When the company started using Worldly to ramp up their sustainability efforts, Mir took on the role of Sustainability Manager full time. “When I first started using Worldly, I didn’t have a sustainability team in place, and the company’s ESG goals were yet to be defined,” explains Mir. But once he started using Worldly, he gained access to a wealth of data regarding the company’s social and environmental impact. “I appreciated how easily the platform helped me understand our results, and we set our goals based on that baseline” says Mir.

“Of all of the tools we use to manage sustainability, Worldly is the most helpful. The seven categories tracked across the Higg Facility Environmental Module (FEM), for example, are more robust than anything else we’ve researched,” Mir explains. “I could easily track our sustainability impact around water, waste, and carbon emissions in one place and see where we needed to improve. Now, data is at the heart of my role and our ESG actions,” says Mir.

“The Worldly platform also helps us track cost reductions and ROI from our initiatives,” explains Mir. Having now used Worldly for multiple years, the company can track year over year progress, and continue to build new, more aggressive programs.

Worker wellbeing is a top priority for the company. In 2019, they completed their first Higg Facility Social Labor Module (FSLM) to get a baseline understanding of their performance, and identify new areas of opportunity.

“The FSLM is the most detailed assessment we’ve ever used,” explains Mir, ”it helped us see what we were doing right, and where there were opportunities to improve.” The company had already offered amenities such as free housing, health insurance, and access to an on-site clinic for workers and their families, which helped them achieve a high FSLM score upfront. “We’re proud of our current initiatives, but there are always areas to grow. We look to the data to help us see where to improve” says Mir.

They are currently scaling a Social Management System, which includes a series of employee committees and programs designed to ensure workplace safety and wellbeing. For example, they’ve launched a mentorship program for women working on the production floor. The program empowers women to submit grievances and report any challenges in the workplace, helping them grow professionally and personally. According to Mir, “these tools not only help us improve the workplace and reduce turnover, but they also increase productivity.”

Built from a team of one, Al-Karam has made impressive strides to improve its impact. The company has now staffed up their sustainability program to include 12 dedicated team members. This also reaches to cross-department engineers who support Al-Karam in gathering real-time data, target setting, and implementation.