Textile Insight

IN THE MARKET | VOICES A System Built on Sustainability textileinsight.com Jill Dumain Provides a Vision for bluesign Looking from the Inside Out. By Emily Walzer ill Dumain's departure from Patagonia may have raised a few eyebrows, however her extensive industry experience and passion for environmental responsibility makes her new role as bluesign CEO a no-brainer. Her 27-year tenure at Patagonia included leadership positions, innovative project launches and the introduction of bluesign tools and systems at the Ventura, CA firm. Throughout her career Dumain has been involved with the Organic Exchange, Textile Exchange and the Sustainability Working Group at the Outdoor Industry Association, in addition to serving as Chairman of bluesign technologies' Advisory Board from 2011 representing brands. Since 2000, when Peter Waeber debuted the input-based textile supply chain management system, bluesign has been instrumental in reducing harmful chemicals in textile production and raising eco-awareness from fiber to finished goods. Here, Dumain demystifies the bluesign process and offers her fresh perspective on what distinguishes the system and future objectives. Even within the outdoor industry, a marketplace fairly well educated about supply chain certifications, bluesign is still something of a mystery. What is the easiest way to understand the value of bluesign? "One of my colleagues calls bluesign the 'easy' button for the industry yet we all know the complexity when dealing with chemicals in a complicated supply chain. We begin at the chemical supplier's manufacturing site with an audit to ensure they can manufacture the chemicals properly. This is looking at the control of air emissions, water discharge, and protection for the workers in addition to the manufacturing process of the chemical products. We want to ensure the chemical producer has the required know-how that they can produce without harm to people or their surroundings. After their site is approved, they become a bluesign system partner and can move onto submitting their chemical products for assessment. We run it through our tool that looks at environmental and health considerations (end points in toxicology jargon) and either approve or reject it. The chemicals that make it through the assessment are then put onto our positive list of chemicals that we call the bluefinder. This enables the chemical supplier to label their chemical products as bluesign approved. The bluefinder is the sourcing tool for safe chemistry for the textile mills. Next, the textile mill has two choices. They can buy the bluefinder to help them source better chemistry or they can become a bluesign system partner. The bluefinder helps them to replace chemicals that are forbidden by MRSLs (Manufacturers Restricted Substances Lists) and RSLs (Restricted Substance Lists). When I was working for a brand I always wanted my mills to avoid 'regrettable substitutions' when working with chemistry. The bluefinder helps a textile mill to choose a wise replacement when one of their chemicals in use contains substances that can be found on one of the restrictive lists. If they choose to become a system partner then they will also go through a site audit with similar criteria to the chemical supplier to ensure the same protections move along the supply chain. If their site is approved and they become a system partner using bluefinder chemistry, they are also able to label their products as bluesign approved. The last step moving this direction in the supply chain is the brand selling to consumers. They are the front facing business that has to answer the questions of many inquiring minds. We have put in place a new tool for brands in the last year and that is a brand assessment. This is designed to give them an evaluation, gap analysis and action plan on their current environmental, health and safety (EHS) program with a focus on the evaluation of mostly textile mills to help them to understand and manage the riskier aspects of their existing supply chains. In addition to the brand assessment, brand system partners also have access to the deep knowledge that bluesign has in textile chemistry, the community of likeminded companies and a tool to implement deep in their supply chains. And if implemented to our criteria, they can also label their products as a bluesign product." The "cost of compliance" has become an industry talking point. How do you engage in that conversation and is bluesign designed to cater to small companies as well as large firms? "Cost is always part of the discussion and it has to be. We know the challenges in our industry but I am a firm believer that we have to figure out the economic 20 • Textile Insight ~ September / October 2017 Jill Dumain, bluesign CEO

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