In order to do so, brands must reduce their scope 3 emissions – all indirect upstream and downstream emissions that occur along their supply chain. To achieve this, mapping, auditing and streamlining supply chains is essential. Without understanding who the key players are within a brand’s supply chain, where and how their goods are moving from raw material through to the end consumer, companies are unable to implement effective strategies to lower their emissions. 

Fashion companies can have hundreds if not thousands of products, which pass through an intricate global network of suppliers, factories and farms. Few brands have achieved traceability and transparency within their supply chains, as most still rely on paper documentation and spreadsheets that can easily be tampered with. So how can brands keep track of their complex supply chains in a reliable, efficient way? Two possible methods are top-down and bottom-up traceability. 

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Top Down

Top down traceability starts at the product level and works backwards to track the origins of a product. To do this, calculations are made by applying an impact factor to each product category, such as tops, jeans, or activewear. The top down method relies on shortcuts, such as generalized impact or fiber factors, to create simple and crude calculations about a product’s environmental impact. 

We believe this solution is born from a lack of know-how. By applying generalizations to product categories, it ignores the fact that no two products are identical in their impact. Two different t-shirts can have vastly different impacts depending on a wide range of factors, from the suppliers in each tier and the types of dyes or other finishing processes used in manufacturing, to the energy sources needed in production. Even factors such as the facility’s use and reuse of water, down to the condition of the boiler and pipes, can have a significant impact on a product’s footprint. These factors shouldn’t be discounted in a brand’s enthusiasm to quantify their impact. 

Unfortunately, most brands are lacking in this level of data. While they may have information about their production partners, there is little to no visibility over product-specific data. If brands are not presenting the environmental impact for each and every product, how can they possibly measure their entire collection? We believe that a top down approach is not viable to ensure that the industry reaches its ambitious sustainability commitment – a bottom up approach is our preferred solution to this issue.

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Bottom Up

A bottom up traceability solution treats each product as a separate entity, with its own unique data factors. Generalization and assumptions are resolved when data is collected at an SKU level, in real-time. At Made2flow, we have developed multiple technologies that use available data, run automatic data gap analysis, and personalize data gathering in order to increase traceability and share of primary data. 

Our Process Modelization engine helps normalize the data. By conducting continuous data gathering across tiers 1-4 (with over 2 million primary data points), we are able to validate data and complete data gaps in a credible manner. Combined with the different automations we have developed, we help fashion brands to measure the impact of all their products, at all times, to avoid sketchy mathematics. This is particularly useful when you’re tracking real-time changes through your supply chains.

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Top-down vs bottom-up traceability – which is more accurate? Most global fashion brands rely on top-down assumptions and generalized calculations to track their impact from a product category level. Inevitably, this leads to incorrect data, and solutions that don’t actually tackle the problem effectively. Here at Made2flow we believe that there’s a better way: bottom up traceability. To learn more about the difference between top down and bottom up solutions, read on at [hyperlink].