Imagine a world where every product is made without harming our planet, where clean water flows freely, biodiversity thrives and communities prosper. This is the vision we're building together through the ZDHC Foundation.

As we celebrate our 10th anniversary, we reflect on our achievements and reimagine how meaningful progress can address the interconnected environmental challenges our world faces today. Ten years ago, ZDHC began with a bold and focused mission: eliminating hazardous chemicals from the textile, apparel, leather and footwear industries.

Launching our Manufacturing Restricted Substances List (MRSL) was more than a technical achievement. It was a rallying point - a shared commitment by brands, suppliers, and chemical companies to redefine how products are made. Over the past decade, the ZDHC MRSL has grown into an industry-defining framework, widely adopted and rigorously implemented across thousands of manufacturing facilities. It continues to evolve with science and with the world around it.

Over the past decade, ZDHC has evolved into something more powerful: a trusted, collaborative platform anchored in science that drives global transformation.Today, we stand at a turning point. Global supply chains face unprecedented pressure, regulatory demands are intensifying, and sustainability performance drives investment decisions. In this context, our mission has never been more relevant or urgent. Our path forward is clear: we're taking ZDHC's proven approach both deeper across our core industries and broader into new sectors. From the Supplier to Zero programme to our regional Implementation Hubs, we focus on enabling action and making sustainability easier. At the same time, we are broadening our perspective. The environmental risks of chemical use do not stop at the textile sector, nor will we. The next phase of our work is to position the ZDHC MRSL as a cross-sectoral manufacturing substance framework that can bring alignment to adjacent sectors such as electronics, packaging, automotive, home textiles and beyond.

These sectors are ready for transformation and ZDHC provides the proven, convening platform they need to accelerate progress. As a mission-led organisation with a decade-long track record of eliminating hazardous chemicals at scale, ZDHC offers tested frameworks, global implementation expertise and trusted governance. By facilitating alignment and creating shared value, we avoid duplication of effort and maximise impact, allowing the industry to invest once, but wisely.
‍
This approach is not just strategic - it's necessary. Environmental challenges are deeply interconnected - we cannot address climate change, water pollution and biodiversity in isolation. Solutions must work together, not compete against each other. We must recognise these ecological interdependencies to prevent unintended trade-offs undermining positive outcomes. ZDHC's Nature Strategy, introduced in this report, is our response to this challenge. It connects our chemical management expertise with broader ecosystem resilience and climate action, addressing environmental degradation at the source.

Our work contributes meaningfully to several Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), in particular:

• SDG 6  – Ensuring access to clean water and sanitation through upstream interventions
• SDG 12 – Enabling responsible consumption and production via safer chemical processes
• SDG 13 – Supporting climate action by preventing non-carbon pollutants
• SDG 14 – Protecting marine ecosystems from chemical runoff
• SDG 15 – Safeguarding biodiversity and ecosystems on land
  
• SDG 17 – Creating effective partnerships to drive collective impact

Ten years ago, the ZDHC Foundation was formally established with a bold vision: eliminate hazardous chemicals from the global fashion supply chains - not after the damage is done, but at the point of use. This approach, rooted in the tenets of Green Chemistry, was a dramatic change in thinking about how to eliminate the most hazardous chemicals in the fashion industry. Changing from a final product approach that ignored the potential impacts on workers and communities where products were made to banning those chemicals in the processes used for manufacturing using the ZDHC Manufacturing Restricted Substances List (MRSL).

This approach has since become a global benchmark. But, if the ZDHC MRSL was the force that carved out the path, the road ahead now demands we accelerate our pace and commitment.We are entering a new era - one that demands radical transparency and impact-driven accountability. Full disclosure is no longer optional; it is the foundation of sustainable chemistry. Without visibility into the chemical substances used, product testing results and market trends for chemicals we are attempting to control, we cannot measure progress - nor can we claim it.

At ZDHC we are building the systems to make radical transparency possible, through the ZDHC Gateway Platform and our leadership programmes for brands, suppliers and chemical formulators. But tools alone are not enough. The truth is this: chemical pollution plays a silent but significant role in the degradation of ecosystems. And while ZDHC does not claim to restore nature, we do accept the moral responsibility to do no further harm.

That responsibility begins with eliminating hazardous inputs. It expands through our new Nature Strategy: a holistic commitment that includes water stewardship, biodiversity protection, circularity and decarbonisation. These pillars form the heart of our 2030 Impact Strategy. We pursue them not as separate goals, but as interdependent priorities that demand systems thinking, science and shared action.

Our ethical position is firm: there is no acceptable level of pollution in the making of clothes. Achieving zero discharge of hazardous chemistry is not just a technical target, it is a matter of environmental justice and intergenerational equity.

In a world flooded with green claims, real trust must be built on data, not declarations. A recent WWF and Globescan survey found that only 25% of the global public believes companies are honest about their environmental impact. This is a wake-up call. Transparency, accountability and independently verified progress must become the new baseline - not the exception.

Ten years in, we know this is not the end but a critical juncture. This report is a moment to pause, reflect and recommit. To celebrate the global community of changemakers who have ined us and to recognise how much work still lies ahead.

As we look forward, we invite you to stand with us. To insist on a system of sustainable emical management that is radically transparent, scientifically grounded and morally resolute.

Because the future of fashion - and of the planet - depends on it.

The ZDHC Foundation was established in 2015 on a revolutionary idea: rather than testing for hazardous chemicals after production, why not prevent them from entering production altogether? This upstream approach through our Manufacturing Restricted Substances List (MRSL) and Roadmap To Zero Programme has transformed how the global fashion industry can manage chemicals, protect workers and safeguard our shared environment.

Our Nature Strategy marks our next evolution - connecting the dots between chemical management, water stewardship, biodiversity protection and climate action. Chemistry sits at the heart of these interconnected challenges. Moreover, having transparent data about what's in our products is the very foundation for meaningful environmental progress and credible sustainability claims.