Materials, Impact and, Compliance Consultancy
Free 20 minute advisory consultation for the first 5 takers!
Contact : info@q-hq.com with reference ‘ #qhqcompliance ' in the title bar.
It can’t be any surprise to many out there that the compliance and regulatory environment is becoming increasingly complicated and challenging to navigate!
Compliance experts with a commercial approach are increasingly difficult to find, but there are specialists out there who can help you steer around the regulatory framework.
If you need any advice on the below please don’t hesitate to get in touch and we can deliver the expertise you need on a consultancy basis and avoid the need to employ a professional in each specialism.
Bespoke advice is available for all sizes of businesses, tailored to your budget and requirements.
Compliance:
Chemicals
As a supplier of textile goods you have various obligations to ensure that these are produced responsibly, that they don’t contain any harmful chemicals, and that the workers in your supply chain are not exposed to any harmful chemicals during production of raw materials.
Services include:
Assess your obligations for chemical compliance dependent on regions of sale and put in place a strategy of due diligence (REACH, US Prop 65 etc)
Advise on additional tools you can use to delve deeper into minimising chemical footprints in your supply chain (ZDHC, Oekotex etc)
Packaging and waste (extended producer responsibility)
There is legislation in the UK and abroad the requires you to report your packaging and textile goods placed onto each market and pay taxes in each region dependent on volumes sold. The regulations currently differ depending on which territories you sell in. There is also legislation that requires you to place certain information onto your packaging depending on where you are selling.
Services include:
Assess regions and volumes you are selling into to provide risk profile of where you may be required to report
Provide you with tools and training to calculate your packaging footprints globally
Assist your team with registration and maintenance of the various platforms countries are using to gather waste data and collect tax from brands
Impact
Supply Chain Mapping:
Your supply chain is likely to be extremely fragmented and more often than not a fashion brand only has visibility to Tier 2 which is the fabric supplier stage. But within Tier 2 do you know if your fabric is woven in more than one location, and dyed in a different country? And do you have any visibility beyond Tier 2 to the yarn and fibre production stages?
Most impacts come from the material production stage, and legislation in the future will obligate you to report this. You should start preparing to map your supply chain now in order to ensure you have the data needed when required.
Services include:
Provide the tools and training your team will need to start mapping your supply chain to Tier 4
Aid communications with supply base to ensure they are aware of what is required
Provide the tools needed to report metrics for your supply chain once mapping is underway
Advise on alternative suppliers who already have transparent supply chains where necessary
Product Footprint calculations
There is legislation on the horizon that will obligate you to create and report product impact footprints for the products you sell. Additionally, all brands should be able to see where their greatest impacts are and be given insights into where, and how to reduce these.
Services include:
Advice on best tools and services in the market to measure your product footprints
Onboarding of the brand to the most suitable tool (additional costs for the tools themselves would be payable directly to the service provider)
Assistance and training to team members to manage and input data into the footprint measuring tool
Materials sourcing strategy
Do you claim to be a sustainable brand? Do you have robust policies and processes in place to ensure that you can answer any questions when challenged? What do you consider to be sustainable from a materials point of view, and what is your rationale behind this? In order to avoid ‘greenwashing’ brands to need to have a clear framework of policy their teams work in accordance with, along with appropriate justification and evidence.
Services include:
Assessment of your current range and sustainability claims
Establish a baseline with your sourcing and propose a sourcing strategy and roadmap that your product team can work towards to ensure they are always moving forward
Provide leads and generate new relationships with suppliers working with low impact materials
Upskill your existing team in what it means to source low impact materials, and what should/should not be considered low impact
Sustainability Communications
Are you confident that the messages you are putting out are truthful, realistic and backed up with evidence? Are you afraid of being accused of greenwashing?
Using sustainability to market products should be avoided, however all brands should be communicating to their customers the efforts they are taking to reduce their impacts. Do you know when you should be using brand names, and when you may require a licence?
Services include:
Assess current comms and advise where risk exists, where you may need to obtain licences and how you can change your messaging to avoid greenwashing
Upskill product team to ensure they are only giving the marketing team relevant information that is backed by evidence and cannot be challenged
Assistance to communications team to ensure they are not breaching guidelines when marketing certain types of fibre and sustainability claim
Connect product team directly with fibre producers to allow them to gather first hand marketing information for factual, approved product communications
Assist your team with putting together annual impact report, with advice on layout, content and tone
Incremental gains
Are you serious about becoming a low impact business? Are all your efforts focussed on the end product and how it is sourced? Do you have ambitions to become a B-Corp? You can make huge impact reductions through incremental gains throughout your business in areas you may not have thought of. Target these in order to see real impact reductions and set yourself on the path to becoming a recognised impact led business.
Services include:
An overview of where you can make impact savings in your business
Advise on ways in which you may be able to incorporate circular business models into your operations