RENOON
Sara - Sustainability and Account Manager at Renoon
22nd December 2024
Transparency Management in Fashion
Meet Sara, from Renoon.
Sara is a Sustainability and Account Manager, and has seen Renoon evolve for the last 3+ years.
Renoon is at the forefront of bringing more transparency in the fashion industry, namely through their Digital Product Passport.
Check out the paraphrased interview, or full video below!
R4: Who is Renoon?
Sara: We are an end-to-end transparency platform, and we help brands creating digital passports, by collecting their supply chain, their product data and mapping all their sustainability and transparency information. We started Renoon in 2021, and have changed a lot as we moved from a consumer platform to a B2B platform. We’re all about transparency, and bringing in the information to consumers via the brands’ commerces and physical products, by making information accessible through QR codes. Our key mission is to simplify transparency and help brands be compliant to the current and upcoming EU regulations.
R4: When a brand is starting to look at their sustainability profile, where do they start?
Sara: It's the supply chain. It's understanding where they produce, how their products have been produced, and how they can start working on being more sustainable and responsible in the production. It's different for brands that start with sustainability at heart, than for brands that have been in the market for many years and are starting their transition to sustainability. But for both, the first thing to look at is the supply chain.
R4: Looking at the supply chain, there’s a few places to look at: what kind of fabrics they're using, where the products have been produced, the manufacturing process, all of these steps, right?
Sara: Yes. It’s not only the materials, which are usually the first things that come to our mind. It could be finding more alternative materials, using textiles that have less impact, and more. But it's not only that. It's also looking into all of the processes, looking into if there are standards or certifications that guarantee the use of less chemicals or the use of less water. Also, we need to look into the impact on the humans that are involved in the supply chain - if the companies in which you are producing have living wages and are respecting decent working condition. So it's also the human side, not only the environmental side of the materials.
R4: If you take any examples of the brands that you're working with, that are already looking at the impact throughout the whole supply chain, which process are they examining the most?
Sara: After the materials, where most of the time the production phase has most impact, it's also transportation. So, trying to localize the production closer to where they sell, to decrease the impact of the transportation. That's the second thing I would say after materials.
R4: When we're looking at the overall scope of brands looking to get more sustainable, what are some of the most recognized labels and certifications that brands can get in their sustainability journey?
Sara: We have a lot of possible certifications that guarantee ethical and environmentally responsible processes. Some of them are already recognized by consumers, such as GOTS, ECOVERO, Tencel, and Woolmark. But we have also a lot of new standards coming out, for example, one that I recently discovered is the SANE Standard, which guarantees different aspects, not only environmental but also social. So it's a certification that covers different aspects of the production. Then we also have all those certifications more related only to the supply chain. So it goes all to the international recognized standards, or also to certifications related to the materials, and the chemical use, which are more unknown by consumers, but very used in the supply chain.
R4: How are you helping brands avoid greenwashing today?
Sara: We support all the brands that work with us to avoid greenwashing. It's all about having the proof behind the claims that they want to make. There are also regulations coming to guarantee this, especially at the European level, like the Green Claims Directive. At Renoon, through our platform, we collect the proof points. For example, if a brand wants to claim that they have a fair process behind the production, we collect all the certification and all the information behind that. This means that if the authorities come to ask them to prove that specific claim, we helped them collecting all these documents to validate that the claim is real.
So we are doing another important step because we are also bringing this information to consumers. The brands that work with us through our digital product passports, or through the widgets on the commerce, can show the proof points behind the claims to consumers. Then if a consumer is really interested in understanding why a brand, for example, is stating that their product is organic or made in a responsible way, they can really discover more about what's behind.
What's important also is not to be too generic. For example, if you state that your product is recycled, you should also be explicit in the percentage. You should write, for example, that it's 30% recycled or 100% recycled. So it's important to not be generic.
In summary, I would say being able to prove what you say, and not be generic. That's the difference between greenwashing and real responsibility.
R4: My last question to you is a little bit more personal. From your experience having been in this industry for a while, what is giving you hope that the fashion industry is going in the right direction?
Sara: The main thing is regulation! We are seeing an increasing interest from the market, and it's proving that the brands that are transitioning to sustainability and responsibility, are doing the right thing because the market is asking for it.
What will drive the change is regulation, because it will actually make it more difficult for brands that have a huge impact on the planet to still be there. And it would be easier to compare a brand that is more responsible in what they do and the brand that doesn't.
With our digital passport, all the brands on the European market will be forced to have information on the product, and that information will be accessible, so it will be easier for consumers to understand what's behind the product. And in this way we will actually educate consumers, that maybe are not really into sustainability, and don't know what the story behind the fashion industry is, to get in touch with it and to make more responsible choices.
R4: Sara, that was it for today. Thank you so much for taking the time to do this interview with us!