Textile and Leather: Generating Value with Better Chemical Data Management

Consumers often perceive fabric dye as the primary culprit when they consider the large variety of chemicals used in fashion manufacturing. However, there are various applications of chemicals such as anti-mold and bacteria-killing agents or water repellents for apparel and footwear that, while less prominent, can potentially contain hazardous chemicals.

The impact of hazardous chemicals on consumers includes skin irritation, allergies, and long-term health concerns unless adequate health and safety protections are in place. Such protections should also always extend to factory workers who may be exposed to chemicals during production.

Additionally, rivers, streams, and other bodies of water around manufacturing facilities risk damage due to inappropriate chemical management. This can negatively affect biodiversity in such areas, as rivers and streams often carry chemicals downstream.

These safety and ecological considerations are also not limited to ethical concerns: Businesses without a chemical management policy in place may experience a loss of revenue through negative consumer sentiment and a negative impact on the company’s finances through penalties or lowered investor confidence.

As part of your broader company sustainability strategy, sound chemical management is a critical factor in selling safer articles, providing employee protection and reducing negative environmental impacts.

The Zero Discharge of Hazardous Chemicals (ZDHC) initiative in the fashion industry is leading the way for chemical management to eliminate harmful chemicals from global supply chains with a strategy that engages multiple stakeholders — including brands, retailers, factories and independent laboratories — to build a foundation for more sustainable manufacturing and to protect workers, consumers and our planet’s ecosystems.

ZDHC provides guidelines to enable and accelerate the implementation of the ZDHC program within a company and splits the process into three parts: input, process and output.

For each of the identified parts, a company should take specific actions. For example, managing your inputs may involve generating a monthly Performance InCheck report to monitor and improve your Chemical Inventory List and verifying unknown chemicals through Manufacturing Restricted Substances List (MRSL) testing and certification.

Process management can involve training your employees on chemical management systems and on-site verification of these practices, as well as validating their output via wastewater testing to verify that no hazardous chemicals are being discharged.

Official ZDHC trainings support this strategy, helping to improve chemical management practices for brands, retailers and suppliers, and building more robust knowledge around these critical areas.

While you perform these actions, you’ll need to establish processes to evaluate and structure your program horizontally, collecting, managing, and analyzing data.

The value of data management

Data management is becoming increasingly important for investors, regulators, stakeholders and customers as they seek to evaluate the sustainability of a business. With the pressure mounting to find more environmentally friendly ways of working, data management is a topic that belongs in every business boardroom today.

End-to-end data management involves collecting, processing, analyzing and reporting sustainability data throughout the entire data management life cycle. Each step is critical in having accurate and transparent information that can be shared and acted upon.

While important, it is not always straightforward — managing data can present challenges for businesses:

• Handling sensitive information necessitates stringent measures to maintain confidentiality and prevent unauthorized access or misuse.
• Ongoing data maintenance can be complex and costly, requiring businesses to continuously collect and process information in a standardized and cost-efficient manner. However, this maintenance can distract from strategic initiatives, diverting resources away from higher-financial-value projects.
• Poor data management can have significant negative monetary impacts on a business, including loss of revenue.

Despite fashion stakeholders’ challenges, leveraging advanced analytics and reporting functionalities may help organizations extract actionable insights from their chemical inventory data that drive continuous improvement in sustainable practices.

Benefits of combining testing, certifications and training with data management

Establishing a comprehensive chemical management strategy can help textile and leather companies:

• Streamline ZDHC compliance – Companies can easily visualize, manage and improve ZDHC compliance across their supply chains through a unified strategy that combines accurate chemical testing and real-time inventory management capabilities.
• Enhance supply chain transparency – A comprehensive strategy enables businesses to gain greater upstream visibility into chemical use at each step of production, facilitating informed decision-making and fostering trust among stakeholders.
• Receive data-driven insights – By leveraging advanced analytics and reporting functionalities, organizations can gain actionable insights from their chemical inventory data, driving continuous improvement and sustainable practices.

How UL Solutions can support your chemical management action plan

UL Solutions and ADEC Innovations, the technology provider behind the supply chain software as a service (SaaS) platform CleanChain, are partnering to enhance chemical management across global supply chains in alignment with the ZDHC initiative.

Integrating UL Solutions services and the CleanChain platform allows businesses and their suppliers to gain greater visibility into chemical inventories, manage chemicals hazardous to human health and the environment, and drive continuous improvement in sustainability performance.

The bundled offering includes the following services: official ZDHC training for the value chain, wastewater testing and reporting, MRSL certification and monthly ZDHC Performance InCheck report generation.

Learn more about working with UL Solutions and ADEC Innovations, and contact us to get started today.