founds the Apparel Alliance

In September 2020 ZDHC co-founds the Apparel Alliance between The Sustainable Apparel Coalition (SAC), Textile Exchange and the Apparel Impact Institute (Aii). The formation of the Apparel Alliance will align resources and offers provided to the global value chain. 


“Our ultimate objective is to increase efficiency in the near term to accelerate our collective impact,”

says Frank Michel, Executive Director,
the ZDHC Foundation


“There are some very exciting points of complementarity possible, and I think we have the right initial organisations at the table to do that. Ultimately, we see this alliance as an open resource for the industry’s sustainability initiatives, a platform for long-term, efficient industry engagement. COVID is a wake-up call. We have to continually innovate to preserve our work as a core industry investment.”

adds Lewis Perkins, President of the Apparel Impact Institute (Aii)


The Way Ahead -
The next milestones

ZDHC Gateway integrates the Open Apparel Registry ID 

The integration of the Open Apparel Registry (OAR) Facility identifier (ID) into the ZDHC Gateway is leading to improved insights into facilities and is expediting collaboration between brands and facilities. Sharing data openly through platforms like the OAR increases transparency within the supply chain and accelerates progress towards a sustainable future. 

”Arvind has been closely engaging with OAR since the early days of development of this unique platform. Collaboration with ZDHC further enhances the value for manufacturers and supply chain partners and also validates the utility of the platform. The collaboration will drive the OAR and ZDHC's vision of radical transparency towards reality” 

- Abhishek Bansal, Head of Sustainability, Arvind Limited

Read more in our news article
final message

Closing word

“Our job is far from done”
remains our guiding mantra at ZDHC, despite the progress we have made.

We have made substantial progress as an organisation since our last impact report, and are now at the beginning of another chapter in our story, one that will be characterised by further growth and ambition. In the coming years, we will further improve ZDHC’s guidelines, platforms and solutions to increase our collaborative impact. This means we will work with more organisations, brands, suppliers and manufacturers to continue to effect real change within the fashion and apparel industry.

We invite you to join our journey and share our mission to detox the fashion industry. Help us to keep improving by sharing your expertise with us so we can create a better future, together. You can play your part by leveraging all the resources available via our platforms, and understanding and implementing sustainable chemical management in your business. We ask you to be determined in your contribution to our collective positive impact and address the current global challenges. 

As a consumer, we ask you to assert your rights for more sustainable fashion by demanding transparency from your favourite labels and exercising your influence by choosing who to follow, engage with and purchase from. We will amplify your voice in the coming years and continue to educate both the industry and consumers, globally, on the vital role of sustainable chemistry in realising a culture of responsible, sustainable fashion.