Joyce Tsoi, senior director of the Decarbonization Program at Cascale, recently presented at the virtual Komar Supply Chain Sustainability Forums in Vietnam and Cambodia. The event brought together Komar Brands’ Tier 1 and 2 suppliers and featured presentations from industry experts on supplier best practices and brainstorming sessions on environmental and product sustainability initiatives.
Tsoi kicked off her presentation by giving an overview of Cascale’s origins and its vision to convene stakeholders across the industry on a pre-competitive basis to develop a common approach to measuring sustainability. After an overview of Cascale’s growth in membership and evolution, Tsoi highlighted Cascale’s strategic pillars — Combat Climate Change and Support Decent Work for All — as critical to the organization’s renewed focus.
Decarbonization remains a critical focus for the industry. In Vietnam and Cambodia alone, we’ve seen only 27 companies committed to set science-based targets (SBTs), and out of those, 12 companies have validated targets from the apparel, footwear, and textile sector. From Higg FEM data insight, we need to continue to strive for significant actions in South East Asia. Without significant actions and progress, the economic, environmental, and social impacts will continue to escalate.
Tsoi shared Cascale’s efforts to combat climate change and accelerate industry-wide decarbonization through the new Industry Decarbonization Roadmap (IDR), developed in partnership with Apparel Impact Institute (Aii) and with the support of RESET Carbon. She noted how science-based targets (SBTs) and science-aligned targets (SATs) provided a focused first step for companies embarking on their decarbonization journey, complementing the broader IDR roadmap. IDR is a bold, industry-wide initiative to tackle supply chain emissions at scale, aiming to decarbonize global manufacturing from tier 1 finished production assembly, tier 2 material production to tier 3 raw material processing facilities.
Central to IDR, Tsoi highlighted the Manufacturer Climate Action Program (MCAP) framework and how Cascale works with manufacturers to commit and set SATs for validation, evaluate their climate risks, develop a decarbonization plan, and communicate progress with stakeholders. She detailed the program's benefits, including peer-to-peer learning, best practice sharing in the industry, as well as technical advisory support, training, and guidance. She shared how capacity-building programs – such as MCAP – enable knowledge and skills to be scaled to support manufacturers step-by-step in their target-setting process to support developing their decarbonization plan.
In tandem, Tsoi emphasized the importance of leveraging tools such as the Higg Facility Environmental Module (FEM) in establishing a firm environmental foundation for effective action. With this accurate energy and carbon baseline measurement, companies can determine their focus on tangible energy and carbon reduction opportunities, develop an action plan to take necessary actions, and achieve meaningful progress. Delving deeper into the Higg FEM, Tsoi shared key insights on its adoption in facilities in Vietnam and Cambodia, which showed a significant growth, with more facilities recognizing the Higg FEM as a core tool for measuring environmental performance.
Lastly, she noted the critical value of responsible purchasing practices in moving the industry forward, highlighting Cascale’s recent purchase of key assets of Better Buying Institute (BBI) as a testament of its commitment to advance responsible purchasing practices across the consumer goods industry.
Tsoi concluded her presentation by inviting attendees to register for the Cascale Forum, which will take place May 14-15 in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. The two-day event will bring together manufacturers, suppliers, brands, retailers, and key industry stakeholders to drive actionable solutions for decarbonization, environmental performance, responsible purchasing practices, and audit fatigue.
