Elevate Textiles improved its workflow and efficiencies, making it easy to implement ZDHC InCheck requirements across its supply chain.
About Elevate Textiles
Formed in 2018, Elevate Textiles is comprised of some of the oldest textile companies in the US and Europe, with over thirty active factories worldwide. They manufacture apparel and footwear thread, including specialty threads and strings, hygiene thread, tea bag string and kite strings, industrial threads for electronics and watches, threads used in military applications, like in para-aramid, medical barrier fabrics, various military and non-military uniform fabrics and many types of denim fabric. An early contributor to Zero Discharge of Hazardous Compounds (ZDHC) and member of the Sustainable Apparel Coalition (SAC), Elevate has deeply rooted sustainability values and goals.
The Challenge
Before moving to the CleanChain platform, in starting to implement their KPI’s for their supply chain centered around the ZDHC MRSL, Elevate Textiles sustainability managers found themselves managing numerous data sets across multiple spreadsheets. It was incredibly difficult to manage and impossible to see the real-time status of all their different plants to determine which dyes and chemicals were not in conformance with the ZDHC MRSL. As the spreadsheets became larger and more cumbersome, the effort required to maintain accurate data across versions became a distraction that prevented the team from being able to focus on the goals they had set.
The CleanChain Solution
The CleanChain platform has provided Elevate Textiles with a single place to track factory performance against their specific requirements, allowing them to visualize their monthly In-Check reports on a single platform that is easy to understand, displaying their current progress and clarifying where problem areas are. It shows them where they need to focus their attention to drive greater sustainability and compliance. An important point is how Elevate Textiles uses the CleanChain platform to drive its facilities to take action. When a facility uploads onto the platform, management and the corporate team can see that facility’s status. It is no longer a matter of someone from the sustainability team asking for another spreadsheet. Instead, the CleanChain platform makes the data much more visible and easy to digest, adding greater efficiencies and accountability.
Key Results
As InCheck report requirements and ZDHC MRSL conformance requirements have become more and more prevalent with Elevate’s customers, Elevate has set a goal of 100% conformance to the ZDHC MRSL at all facilities.
The CleanChain platform is an invaluable tool to track this conformance, with all facilities reporting on their current status and with special attention given to those few that are not yet 100% conformant. This proved especially helpful for Elevate Textiles’ plants outside the United States, because without CleanChain, it was very difficult to know the status of those facilities. Now they have, at their fingertips, a way to visualize conformance and a basis for discussion with non-conformant facilities.
Elevate’s sustainability program, including their seasoned use of CleanChain, indicates a high level of organization and projects a clarity of current and future performance that are favorable to potential customers. On the near horizon, many other companies are moving toward greater conformance, whether that be to the ZDHC MRSL or other industry standards, like Screened Chemistry. As this trend continues, Elevate Textiles can respond that it has been handled, putting them in a competitive position for gaining new customers while they continue to meet their own sustainability goals and policies.
