When it comes to building a sustainability strategy, modern consumers, regulators, and investors are asking businesses to take more accountability and action. While many companies have made strides, emerging regulations such as the Corporate Social Responsibility Directive and California Senate Bill 253 and 261 are requiring companies to more fully disclose their supply chain impacts and set concrete goals for improving their social and environmental performance. Now, sustainability is a legislative matter that can’t be ignored – fines of up to €10M can be administered for noncompliance.

To operate successfully and responsibly in today’s marketplace, brands need current and complete views of their supply chain impacts and a plan for driving environmental improvements. The essential work of collaborating with manufacturers, setting targets, and measuring progress sits with sustainability teams that often have too much to do with too few resources. This makes the task of preparing for regulations that require more concrete data and strategies daunting.

That’s why Worldly has launched Facility Data Manager (FDM), a new solution that enables brands and manufacturers to effectively track progress towards decarbonization targets on a monthly basis, prepare for regulatory reporting, and make decisions that accelerate environmental improvements.

Facility Data Manager’s key features include:

Access frequent, standardized, primary data at scale

Historically, brands and supply chain partners have only formally reviewed environmental impact data once a year, but to meet regulatory requirements, brands will need a more recent view of environmental impacts. With Facility Data Manager, brands and manufacturers can access monthly quantitative data across energy, water, waste, and other impact areas, through one shared dashboard view, which will help support them as they prepare for reporting.

We’ve made it easy to collect data from every single manufacturer, whether a brand works with dozens or thousands, in one centralized platform that offers a simple, user-friendly data submission process. Plus, with features for bulk uploads and automated communication, Worldly helps companies maximize engagement from their manufacturing partners to ensure that they report the right data on time.

For an added layer of confidence in the data collected through FDM, we’ve teamed up with data assurance experts, SGS. Their team can offer on-site and remote reviews of data, giving everyone peace of mind the data has been validated by an independent third party.

Collaborate to set targets and monitor progress
Facility Data Manager empowers manufacturers to set absolute or normalized targets based on the functions unique to their facility, or they can choose from Worldly’s library of pre-built target templates. Manufacturers can align their targets with industry standards, ensuring compatibility with broader sustainability strategies. Additionally, the platform enables manufacturers to collaborate with multiple brands, sharing an individual brand’s progress transparently while maintaining the confidentiality of other customers.

Stay aligned to the industry standard
Importantly, FDM was designed in close alignment with the Higg Facility Environmental Module (FEM) methodology, the apparel industry standard developed by Cascale (formerly the Sustainable Apparel Coalition). Data collected through Facility Data Manager can be automatically imported into the Higg FEM for annual reporting. This avoids duplicate work for manufacturers, and offers a simplified and familiar reporting experience — so they no longer have to navigate multiple platforms (or worse, complete offline spreadsheets) to collaborate with brands.

Strengthen supply chain relationships
We’ve designed this tool to enable a new level of collaboration and action planning for manufacturers and brands. FDM provides manufacturers insights as they set and track progress towards their own goals. As they operationalize their data to enhance their sustainability programs, they can also share progress with brand customers more easily than ever before. By proactively addressing risks within their factories, manufacturers may also strengthen relationships with existing and potential brand partners.

To learn more about using Facility Data Manager for your business, reach out to our team.