Tag: 3BL

Southwire Canada is proud to support the next generation of talent through Southwire’s Wired for the Future Scholarship via Electro Federation Canada’s (EFC) scholarship platform. The program reflects Southwire Canada’s commitment to advancing education, supporting community involvement, and strengthening the future of Canada’s electrical industry.

Supporting Canadian Students Driving Innovation and Sustainability

The $3,500 Wired for the Future Scholarship is open to students enrolled full-time at an accredited Canadian university or college who are pursuing programs aligned with Southwire’s industry and areas of impact. Eligible fields of study include engineering, technology, data and AI, business, environmental science, safety and skilled trades.

Applicants must have maintained a minimum cumulative average of 75% and demonstrated community involvement or leadership in sustainability-related initiatives. Through this scholarship, Southwire Canada is recognizing students who are excelling academically while also making meaningful contributions to their communities.

Strengthening the Future of Canada’s Electrical Industry

Southwire and its subsidiaries provide wire and cable solutions, electrical products, engineered solutions, and field support services that help power infrastructure and electrification initiatives across Canada.

“With a strong operational presence across the country, Southwire Canada is committed to supporting customers and communities from coast to coast,” said Ian Rand, President of Southwire Canada. “With distribution centers in Toronto and Calgary, a Canadian head office in Mississauga, and field services based in Toronto, investing in Canadian students is a natural extension of how we support the future of Canada’s electrical industry.”

By supporting Canadian students through the Wired for the Future Scholarship, Southwire Canada is helping to build the future workforce that will contribute to these critical industries. The scholarship underscores Southwire Canada’s ongoing commitment to community involvement, education and sustainability.

Southwire Company, LLC is North America’s leading wire and cable company. The $9.7B organization is made up of more than 9,000 team members across the globe who unite as ONE Southwire each and every day to serve each other, their customers and their communities. Southwire and its subsidiaries provide solutions including building wire and cable, metal-clad cable, utility products, portable and electronic cord products and OEM wire products. In addition, Southwire offers electrical products, engineered solutions and a variety of field support services.

For more on Southwire’s products and solutions, its community involvement and its vision of sustainability, visit www.southwire.com. 

Southwire Canada is proud to support the next generation of talent through Southwire’s Wired for the Future Scholarship via Electro Federation Canada’s (EFC) scholarship platform. The program reflects Southwire Canada’s commitment to advancing education, supporting community involvement, and strengthening the future of Canada’s electrical industry.

Supporting Canadian Students Driving Innovation and Sustainability

The $3,500 Wired for the Future Scholarship is open to students enrolled full-time at an accredited Canadian university or college who are pursuing programs aligned with Southwire’s industry and areas of impact. Eligible fields of study include engineering, technology, data and AI, business, environmental science, safety and skilled trades.

Applicants must have maintained a minimum cumulative average of 75% and demonstrated community involvement or leadership in sustainability-related initiatives. Through this scholarship, Southwire Canada is recognizing students who are excelling academically while also making meaningful contributions to their communities.

Strengthening the Future of Canada’s Electrical Industry

Southwire and its subsidiaries provide wire and cable solutions, electrical products, engineered solutions, and field support services that help power infrastructure and electrification initiatives across Canada.

“With a strong operational presence across the country, Southwire Canada is committed to supporting customers and communities from coast to coast,” said Ian Rand, President of Southwire Canada. “With distribution centers in Toronto and Calgary, a Canadian head office in Mississauga, and field services based in Toronto, investing in Canadian students is a natural extension of how we support the future of Canada’s electrical industry.”

By supporting Canadian students through the Wired for the Future Scholarship, Southwire Canada is helping to build the future workforce that will contribute to these critical industries. The scholarship underscores Southwire Canada’s ongoing commitment to community involvement, education and sustainability.

Southwire Company, LLC is North America’s leading wire and cable company. The $9.7B organization is made up of more than 9,000 team members across the globe who unite as ONE Southwire each and every day to serve each other, their customers and their communities. Southwire and its subsidiaries provide solutions including building wire and cable, metal-clad cable, utility products, portable and electronic cord products and OEM wire products. In addition, Southwire offers electrical products, engineered solutions and a variety of field support services.

For more on Southwire’s products and solutions, its community involvement and its vision of sustainability, visit www.southwire.com. 

Corporate water accounting has a fragmentation problem — and Reuters is covering the effort to fix it.

In a story published today, Reuters reporter Simon Jessop examines why the lack of consistent water reporting standards is making it harder for investors, auditors, and communities to assess what companies are actually doing with water. Lauren Enright, SCS Global Services’ program manager of water services, is quoted in the piece.

The story centers on a new initiative backed by the World Resources Institute (WRI), WWF, and the UN-backed CEO Water Mandate — expected to launch formally next week as Corporate Guidance for Assessing Water Scopes 1-3 in Value Chains. Rather than replacing existing reporting regimes, the framework aims to establish a common set of definitions and core concepts that sit beneath them.

SCS Global Services is helping to convene the initiative. As water stress increasingly affects sectors from agriculture to technology, the need for comparable, decision-useful water data has never been more urgent.

Read the full Reuters story here: https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulation/rising-water-risks-drive-push-common-water-reporting-rules-2026-04-22/

Corporate water accounting has a fragmentation problem — and Reuters is covering the effort to fix it.

In a story published today, Reuters reporter Simon Jessop examines why the lack of consistent water reporting standards is making it harder for investors, auditors, and communities to assess what companies are actually doing with water. Lauren Enright, SCS Global Services’ program manager of water services, is quoted in the piece.

The story centers on a new initiative backed by the World Resources Institute (WRI), WWF, and the UN-backed CEO Water Mandate — expected to launch formally next week as Corporate Guidance for Assessing Water Scopes 1-3 in Value Chains. Rather than replacing existing reporting regimes, the framework aims to establish a common set of definitions and core concepts that sit beneath them.

SCS Global Services is helping to convene the initiative. As water stress increasingly affects sectors from agriculture to technology, the need for comparable, decision-useful water data has never been more urgent.

Read the full Reuters story here: https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulation/rising-water-risks-drive-push-common-water-reporting-rules-2026-04-22/

Key Takeaways:

• Heat stress impacts a wide range of stakeholders and business activities.
• A structured approach gives more clarity to how brands and manufacturers can collaboratively address and mitigate heat stress.
• Newly released, the AAFA Guide to Protecting Workers from Heat Stress aims to promote practical action on heat stress.

Heat stress is not a new issue, but it’s accelerating at a pace that the apparel and footwear industry must take further action upon. It is influencing how factories operate, how companies think about worker well-being, and how supply chains prepare for operational disruption.

For an industry that produces globally and sells globally, heat stress has implications across sourcing, production, and business continuity.

That is why AAFA has been working with industry stakeholders to develop the AAFA Guide to Protecting Workers from Heat Stress, focusing on what it takes to move from awareness to practical implementation.

Why Heat Stress Demands Greater Industry Alignment

Over the past several years, companies have made incremental progress on social responsibility and environmental performance, yet not fast enough, as recent Cascale reports noted. Expectations across supply chains have also become more complex, and companies are managing more requirements than ever before.

Heat stress brings those pressures into sharper focus because at the center of this industry is – and always will be – people.

It affects workers directly. It affects production timelines. And it raises important questions about how expectations are set and applied across the value chain.

Across many major sourcing regions, rising temperatures and more frequent extreme heat conditions are making this issue harder to ignore, particularly in factory environments where ventilation, pace of work, and other workplace conditions can intensify risk.

The goal of this work is to help the industry move toward a more consistent and practical approach.

What Manufacturers and Brands Are Telling Us

As part of this process, AAFA engaged dozens of stakeholders across the value chain. This included recent input gathered with support from Cascale, bringing in perspectives from both manufacturers and brands.

A few themes came through clearly. First, there is broad recognition that this is an important issue and that guidance can play a useful role.

Second, there is a strong focus on how that guidance is applied in practice. Manufacturers emphasized the need for approaches that reflect on-the-ground realities, including existing systems, operational constraints, and local conditions. Brands raised similar questions around how guidance can be integrated into current compliance programs without creating duplication or unintended consequences. Across both groups, there was a consistent message: clarity, consistency, and practicality matter.

What the Guidance Is Designed to Help Companies Do

The AAFA guidance is intended to help companies and facilities take a more structured approach to identifying, monitoring, and managing heat stress risks across the supply chain.

In practical terms, the guidance is designed to support companies in several areas, including:

• Determining when workplace heat conditions become excessive
• Monitoring and recording heat conditions at the facility level
• Tracking and responding to heat-related illness
• Preventing, mitigating, and managing excessive heat days through practical workplace measures
• Developing heat action plans and response procedures
• Strengthening worker training, awareness, and monitoring programs

It also encourages factories to establish heat thresholds, adjust workloads, and water and bathroom breaks in accordance with heat conditions, and strengthen alignment with applicable workplace health and labor requirements.

Just as important, based on recommendations from Cascale members and other stakeholders, the guidance emphasizes the importance of communication between buyers and suppliers, and between suppliers and their workers. Every decision to protect workers from heat stress can involve costs, impact production, affect workers, and change timelines. Regular communication between suppliers, buyers, and the workers themselves, is critical to make any effort to protect workers from heat stress a success.

The objective is to give companies guidance they can actually use — guidance that helps translate a growing body of research, policy attention, and industry concern into practical action on the factory floor.

Why Implementation Will Matter as Much as the Guidance Itself

As with any industry guidance, how it is used will ultimately determine its impact. That includes how expectations are communicated, how they are implemented at the facility level, and how companies work together when challenges arise. It also requires being mindful of unintended outcomes, such as additional audits, overlapping requests, delivery delays, additional costs, or requirements that are difficult to operationalize in practice. Getting this right will require continued dialogue across brands, manufacturers, and other stakeholders.

What Progress Will Require Going Forward

The AAFA Guide to Protecting Workers from Heat Stress is part of an ongoing effort. It will continue to evolve as the industry builds more experience and as conditions change.

AAFA will continue working with industry partners to refine the guidance and support implementation. For example, AAFA has planned an upcoming open industry webinar, “Implementing the AAFA Heat Guidance,” on May 19, which will provide an opportunity to walk through the guidance in more detail and discuss what practical implementation may look like across the value chain.

Efforts like those facilitated by Cascale are an important part of that process, helping to surface practical insights and ensure that a range of perspectives are reflected. Heat stress is a complex challenge, but it is one the industry is increasingly equipped to address. Progress will depend on alignment, collaboration, and a shared focus on what works in practice. By continuing to build on industry input and focusing on practical application, there is an opportunity to develop approaches that better support workers and strengthen the long-term resilience of global supply chains.

Members: Read the Summary of Member Perspectives on Cascale Connect

Key Takeaways:

• Heat stress impacts a wide range of stakeholders and business activities.
• A structured approach gives more clarity to how brands and manufacturers can collaboratively address and mitigate heat stress.
• Newly released, the AAFA Guide to Protecting Workers from Heat Stress aims to promote practical action on heat stress.

Heat stress is not a new issue, but it’s accelerating at a pace that the apparel and footwear industry must take further action upon. It is influencing how factories operate, how companies think about worker well-being, and how supply chains prepare for operational disruption.

For an industry that produces globally and sells globally, heat stress has implications across sourcing, production, and business continuity.

That is why AAFA has been working with industry stakeholders to develop the AAFA Guide to Protecting Workers from Heat Stress, focusing on what it takes to move from awareness to practical implementation.

Why Heat Stress Demands Greater Industry Alignment

Over the past several years, companies have made incremental progress on social responsibility and environmental performance, yet not fast enough, as recent Cascale reports noted. Expectations across supply chains have also become more complex, and companies are managing more requirements than ever before.

Heat stress brings those pressures into sharper focus because at the center of this industry is – and always will be – people.

It affects workers directly. It affects production timelines. And it raises important questions about how expectations are set and applied across the value chain.

Across many major sourcing regions, rising temperatures and more frequent extreme heat conditions are making this issue harder to ignore, particularly in factory environments where ventilation, pace of work, and other workplace conditions can intensify risk.

The goal of this work is to help the industry move toward a more consistent and practical approach.

What Manufacturers and Brands Are Telling Us

As part of this process, AAFA engaged dozens of stakeholders across the value chain. This included recent input gathered with support from Cascale, bringing in perspectives from both manufacturers and brands.

A few themes came through clearly. First, there is broad recognition that this is an important issue and that guidance can play a useful role.

Second, there is a strong focus on how that guidance is applied in practice. Manufacturers emphasized the need for approaches that reflect on-the-ground realities, including existing systems, operational constraints, and local conditions. Brands raised similar questions around how guidance can be integrated into current compliance programs without creating duplication or unintended consequences. Across both groups, there was a consistent message: clarity, consistency, and practicality matter.

What the Guidance Is Designed to Help Companies Do

The AAFA guidance is intended to help companies and facilities take a more structured approach to identifying, monitoring, and managing heat stress risks across the supply chain.

In practical terms, the guidance is designed to support companies in several areas, including:

• Determining when workplace heat conditions become excessive
• Monitoring and recording heat conditions at the facility level
• Tracking and responding to heat-related illness
• Preventing, mitigating, and managing excessive heat days through practical workplace measures
• Developing heat action plans and response procedures
• Strengthening worker training, awareness, and monitoring programs

It also encourages factories to establish heat thresholds, adjust workloads, and water and bathroom breaks in accordance with heat conditions, and strengthen alignment with applicable workplace health and labor requirements.

Just as important, based on recommendations from Cascale members and other stakeholders, the guidance emphasizes the importance of communication between buyers and suppliers, and between suppliers and their workers. Every decision to protect workers from heat stress can involve costs, impact production, affect workers, and change timelines. Regular communication between suppliers, buyers, and the workers themselves, is critical to make any effort to protect workers from heat stress a success.

The objective is to give companies guidance they can actually use — guidance that helps translate a growing body of research, policy attention, and industry concern into practical action on the factory floor.

Why Implementation Will Matter as Much as the Guidance Itself

As with any industry guidance, how it is used will ultimately determine its impact. That includes how expectations are communicated, how they are implemented at the facility level, and how companies work together when challenges arise. It also requires being mindful of unintended outcomes, such as additional audits, overlapping requests, delivery delays, additional costs, or requirements that are difficult to operationalize in practice. Getting this right will require continued dialogue across brands, manufacturers, and other stakeholders.

What Progress Will Require Going Forward

The AAFA Guide to Protecting Workers from Heat Stress is part of an ongoing effort. It will continue to evolve as the industry builds more experience and as conditions change.

AAFA will continue working with industry partners to refine the guidance and support implementation. For example, AAFA has planned an upcoming open industry webinar, “Implementing the AAFA Heat Guidance,” on May 19, which will provide an opportunity to walk through the guidance in more detail and discuss what practical implementation may look like across the value chain.

Efforts like those facilitated by Cascale are an important part of that process, helping to surface practical insights and ensure that a range of perspectives are reflected. Heat stress is a complex challenge, but it is one the industry is increasingly equipped to address. Progress will depend on alignment, collaboration, and a shared focus on what works in practice. By continuing to build on industry input and focusing on practical application, there is an opportunity to develop approaches that better support workers and strengthen the long-term resilience of global supply chains.

Members: Read the Summary of Member Perspectives on Cascale Connect

Key Takeaways:

• Heat stress impacts a wide range of stakeholders and business activities.
• A structured approach gives more clarity to how brands and manufacturers can collaboratively address and mitigate heat stress.
• Newly released, the AAFA Guide to Protecting Workers from Heat Stress aims to promote practical action on heat stress.

Heat stress is not a new issue, but it’s accelerating at a pace that the apparel and footwear industry must take further action upon. It is influencing how factories operate, how companies think about worker well-being, and how supply chains prepare for operational disruption.

For an industry that produces globally and sells globally, heat stress has implications across sourcing, production, and business continuity.

That is why AAFA has been working with industry stakeholders to develop the AAFA Guide to Protecting Workers from Heat Stress, focusing on what it takes to move from awareness to practical implementation.

Why Heat Stress Demands Greater Industry Alignment

Over the past several years, companies have made incremental progress on social responsibility and environmental performance, yet not fast enough, as recent Cascale reports noted. Expectations across supply chains have also become more complex, and companies are managing more requirements than ever before.

Heat stress brings those pressures into sharper focus because at the center of this industry is – and always will be – people.

It affects workers directly. It affects production timelines. And it raises important questions about how expectations are set and applied across the value chain.

Across many major sourcing regions, rising temperatures and more frequent extreme heat conditions are making this issue harder to ignore, particularly in factory environments where ventilation, pace of work, and other workplace conditions can intensify risk.

The goal of this work is to help the industry move toward a more consistent and practical approach.

What Manufacturers and Brands Are Telling Us

As part of this process, AAFA engaged dozens of stakeholders across the value chain. This included recent input gathered with support from Cascale, bringing in perspectives from both manufacturers and brands.

A few themes came through clearly. First, there is broad recognition that this is an important issue and that guidance can play a useful role.

Second, there is a strong focus on how that guidance is applied in practice. Manufacturers emphasized the need for approaches that reflect on-the-ground realities, including existing systems, operational constraints, and local conditions. Brands raised similar questions around how guidance can be integrated into current compliance programs without creating duplication or unintended consequences. Across both groups, there was a consistent message: clarity, consistency, and practicality matter.

What the Guidance Is Designed to Help Companies Do

The AAFA guidance is intended to help companies and facilities take a more structured approach to identifying, monitoring, and managing heat stress risks across the supply chain.

In practical terms, the guidance is designed to support companies in several areas, including:

• Determining when workplace heat conditions become excessive
• Monitoring and recording heat conditions at the facility level
• Tracking and responding to heat-related illness
• Preventing, mitigating, and managing excessive heat days through practical workplace measures
• Developing heat action plans and response procedures
• Strengthening worker training, awareness, and monitoring programs

It also encourages factories to establish heat thresholds, adjust workloads, and water and bathroom breaks in accordance with heat conditions, and strengthen alignment with applicable workplace health and labor requirements.

Just as important, based on recommendations from Cascale members and other stakeholders, the guidance emphasizes the importance of communication between buyers and suppliers, and between suppliers and their workers. Every decision to protect workers from heat stress can involve costs, impact production, affect workers, and change timelines. Regular communication between suppliers, buyers, and the workers themselves, is critical to make any effort to protect workers from heat stress a success.

The objective is to give companies guidance they can actually use — guidance that helps translate a growing body of research, policy attention, and industry concern into practical action on the factory floor.

Why Implementation Will Matter as Much as the Guidance Itself

As with any industry guidance, how it is used will ultimately determine its impact. That includes how expectations are communicated, how they are implemented at the facility level, and how companies work together when challenges arise. It also requires being mindful of unintended outcomes, such as additional audits, overlapping requests, delivery delays, additional costs, or requirements that are difficult to operationalize in practice. Getting this right will require continued dialogue across brands, manufacturers, and other stakeholders.

What Progress Will Require Going Forward

The AAFA Guide to Protecting Workers from Heat Stress is part of an ongoing effort. It will continue to evolve as the industry builds more experience and as conditions change.

AAFA will continue working with industry partners to refine the guidance and support implementation. For example, AAFA has planned an upcoming open industry webinar, “Implementing the AAFA Heat Guidance,” on May 19, which will provide an opportunity to walk through the guidance in more detail and discuss what practical implementation may look like across the value chain.

Efforts like those facilitated by Cascale are an important part of that process, helping to surface practical insights and ensure that a range of perspectives are reflected. Heat stress is a complex challenge, but it is one the industry is increasingly equipped to address. Progress will depend on alignment, collaboration, and a shared focus on what works in practice. By continuing to build on industry input and focusing on practical application, there is an opportunity to develop approaches that better support workers and strengthen the long-term resilience of global supply chains.

Members: Read the Summary of Member Perspectives on Cascale Connect

Last week in Los Angeles, Rachel Lincoln Sarnoff, senior director of communications at Cascale, had the opportunity to attend the “Design for Compliance: Textile EPR in California” event during Los Angeles Climate Week (LACW) – which brings together a range of events and conversations across sectors exploring climate solutions, policy, and innovation.

LACW discussions affect not only fellow Angelenos, but also the world – as California ranks as the fourth largest economy. Those specific to textile, apparel, and footwear manufacturing are particularly of interest, given that Los Angeles is also the largest apparel manufacturing hub in the United States.

Quick Recap of LACW:

• Dubbed “Design for Compliance: Textile EPR in California” the event convened cross-sector conversations on climate solutions, policy, and innovation.
• California, and LA specifically, have a part to play in global textile policy discussions.
• Discussion focused on moving California’s SB 707 textile EPR law from policy design into implementation.

Fashion is Outrageous and the California Product Stewardship Center (CPSC) co-hosted the event, which was held at the Little City Farm urban regenerative farm and zero-waste event space. It brought together designers, circularity stakeholders, and experts including Marissa Nuncio, executive director of the labor organizing nonprofit Garment Worker Center and Paul Asplund-Dirani, co-executive director of Project Ropa, which provides clothing to people experiencing homelessness. Event attendees were encouraged to explore and express these ideas through creative exploration led by Gabrille Miller and Kestrel Jenkins, co-founders of FIO.

Joanne Brasch, director of advocacy and outreach at CPSC, led the discussion on how California is moving from policy design to implementation for SB 707, the Responsible Textile Recovery Act, which is the nation’s first statewide extended producer responsibility (EPR) program for textiles. The conversation focused not only on the policy landscape, but also on what implementation will require in practice — from infrastructure readiness to producer obligations and system coordination.

While Climate Week conversations often focus on emerging solutions and future pathways, CPSC’s perspective highlighted the sustained stakeholder engagement and coalition-building required to bring SB 707 forward. A clear takeaway was that “design for compliance” is increasingly becoming synonymous with designing for system readiness, linking product design decisions directly to recovery infrastructure and material flows – connecting design, policy, and end-of-life systems.

The conversation was especially relevant to discussions happening during climate weeks held around the globe. Across sectors, there is increasing attention on how climate goals translate into implementation — particularly where policy, industry systems, and infrastructure intersect.

As Cascale approaches its 2026 Annual Meeting, held in Athens this September, participants are increasingly challenging how the industry shows up to this collective call to action. Because it’s not one city or company acting in isolation, it’s a shared economic and climate reality.

And every corner of Cascale’s global, diverse membership brings an important perspective to the table.

Learn More & Join Us in Athens

Last week in Los Angeles, Rachel Lincoln Sarnoff, senior director of communications at Cascale, had the opportunity to attend the “Design for Compliance: Textile EPR in California” event during Los Angeles Climate Week (LACW) – which brings together a range of events and conversations across sectors exploring climate solutions, policy, and innovation.

LACW discussions affect not only fellow Angelenos, but also the world – as California ranks as the fourth largest economy. Those specific to textile, apparel, and footwear manufacturing are particularly of interest, given that Los Angeles is also the largest apparel manufacturing hub in the United States.

Quick Recap of LACW:

• Dubbed “Design for Compliance: Textile EPR in California” the event convened cross-sector conversations on climate solutions, policy, and innovation.
• California, and LA specifically, have a part to play in global textile policy discussions.
• Discussion focused on moving California’s SB 707 textile EPR law from policy design into implementation.

Fashion is Outrageous and the California Product Stewardship Center (CPSC) co-hosted the event, which was held at the Little City Farm urban regenerative farm and zero-waste event space. It brought together designers, circularity stakeholders, and experts including Marissa Nuncio, executive director of the labor organizing nonprofit Garment Worker Center and Paul Asplund-Dirani, co-executive director of Project Ropa, which provides clothing to people experiencing homelessness. Event attendees were encouraged to explore and express these ideas through creative exploration led by Gabrille Miller and Kestrel Jenkins, co-founders of FIO.

Joanne Brasch, director of advocacy and outreach at CPSC, led the discussion on how California is moving from policy design to implementation for SB 707, the Responsible Textile Recovery Act, which is the nation’s first statewide extended producer responsibility (EPR) program for textiles. The conversation focused not only on the policy landscape, but also on what implementation will require in practice — from infrastructure readiness to producer obligations and system coordination.

While Climate Week conversations often focus on emerging solutions and future pathways, CPSC’s perspective highlighted the sustained stakeholder engagement and coalition-building required to bring SB 707 forward. A clear takeaway was that “design for compliance” is increasingly becoming synonymous with designing for system readiness, linking product design decisions directly to recovery infrastructure and material flows – connecting design, policy, and end-of-life systems.

The conversation was especially relevant to discussions happening during climate weeks held around the globe. Across sectors, there is increasing attention on how climate goals translate into implementation — particularly where policy, industry systems, and infrastructure intersect.

As Cascale approaches its 2026 Annual Meeting, held in Athens this September, participants are increasingly challenging how the industry shows up to this collective call to action. Because it’s not one city or company acting in isolation, it’s a shared economic and climate reality.

And every corner of Cascale’s global, diverse membership brings an important perspective to the table.

Learn More & Join Us in Athens

Last week in Los Angeles, Rachel Lincoln Sarnoff, senior director of communications at Cascale, had the opportunity to attend the “Design for Compliance: Textile EPR in California” event during Los Angeles Climate Week (LACW) – which brings together a range of events and conversations across sectors exploring climate solutions, policy, and innovation.

LACW discussions affect not only fellow Angelenos, but also the world – as California ranks as the fourth largest economy. Those specific to textile, apparel, and footwear manufacturing are particularly of interest, given that Los Angeles is also the largest apparel manufacturing hub in the United States.

Quick Recap of LACW:

• Dubbed “Design for Compliance: Textile EPR in California” the event convened cross-sector conversations on climate solutions, policy, and innovation.
• California, and LA specifically, have a part to play in global textile policy discussions.
• Discussion focused on moving California’s SB 707 textile EPR law from policy design into implementation.

Fashion is Outrageous and the California Product Stewardship Center (CPSC) co-hosted the event, which was held at the Little City Farm urban regenerative farm and zero-waste event space. It brought together designers, circularity stakeholders, and experts including Marissa Nuncio, executive director of the labor organizing nonprofit Garment Worker Center and Paul Asplund-Dirani, co-executive director of Project Ropa, which provides clothing to people experiencing homelessness. Event attendees were encouraged to explore and express these ideas through creative exploration led by Gabrille Miller and Kestrel Jenkins, co-founders of FIO.

Joanne Brasch, director of advocacy and outreach at CPSC, led the discussion on how California is moving from policy design to implementation for SB 707, the Responsible Textile Recovery Act, which is the nation’s first statewide extended producer responsibility (EPR) program for textiles. The conversation focused not only on the policy landscape, but also on what implementation will require in practice — from infrastructure readiness to producer obligations and system coordination.

While Climate Week conversations often focus on emerging solutions and future pathways, CPSC’s perspective highlighted the sustained stakeholder engagement and coalition-building required to bring SB 707 forward. A clear takeaway was that “design for compliance” is increasingly becoming synonymous with designing for system readiness, linking product design decisions directly to recovery infrastructure and material flows – connecting design, policy, and end-of-life systems.

The conversation was especially relevant to discussions happening during climate weeks held around the globe. Across sectors, there is increasing attention on how climate goals translate into implementation — particularly where policy, industry systems, and infrastructure intersect.

As Cascale approaches its 2026 Annual Meeting, held in Athens this September, participants are increasingly challenging how the industry shows up to this collective call to action. Because it’s not one city or company acting in isolation, it’s a shared economic and climate reality.

And every corner of Cascale’s global, diverse membership brings an important perspective to the table.

Learn More & Join Us in Athens