When contemplating a new traceability initiative, it's essential to define your needs as a business. These are unique to each business and will change depending on the size and complexity of your supply chains, the products you make and the regions you operate in. In the Traceability Roadmap, released in June, TrusTrace partner Tapestry provided case studies to highlight the behind-the-scenes work required to implement a traceability programme within an enterprise-scale business. Sherry Fazal, Sr Manager, Global ESG & Sustainability Solutions at Tapestry, shares how Tapestry worked with TrusTrace to define its needs.
"Tapestry’s strategic pillars for ESG are Our People, Our Community and Our Planet. Our work on sustainability is robust and our goals are significant: one of our most critical goals is to achieve 95% traceability and mapping of raw materials to ensure a transparent and responsible supply chain by 2025. When we initially set the goal, it was about working backwards from there — we knew that if we needed to trace our materials, we needed to map our supply chain.
One key learning was that it’s not just about connecting tier one suppliers, tier two suppliers and beyond, but having substantial data sets and ensuring data integrity. We focused on cleansing the data in our supply chain before we even tried to connect the people. A company’s traceability reporting is only as good as the accuracy of its data.
Early 2020 was the start of us having an integrated systems architecture to support Tapestry’s sustainability journey. We knew we needed systems and had to start somewhere. It wasn’t about perfection; it was about having a general idea of our business needs, our customer expectations and the ESG story we want to tell about our company. Our first step was to create a high-level roadmap that was going to guide us as we built the systems but could be flexible when we needed to pivot or adjust. FY21 was a foundational year.
We knew the power of small wins, so we started with those and built on the momentum, which gave us the confidence to tackle bigger challenges. For example, one of our commitments is to ensure 90% of leather is sourced from Gold and Silver-rated tanneries. We partnered with reputable leather suppliers to ensure tanneries were up to standard.
If they weren't, we wanted to help get them there, not walk away from the vendor. That’s a really important part of Tapestry’s work - we recognize we’re all on a journey together and it’s about making real sustainable progress."
By Sherry Fazal
Sr Manager, Global ESG & Sustainability Solutions at Tapestry
This story is an excerpt from the Traceability Roadmap, TrusTrace's step-by-step guide to implementing traceability in fashion supply chains. Read the full report here.
