On the heels of Ren Energy’s seven-year anniversary, I am thrilled to announce that we have joined Cascale as an official member. This has been a long time coming. The core mission of Cascale, formerly known as the Sustainable Apparel Coalition, has played an integral role in the formation of Ren Energy. Our focus driving collaboration among brands and factories to maximize supply chain impact aligns with Cascale’s mission of facilitating collective action in the consumer goods industry. As such, this is much more than a business opportunity for us; it's an opportunity to partner with an organization that shares our ethos.

Connection and Collaboration x Cascale

I’ve been attending the Cascale Annual Meeting since my time at Nike nearly a decade ago. The annual celebration dinner at the meeting is usually one of the high points of the year for anyone from our company who attends. Business aside, we’ve made true friends across the industry because of the connections made at that dinner. Over the years, these powerful networking opportunities with industry leaders and top consumer goods brands have been invaluable in helping shape the mission of Ren Energy.

When I left Nike to launch Ren Energy, I was passionately committed to building a climate solution that brought global collaboration to the forefront of sourcing renewable energy for supply chains. During my time at Nike, I faced several challenges working to make 10,000+ facilities renewable by 2030. I knew I had found my people when I heard leaders at other companies struggling with the same problems—issues that both Ren Energy and Cascale strive to alleviate.

These shared experiences led to several Cascale brand and retailer members becoming Ren Energy’s first customers. With our roots in the consumer goods space, we have since expanded to work with some of the largest tech companies in the world, as well as other industries. This initial focus on apparel brands was a natural fit for one key reason: apparel brands have always been ahead of the game when it comes to collective industry action in sustainability.

Setting the Consumer Goods Sustainability Standard

The consumer goods industry is far ahead of other industries in developing a common approach to measuring sustainability, thanks in large part to Cascale. I know this firsthand; working at Nike gave me the opportunity to participate in the development of Cascale’s Higg FEM tool.

The Higg Index tools gather cross-industry supply chain and product data to assess and measure the social and environmental performance of the value chain, which has provided the industry with collective visibility into its realities and challenges. Information is power. Other industries don’t have anything as advanced as the Higg Index and are currently struggling to understand where to focus their efforts. Cascale’s value in aligning the industry has allowed the consumer goods sector to lay the groundwork for achieving meaningful collective action. Ren Energy offers the missing piece that enables brands to take action by engaging with their suppliers and connecting them to APAC renewable energy projects directly.

We couldn’t be more excited to contribute to the leadership efforts within the consumer goods industry as a member of Cascale—driving collective action across supply chain decarbonization with the top apparel and footwear brands in the world.

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