Helena: Hello and welcome to From Intent to Impact, a Products of Change podcast. And to this episode, rewriting the rules of industry. Over the last five years, the brand licensing retail industry has been on one of the most significant transformational journeys in its history to reduce its environmental impact. What was once a niche conversation, which I know we're going to dig into a little later, ⁓ is now actually central to some... businesses, design, source, manufacture and grow. This podcast is all about capturing that journey, honestly and openly and actually from the people who have helped to shape it, looking at what's worked, what hasn't and what it's going to take to build the future of our industry. Now at POC, our focus has always been to connect industry, to simplify sustainability and building connected infrastructure that already exists to make real change. Because the reality is that no one business can do this on their own. And increasingly, the challenge isn't even intent, it's actually alignment, simplification, and building those enabling conditions that will enable us to build that better future. And that's why today's conversation is so important. Now, at this point, I'd usually talk about our podcast sponsor, Worldly, but today is a little bit different as we've actually got them here talking to ⁓ which I'm so excited ⁓ And actually this conversation is actually happening also on Sir David Attenborough's 100th birthday. So happy birthday to Sir David. And actually that's why this conversation is even more important. And I'm just really excited to get into the conversation of what's going to be a chat of two halves actually. Now I would be lying if I said I wasn't in awe of one of our guests today. He is a true pioneer and award-winning explorer. He was talking about circularity way before many of us even knew it was a thing. He co-founded the Sustainable Apparel Coalition. He led the Environmental Affairs Team and the Public Engagement Team at Patagonia for over 15 years and was part of the first American team to summit K2, one of the hardest mountains in the world to climb. Really easy for me to roll these achievements off here, but they are a culmination of a lifetime of experience, hard work. dedication and actually a huge amount of sacrifice and I'm just so pleased and very honored to have the amazing Rick Ridgeway with us here today. Hello Rick!

Rick Ridgeway: Well hello, Helena. A pleasure to be here with you and my colleague Jay from Worldly.

Helena: Jay, we're going to get to you as well. As we said, you know, it's not just me and Rick on our own. Jay is here with us. Jay is the Chief Marketing Officer at Worldly. And I know Jay, we're going to dig into that a little bit more because it's not just about marketing, it's about supplier engagement and you're, you know, you're working really closely with the team there. And we know that's your day job, but also you are an amazing storyteller too. So I'd love to dig into that a little bit for our listeners today. You were the Executive Producer for Silvies Love. which was actually nominated for outstanding television movie at the 2021 Primetime Emmy Awards. And I know that there's a lot more accolades with the content that you created there too. So thank you so much for joining us as well today, Jay.

Jay Gaines: Great to be here. Thank you, Helena.

Helena: Now I'd really like to start at the very beginning, Jay chip in where you want to, but I think we'll start with if that's okay. And Rick, I've got your book here, one of your books here. You've penned many books you've ⁓ on many amazing expeditions for ⁓ of wonderful companies. One of them National Geographic, which I know inspired you in your very early years and ⁓ inspired me. That's the whole reason why I'm on this sustainability journey as I corporately went to work for National Geographic 10 years ago and started to see, kind of started to learn about the planet and the environment and I was there to drive a commercial role and ended up starting Products of Change from that commercial role to see how we start to produce products differently from my time at Nat Geo. So I started reading your book I was like ⁓ they inspired me too but in a very different way. ⁓ You're inspired to climb mountains. I changed my career. But what I'd love to do is kind of go to those very early days, Rick, because you've pushed yourself. You've pushed yourself so much throughout, you know, throughout your career, across so many different things. But actually, I'd love to kind of start at the very beginning, kind of what inspired young Rick to go on this journey ⁓ of exploration.

Rick Ridgeway: Well, thank you, Helena. And I didn't know it was David Attenborough's 100th birthday today. Oh my goodness. And that's what a terrific framing for our conversation. Because as we all know, he has brought so much to all of our lives, helping us really not just understand, but emotionally connect to the magic.

Helena: Mm-hmm.

Rick Ridgeway: of nature, to the magic of the wild parts of our one and only home planet. And that connection to nature is actually where my own story starts. And I personally owe so much to him. What a true mentor and guide he's been for all of us. So a special day.

Jay Gaines: Thank

Rick Ridgeway: We probably know this from reading my book, but in there I told the story about how even as a boy growing up in Southern California, I had this connection to nature that was just instinctual, that I spent as much time as I could out in whatever rural areas near my home on the outskirts of Los Angeles that I could find time for. As part of that passion, my mother had given me a subscription to National Geographic. another, like among many, apparently, we have in common. And so I was about 14 years old when I received the issue in the early 1960s of National Geographic with the cover story of the first American to send a Mount Everest. And there was a photograph of Jim Whittaker, the first American to climb Everest on the summit.

Helena: Yeah.

Rick Ridgeway: holding his ice hacks up above his head with the two flags of United States and the National Geographic Society tied to the shaft handle and the oxygen mask on his face, the wind blowing. And I saw that and I just said, I want to be that guy. That's who I want to be. just knew it. And it took, ⁓ you know, I found some buddies in high school to go up into the mountains above Los Angeles with me and try to teach ourselves how to climb. went to a, finally found a store where we could buy ice axe and crampons and. And my mother's maternal radar started to buzz loudly because she could see her son prematurely dying on some ice slope, trying to take himself out of climb. So as a graduation present, she sent me to Outward Bound, which had its origins and roots in New England, as you know. ⁓ And that was transformational. I just knew that's what I wanted to do. And that became my path. Fast forward about a little over maybe 12 or 14 years later, I had got them good enough as a mountaineer that I was invited on what became the first American ascent of K2, the second highest mountain in the world, but now recognized far and away as the hardest mountain to climb. And back then, it's a really good thing we didn't know that. This was in the late 70s.

Helena: Thank

Rick Ridgeway: I mean, if somebody told me it was the hardest mountain in the world, I would have been so frightened. I probably never would have been able to climb it. But the leader of that expedition was none other than Jim Whittaker, my boyhood hero, the guy whose photograph on the first American incentive ever got my juices going, know, fired my passion. And now I was on an expedition with him, which seemed so magical. And then is, you know, again, I write this in my, in that book that you just read, Life Lived Wild, but I stayed after it. And years later, after that, I was invited on what was the first wall climb ever done in Antarctica. We ascended this giant rock wall, 2000 vertical feet. In fact, it was more than vertical, actually overhung the whole way. And in the middle of that climb, We got into this big storm, came in, and we had to rappel down and wait at our little base camp for the weather to break. And while we were there, one of the climbers on the expedition, Conrad Anker, at that time considered the greatest alpine climber in the world, said, Rick, there's something I've been meaning to tell you. When I was about 12 or 13 or 14, I got National Geographic in the mail and you were on the cover making your assent of K2. And I said, that's who I want to be. And I've got you to thank for being here. And then we got home from that expedition and Conrad was on the cover of National Geographic. And so I...

Jay Gaines: and

Rick Ridgeway: I called him up and I said, Hey, I just got my magazine in the mail. You know, congratulations cover boy. You know what's going to happen, don't you? And he goes, yeah, but tell me anyway. I said, that's right. There's a young 12 or 13 or 14 year old girl or boy out there getting their magazine in the mail. And that's what's going to happen. So it's been about passing the baton. It's been about passion, but let's go back to David Attenborough, to Sir David, because more than anything, it's been that connection to nature. and the wild part of our world. And that connection ultimately to why all of us in business need to protect the health of our one and only home planet. Because it's that's, and we can come back to this later, but let's just frame it right now. As our, another one of my mentors, the great American environmentalist, David Brower said, it's because there is no business on a dead planet. That has, I've framed my whole professional career, my passion and connection to nature has framed my whole life with my business career as a part of that. Okay.

Helena: And I think it's so important, and Rick, think it's so important to recognise that internal compass, because I think as you go through your life and you go into business and opportunities might come your way, or you get older and you need some money and you've got a family, I think, you know, so many people that go throughout business or go through their life don't stay true to that internal, that compass that's part of them, that routes them to a purpose of how they want to live their life. And I think that's what you've done. You you've really kept true to who you are on all these amazing adventures that you've gone on. You know, like you said, you you look back through to that.

Rick Ridgeway: Yeah, no, that has been a true line. And it's purpose connected with passion. ⁓ You know, there's no magic formula here. It's actually, those are the two elemental things. But ⁓ purpose is so important and having that internal compass is so important. And anybody listening here who's wondering if they have that themselves, well, that's the right question to ask. And When I go around speaking to high schools and colleges and young people now, I try to end my conversations with them, my presentations that I make by reminding them that purpose is not about them. It's not about us. It's not about me. It's about how I can be more than just myself. It's how I can use whatever tools and skills I've got in my box to take those tools out and make our one and only home planet and the people on it better than when I left it. That has to be all of ours overarching purpose. If that purpose connected with passion is going to allow us to lead a truly full life, fulfilled life.

Helena: Totally. And I wonder if you having that purpose from being part of the mountaineering and sporting background that you're from, if we think of your do-buddies, your do-boys, the people that you grew up with that went out and created, the North Face, Esprit, Patagonia, and who you are as this group. of men with a purpose to do things differently, to go out in the world of business, but to stay true to who you are. And I think that's what made the businesses that have come from that be really special. And I think that's why they're still around today. And they're not even just in Mountaineer, and they are brands driving this voice and this change more than just in Mountaineer, but in fashion. you know. across content is quite amazing how I think when you stay true to that, great things can happen.

Rick Ridgeway: Well, you refer to a little band of ⁓ friends and often for me mentors ⁓ that we call ourselves the Dewboys. And later on we finally managed to wake up and add a few Dewgirls to the mix too. Took a little while. But mentors, know, that's all such an important part of all of our lives too, you know. And I think all of us, especially we who are older, I'm 76 years old now, but looking back without those mentors, the path wouldn't have been the same for me. And that's, I think I can probably safely say that's going to be true for anybody listening. And I've also looking back at my own life and paying attention to this topic of mentors, I've discovered that... in your late 20s and early 30s is probably the time in our lives when we most need guides. ⁓ When we have that point in our life where we're going from our learning and our school years into the professional parts of our lives and having people guide us and show us different paths and different opportunities is so essential at that stage of our lives. And you've mentioned it already how lucky I was ⁓ to have two people, especially who were initially climbing partners ⁓ in my life. At that same stage, they were seven and 10 years older than me respectively. And that was Doug Tomkins and Yvonne Chouinard. And I met them in my 20s, as I said a minute ago, eventually as, or originally as climbing partners. But then they were both very successful businessmen, although their careers were emerging in those years when we were climbing together. Doug was a high school dropout.

Helena: Mm.

Rick Ridgeway: He never got past the 10th grade. ⁓ School disbored him and he became a ski, he got into skiing and he became a ski racer and that took over everything. And then he ended up in California and he met some rock climbers. So he took up rock climbing and he moved to Yosemite. And he lived in the climbers camp where he met Yvonne Chouinard who was just a couple of years older than him. And another dropout.

Jay Gaines: Thank

Rick Ridgeway: climbing, but Doug was of all of all of all of them, Doug was probably the most instinctual entrepreneur. So the first thing he did when he got to Yosemite, you know, not just finding climbing partners like Yvonne and others to help him learn how to rock climb. He buys the local hot dog stand in Yosemite. You know, he scraped up stuff to buy the hot dog stand. and turn it into a successful business. So, you know, he was probably 18 or 19 or 20 years old. And he became a world best climber. so he and Yvonne and his buddies couldn't really afford good climbing gear. The best climbing gear was coming out of your country in England. And the, know, it was expensive. It was imported. So he started making packs and, and parkas and seating bags for his buddies and himself. And he decided to call that little startup, the North Face. And then Yvonne was making pitons and the spikes you drive in rocks and then the carabiner clips that you fasten the spikes to your rope with.

Helena: if Yeah.

Rick Ridgeway: And he was selling that to his climbing buddies and he called that Shannard equipment. And then pretty soon he started importing rugby shirts from Scotland because they made, they were still rugged. made great shirts for rock climbing. And then those started out selling the pitons and he had this epiphany that not very many people needed pitons and carabiners, but there was a lot more that could probably value from durable clothing. even if more than just rock climbing. So the clothes started out selling the pitons and he decided to start to name that part of his business Patagonia because he and Doug Tompkins just got back from a climb in Patagonia where they made up an incredible ascent of this rock spire down there and he loved the wildness of it. So he named it Patagonia to capture that sense of wildness and wild nature. what it meant to him and to Doug and the rest of these guys. So I came along and again, I was the pup. was, for the first half of my life, I was always the youngest kid on the trips. And now in the last part of my life, I'm the oldest guy. I don't think there was any transition in the middle. I don't remember that. I just directly from being the youngest to the oldest. I don't know how that happened. But along the way, these two guys,

Helena: you

Rick Ridgeway: really inspired me as that's where I learned my most foundational lessons as a business person. Some of my really important lessons as a climber. ⁓ Some of the ways I've learned from the climbing and time in the mountains to that those foundational values that informed my life and business. We can get into that in a little bit. But most importantly, and I learned this especially from Doug Tompkins, was how all of us in business were morally obligated to use our businesses as best we could to protect our one and only home planet. Because that's exactly what they did. That was the foundational value of the DuBois, our little posse of outdoor climbers and adventurers who are also business people.

Helena: and evangelists within the world of business, doing things differently. And I love that because, ⁓ I wish that more businesses would have that as their core. And we know that we're trying to get them to do more. And actually I read ⁓ Yvonne's book, My People Go Surfing in 2019 when I started my own journey into sustainability. It was actually the first book that I read that kind of inspired me while I was still at Nat Geo to kind of say, businesses should be doing things a bit differently. I wonder, Ricky, if you'd mind, we kind of switch from your amazing climbing career and being the early stages with your buddies of them being that bit older than you starting these businesses and you coming on that journey and really driving impact. How did you end up at Patagonia? How did that happen? I don't know the story of that.

Rick Ridgeway: Yeah, well, another thing I had learned from Yvonne and Doug and a few others of our friends was how their passion for climbing and just being in the wild parts of the world, ⁓ it not only informed their business lives, but it catalyzed it because they all of them are trying to figure out, how can I make some money out of climbing and mountaineering and the sport part of it? So I had to do the same thing. And then my path was initially anyway, it was more through the marketing end of it because I had a skill as a storyteller. I recognize that people on our trips always appreciated my ability to sit in a tent during a snow storm and tell stories that were amusing. And I learned how to do that. So I learned... early on that marketing, as we all know, is essentially storytelling. So I thought, there's the connection. So I did, I developed skills ⁓ in business marketing and ⁓ that led to getting jobs with outdoor companies ⁓ in marketing. I worked with the Kelty Pat Company for, I had a 20 year run with them ⁓ as a retained consultant.

Jay Gaines: Yeah.

Rick Ridgeway: you know, helping shape their storytelling and their marketing and with other outdoor companies. And that included Yvonne's company, Patagonia. So I was doing marketing work with them and then I got married ⁓ also in my early thirties, that great transition period in our lives. You know, again, that was inspired by one of my climbing partners who had married early and then had ultimately a big family of four kids and he was a terrific father. You know, so I wanted to be him as well. Like I figured he was doing it all. Yvonne got married, he had two kids, know, Doug, they had families and they were doing this. So I did that too. And then of course, you know, I had to support the family, but not just me, my wife. So she met Yvonne and... And then he hired her. She had some experience in the apparel industry, but in fashion. She worked for Calvin Klein when we got married. She was like employee number six, I think. was when it was a startup. She'd been there since the beginning. And she had a a good instinct for marketing. So she and Yvonne, my wife, Jennifer Ridgeway, they co-founded the marketing department at Patagonia and the two of them invented what became the Patagonia catalog. Like they figured it all out. And she died a few years ago of cancer ⁓ at too early of an age. But I was so honored when magazines like Outside and many blogs and interviews and obituaries and articles about her credited her and Yvonne with

Helena: you

Rick Ridgeway: defining what authenticity in marketing means. They figured it out. That they knew how to tell a story that had no element of bullshit. Like they knew how to be so honest that the customers just instinctually picked up on that honesty. And that was their contribution. Not just to Patagonia. But to marketing and advertising, it was super foundational. I don't know that people really appreciate how much influence in storytelling, in business storytelling and marketing that those early Patagonia catalogs in the very early 1980s have. And we still see that today. It still resonates. So she had a wonderful 20 year run there. And then she retired. I had my own business.

Jay Gaines: Thank

Rick Ridgeway: I had a company that marketed what today we call content, photographs and video clips and film, mostly about nature in the outdoors to the advertising industry. So it was a small business, but a very successful and had 20 some employees. And we had this hummin' little business and I was able to sell it in the late 90s, early aughts, right when everything's digitizing. It was like, perfect timing because I got a really high valuation and ⁓ I knew that I either had to recapitalize to digitize or, you know, pivot and I pivoted and it was successful. It really worked out. But there I was, you know, I had to redefine my business life again. And I got an offer from Patagonia to go to work for them. ⁓ My wife had left the company by that point. ⁓

Helena: me. Well done.

Rick Ridgeway: And I got an offer to come in into marketing, but also more interestingly, to come in and ⁓ guide their environmental initiatives and their sustainability. ⁓ And I was wrestling whether to do that because, you know, I had a couple of costs. There was a couple of flags there I had to pay attention to. You know, one was that My buddy, Ron owned the company and did as one of my closest friends, did I want to set myself up for potential conflict with him? You know, what if I went one way and he was going another and, I didn't, I'm not the kind of guy who just goes his way because he owns a company. Like I could, you know, but he knew that. So we, talked about it. ⁓ the other flag was that I'd never worked for anybody. Like I had always been self-employed. I always had my own company. ⁓ and so I was wrestling with that. And, ⁓ one day my wife, Jennifer said, you know, Rick, you always telling me that you like to try new stuff that you've got them to do stuff you've never done before. So how about this thing called having a regular ⁓ ⁓ so that was the nudge that I needed. And, ⁓ so in the early odds, I think it was 2004.

Helena: Ha!

Rick Ridgeway: I started Patagonia with what became a great 15 year run. I think it worked for them and me. It was really cool. And it turned out that running marketing and environmental initiatives and sustainability was over, it was too much for me. ⁓ I didn't have the management skills to do all those things. So I ended up with environmental initiatives and eventually before I left the company, another pivot to what we call public engagement, engagement with all our stakeholders, because it turned out I was pretty good at that. ⁓ But the environmental initiatives and sustainability were my main focus. And I didn't know anything about sustainability. I really hadn't had exposure to managing a supply chain or the environmental component of the supply chain. And then Eventually, this wasn't really my responsibility, but the social justice component of that management as well. I had to learn really fast, but I was a pretty quick learner. After being on it for a couple of years, I was starting to understand it. I was understanding a couple of what turned out to be important insights. And maybe the biggest one of all, and this frames up what we're here to talk about, think, was... was how there was a really need for reliable measurement of this impact of the supply chain, both its environmental impact and ⁓ its ⁓ social justice commitments. And it didn't exist. So we started working early in my run at Patagonia, we were working with our outdoor trade association in the United States, the Outdoor. in Outdoor Industry Alliance. And ⁓ with a bunch of other companies in that alliance, we had developed a measurement tool to measure ⁓ mostly in tier one, the environmental footprint of factories in our supply chains. And it was pretty robust. And at the same time, ⁓ concurrent with that, ⁓ Another friend of mine who was one of the do boys, guy named Jib Ellison, a good friend of Yvonne and Doug's and the rest of us and an outdoor adventure buddy. He had a sustainability consultancy he'd started and his first client was Walmart. And he's the guy that really got Walmart on their sustainability path. You know, if you want another interview sometime with a...

Jay Gaines: Thank

Helena: amazing.

Rick Ridgeway: guy that's really made a lot of influence that not that many people understand. Jib, you ought to get Jib on your podcast here, Helena, because ⁓ hear lot of the same stories. That's the downside because we've done so much stuff together. ⁓ got ahold of me. ⁓ truly is the guy who got Walmart started on their sustainability. And he called me one day and he says, ⁓ we need help. ⁓ want to get these guys to use organically grown cotton. ⁓

Jay Gaines: But.

Rick Ridgeway: And you're the, you guys are the leaders. So, uh, you know, went to Yvonne and, I went to some of the. Executives in the company told me, you I want to help Walmart out with environmental and continent at the time that was Patagonia's main differentiator in the marketplace, 100 % organically grown cotton, you know, and they go, you want, you want to get the biggest company in the world at that time to use our differentiator. go, yeah, it's going to scale organically grown cotton. they go. Wait a minute, what am I missing here? I said, what you're missing is why we're in business. We would have those kinds of conversations there. I loved that part of that company. So everybody got into alignment. Walmart came out. We helped them. They started using Organic, we've grown cotton in their private label, especially beginning with the Tits line. And then they said, hey, we got this scorecard we're developing for our suppliers. Can you help us with that? And I did. And it was...

Jay Gaines: Mm-mm.

Rick Ridgeway: ⁓ the simple, like, I think it had 15 questions on it, you know, scorecard. And so we got that done and they were so thankful. They came out to Ventura where Patagonia is headquartered in California. And, ⁓ just to finally meet everybody, cause we've been doing a lot of this stuff by phone and not that much in person. And, ⁓ and then at the, at the end of that meeting, one of their top executives said, Rick has been so cool. This partnership really means a lot to us. Is there anything else we could do together? And I had not even thought about it, but I thought of that scorecard and I thought of the work that the Outdoor Industry Alliance was doing. instead of telling them, you know, what if you, instead of the simple scorecard, what if you use this really robust tool that we've been developing with our companies in the outdoor industry? I didn't say that because I had enough sense to know. they got to go on a journey here. If this is going to work, they got to discover that themselves. It's got to be their conclusion, not my suggestion, because it wouldn't work otherwise. And I said, what if we... So I just said, listen, what if we join forces? Walmart and Patagoy, we get together and let's invite, pick a number, 10 other companies in, and we'll start our own alliance and we'll build a really robust scorecard.

Helena: Yeah.

Rick Ridgeway: like a really robust and it'll be uniform and it'll be used by this little dirt bag, you know, scrappy company that's a leader in the world's biggest company. And these other companies, it'll immediately standardized because of your size. If we have this, does another companies. So they go, and I said, listen, we'll code name it David and Goliath. And they said,

Helena: Mm.

Rick Ridgeway: Okay, we got to talk. So they went out and chatted for a while. came back into the room and they go, okay, we're going to do it with one condition. And I go, Oh God, here, go South before it can go North. You know, I thought margins, like what kind of condition is Walmart going to request? You know, and I was, I wasn't, I've never been a cynic, but I was a little skeptical at that point because you know, they, you know, I'm

Helena: You

Rick Ridgeway: I was not naive. This is the biggest company in the world. Public company, Patagonia is private company, use difference. Of course they use difference. So I was ready for whatever the condition was. And they said, the condition is that you have to be Goliath and we're David. I laughed and I said, whatever. And then we high-fived and shook hands. And that was how the sustainable apparel coalition came to be.

Helena: ⁓

Jay Gaines: Hey. ⁓

Rick Ridgeway: And within two years, we had 40 companies and we had the beta version of what became the Higg index. And it has continued to scale. That's why we're talking to each other right now.

Helena: Love it. Amen. And I absolutely love that. And I guess, you know, in those early days was it, because if I think of POC in the way that we do, it's like you're going around with your cap and you're saying, we want to do this piece of work and it's better for the whole industry. And if you all put a little bit of money in the hat, we can build X, Y and Z. I guess it was the same with you, Rick. It's just like, well, is it going to cost X to do this work? Does everybody kind of just pop some money in the pot and you divide it between you?

Rick Ridgeway: Well, it was a lot of hard work and it required a lot. It was like starting a business where you put together your pitch and then you do your road show. And that's what I had to do. I had to go on the road and I had to meet, I remember going into Levi's office and sitting down with their management and give them the whole pitch. And then the one guy,

Helena: Mm.

Rick Ridgeway: Michael Kibori, I remember, I love, he became a close friend, but he looks right at me and he goes, why? And I said, you talking about? goes, why should I do this instead of all the other 50 things that are on my plate right now as head of sustainability at Levi's? Tell me why. And I had to sit back and I go, you know, Michael, that is a totally valid question. You got to the heart of it.

Helena: you ⁓

Rick Ridgeway: So it made me think through why we all needed this. it laddered up to where we started our conversation. It laddered up to being able to argue why anybody in business depends on a healthy planet with healthy people. It made me stop and realize and think through how to make the argument. to everybody what I had assumed should be so obvious that without that healthy planet, there are no healthy resources to support our businesses. And without those healthy resources to support healthy businesses that need a healthy planet, there is no planet to support healthy societies.

Jay Gaines: Thank

Rick Ridgeway: And without healthy societies, you can't have healthy markets. And so I had to learn how to articulate these connections between healthy business and healthy planet at kind of a high level and then go down from there. And as I went down, you get to the foundational principle that you can't really manage things very well without good measurement. And that What we all needed was an understanding of what the baseline was in our supply chains that we're working with. We needed to really understand what our true impact and footprint was. Because without that understanding, there was no way to really know where to begin our management. So as I started to build this argument, we got companies on board. Michael finally said, Okay, I get it. I'm in, you know, and he would, and Levi's became one of the foundational companies and the hardest companies of all to get on board with the leaders because Nike was probably even better than Patagonia in having its own measurement tools and having its own sustainability programs and management of supply chain, including social labor after they got beat up really badly in the nineties. And they had come back with the leading

Helena: and

Rick Ridgeway: programs in the whole apparel and footwear industry to manage those impacts. And they go, why do we need you? We got our own program. So they were a really hard sell. But eventually we got them on board too. And I'll always remember two or three years after we'd started this, we started off focusing on environmental impact. And we're in some meetings in Seattle, looking out over the bay. think REI was our host, the ⁓ recreational equipment. and the representative from Nike gets up because we were having this existential argument about needing to expand our focus from just environmental impact to social justice. It had to be both things. It had to be people and planet. You can't separate the two. And I was making that argument. The leader from Nike gets up and looks at everybody, because there were all these people that were worried about the social labor part, because companies like Nike were so entrenched in that, that there were so many, the whole ecosystem was so fragmented, that the challenge of bringing it in together, of standardizing the fragmentation was way gnarlier than the environmental impact part of it. And so there was some hesitancy and it was understandable. You know, like, let's get one thing done before we do another. And I'm going, no, we got to do it all concurrently. You're crazy. You know what? And Nike gets up and says, we have to do it together. We have to do it together because of planet and people. they, and they articulated this vision of how everything works together. And then they said, and furthermore, if the rest of you don't do this, we're leaving. today and this whole thing's going to fall apart. And everybody went quiet. And then everybody raised their hand and said, okay, we're in, we'll do this. So there were these existential moments, you know, so many of them, and, and they're always probably almost always is in any startup, but you know, we got through and we got past them and

Helena: Amazing. Mm.

Rick Ridgeway: And I remember having to many, many times pause and take my breath and find that reset, that energy to go, OK, let's keep going here. And I would often, often realized I would go back to that last day on K2. trying to climb the second highest mountain in the world and make that first ascent without oxygen when nobody had ever done that before. Nobody ever climbed that mountain without oxygen. was only the third time it had ever been climbed by anybody. We did a new route that nobody in the 50 or 60 years since then has ever repeated. And that last day without oxygen was so hard. And I didn't know I could do it. But I mind.

Jay Gaines: Thank

Rick Ridgeway: the resources down deep. I found the way to keep putting one foot in front of the other. And I went back to that. That was my yardstick. And I would say, dude, you did that. You're going to do this. know, doesn't even compare. Like, you know, don't go feeling sorry. Just roll up your sleeves and get the job done. So I found my own.

Helena: Hmm.

Rick Ridgeway: resources, own, you know, things I'd learned from Yvonne and Doug about why I was doing this. And we kept going and we made it work. We never, you know, you just never take no for an answer. ⁓ And those early years ⁓ were, ⁓ when I think back to it too, I realized that, you know, it was a success because it was so collaborative because you know, we had this multi-stakeholder alliance. We had all the players at the table. We had the suppliers there working with the brands and the retailers, working with the universities and the academics and the NGOs. We had the Natural Resources Defense Council, who was the main one beating everybody up, especially over the chemical impact of their supply chains back when we were starting this thing. So we asked NRDC to write the initial chemistry framework for the Higg index. And they did. So that became such a source of strength. And then we had these foundational principles at the beginning that Walmart brought in. God, they were so good. Like they said, OK, Rick, the foundational principle has to be to always build on existing work. You know, we've kind of already got everybody lined up on that because

Helena: amazing.

Jay Gaines: Thank

Rick Ridgeway: You were clever not to tell us about this OIA tool that you've been working to develop. But you know, we're starting with that. We get it. We'll always build on existing work. We'll never let perfection get in the way good enough. We got to move fast. It's never going to be perfect. It's going to be good enough to take the next step. A foundational principle. So with those things, you know, we...

Helena: Thank Mm. Yeah.

Rick Ridgeway: we really were able to move forward pretty fast. Within two or three years became the biggest trade organization in apparel and footwear. And then in those foundational years, we did some pretty cool things. Looking back on it, made a big, difference. And one of the coolest things we did, Nike again was a big influence here. They connected us with this team. of thinkers and analysts at MIT in America, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. And these were this little group of deep thinkers specializing in how to analyze complex systems and identify how to change them in a predefined direction. Like, that's what they did. So we hired these guys to analyze the whole of parallel ecosystem to analyze how the Sustainable Apparel Coalition and HIG could fit into it, what the ultimate goals were, and what the levers were that you wanted to pull to get to those goals. And they made this thing called, they called it the systems map of the apparel industry with HIG right in the middle. And it allowed all of us.

Helena: Mm.

Rick Ridgeway: to align on what those levers and that we were going to pull, what we needed to do and why we needed to do ⁓ And even remind us ⁓ where we were heading at the end of the day. And we all started to realize ⁓ where we were ⁓ we started to realize that the world that we envisioned was one where through deep measurement, that had verified data that was transparent and reliable, that with that data, year over year, the industry could show annual decrease in environmental impact and annual increase in social justice. Like that was the goal. And then they said, they analyzed all the external stakeholders, especially the policymakers. And they came into this analysis and they said, at the end of the day, you're never going to do it with apparel and footwear. You're only going to do it by leveraging consumer goods. Because that is where a huge part of the impact on planet people come, especially to fight climate change. Because that was emerging back then. This was 2013 and 14. It's another existential threat.

Helena: Mm-hmm. in.

Rick Ridgeway: and that you've got to leverage your measurement tools, which were by then branded HIG, to all categories of consumer goods to get this, to realize your vision. So we all aligned on that back then. And so now here we are these years later, a decade plus, and with the HIG company making the tools now rebranded as worldly on purpose and the sustainable peril collection, rebranded three years ago for whatever it was, day four or five, on purpose as cast scale, collective action at scale. Rebranded so that the two together can expand to other categories of consumer goods. And that's happening right now. It's underway.

Helena: It's so exciting.

Rick Ridgeway: So we're still on track.

Helena: Yeah, I love it. And just the companies you brought on that journey. And I wonder even, if we bring you in here, the volume of people that are using tools ⁓ that Rick so kindly has taken us through, how it all started. But the impact that the company has today, I mean, I'd love for you to run through some of those for us.

Jay Gaines: I'm Yeah, absolutely. And I just have to say, ⁓ Rick, I love listening to you talk. One of my favorite things about working at Worldly is I get to talk to Rick fairly regularly. So that's fantastic. And I should also mention that part of my origin story as a marketer, because my plan was to be an anthropologist. That's what I studied. I was going to out of a tent. But I fell in love with ⁓ a person who is clearly supposed to be my life partner. And she had different plans, didn't want to live in a tent ⁓ her whole life. has a love for nature. So I was trying to figure out what I was going to do. And I learned about an ad from Patagonia that Rick was involved with, ⁓ for a jacket that just said, do not buy this jacket. And it was anti-consumerism. And that was the first signal I got that marketing could be for good. ⁓ too, cause I had always thought like I was a bit of a radical grown up. I was very curious and passionate, but I was like, advertising is evil. Business is evil. And

Helena: Yeah.

Jay Gaines: That ad was kind of the catalyst for me thinking differently and really getting into marketing and always being focused on trying to do good through marketing. So thank you for that, Rick. And I won't get into my origin story around my love of nature, but Rick is also a bit of a catalyst for that.

Helena: Yeah, really important because I think that's what that's your compass a bit like saying, you know, you got to think of not everybody has that, you know, everybody's people have a different compass. Some people it's about money. Some people it's about what they can achieve themselves. I think because of your love of nature, you have that compass that's part of you. So then you go into industry into marketing business. You just come at it with with just a totally different view.

Jay Gaines: Yeah. Exactly, that's exactly right. And my story is very different from Rick's, of course, but similar in the sense that when I was a teenager, I was going down a path that concerned my mother. It wasn't an adventuring path, it was a different kind of path that I was going down. And she sent me off to Knolls. It wasn't that we're bound, but it was Knolls. And that experience, living in nature, literally transformed me in my life. And I went from being very uncomfortable to realizing it was the place where I was most comfortable. And, ⁓ you know, just spending it ⁓ over a month living that way just changed me. then two years later, after I graduated high school, I spent a whole summer in Yosemite being a climbing bum. ⁓ but I only spent the summer, but it was an amazing experience and I, and I've always stayed active. I'm in Colorado because of the mountains and, and it's been a big part of my life and a big part of why I worldly. And you were asking about the impact of worldly and, ⁓ you know, Again, without the work that Rick was describing that he did at Patagonia and with Walmart, we wouldn't exist. And the impact is massive. And that's part of, again, why I joined Worldly. And part of why the impact is massive is because a decision was made years ago to separate from the Sustainable Apparel Coalition. And that might sound strange, but I think it's important because that decision was made ⁓ to scale impact. And it was a very pragmatic decision. you know, Rick has spent a career, you know, explaining that doing the right thing and doing the smart thing aren't necessarily opposed. And when that decision was made, it was because, you know, the SAC at the time being a multi-stakeholder initiative, a convening body, a standard setter, and then a technology company on top of that just was not working out and was not the path to real scale and real impact. So the membership voted and made the decision that what was at the time Higco would spin out of the SAC. And again, that was a catalyst for a lot of this impact that I think happened because we were then able to form ourselves as a public benefit company, a for-profit public benefit company, but that enabled us to raise capital necessary to build the right technology and the right infrastructure. There's a lot of educational resources, especially for manufacturers and suppliers, lot of support. that has really enabled this to scale. And as Rick said, it's, you know, it's gone global. are tens of thousands of factories every year that use the HIG index and it reduces their burden because it is a standard. They get to do one assessment, share it with many customers. And that's one of the things that excites me the most because that issue of assessment and audit fatigue is such a massive burden for suppliers and doesn't only impact their business, but it impacts their ability to do good work and improve. ⁓ and make impact. So, ⁓ and now as Rick said, we're expanding into many other categories. We've always had customers in other categories, but really deliberately now moving into outdoor sporting goods, home furnishings, all kinds of categories. And what's nice about it is it's a pretty easy expansion because we've proven the case.

Helena: Mm.

Jay Gaines: What's happened in the apparel and textile industries is amazing and really hasn't happened in many other industries. And it's because of the HIC index. Yeah.

Helena: Totally agree. And I think that when I look at it as far as how we can be working with you here at POC, because we work with brand owners, many categories, know, toys, publishing, home, and there's, like you said, there's no standardization within that. And even the manufacturers that are squeezed in the middle that work between a retailer and a brand owner, and retailers asking them for one thing, the brand owners are asking them for another, there's so many, there's so much complexity that's coming down to these. these companies that we just need to simplify this because if we simplify this we can then make progress but at the minute for all those other categories it's just not that easy for them.

Jay Gaines: Yeah, it's very difficult and it's nice for them to have an example of where it's happened and where it's worked in apparel and textiles.

Helena: Yeah. And then as far as kind of how you then move forward, so kind of what are the what are the areas of industry that you're really focusing on now? So those that are listening, if they're in those industries, I know we're going to be putting some working groups together. And you know, what, what are those ones that we're going to be focusing on together?

Jay Gaines: Yeah, it's a good question. I'll start by saying, and Rick, you can back me up here, the HIG index was designed to work for consumer goods broadly, right? And that is currently the case. One of the things that amazed me when I first joined Worldy and I started visiting a lot of our manufacturer and supplier customers all over the world was I came in under the assumption this is all about apparel and textiles and some footwear. ⁓ I visited pen factories that have been doing FEM assessments and using the Hague index for years, makeup factories, household cleaning goods factories that have been using it for years, all kinds of factories that have been using it for years. And of course, all kinds of brands and retailers as well. ⁓ But our real focus, and again, we're focused on impact and adjacency where it makes the most sense. So ⁓ outdoor sporting goods, a lot of our customers like North Face, like Patagonia are already in that space. So it's a natural expansion and makes sense. ⁓ Home furnishings is a really big one for us as well. ⁓ That's a space that has historically had a lot of challenges when it comes to environmental impact, but also social and labor practices as well. So there's a lot of opportunity to do good, but also represented an opportunity for us to move very deliberately into a space that included hard goods, as well as textiles and materials that we had already been working with. So it was a natural expansion as well. And in addition to that, ⁓ toys is another big focus for us. ⁓ A lot of work to be done there as well. And ⁓ eyeglasses and watches are also really big for us as well. So we're being focused and deliberate. But what's interesting is we're finding demand increasing across sectors and kind of coming to us because, again, the story is pretty well known.

Helena: and

Jay Gaines: And what we find is we move into these sectors with Cascade, our partner, Cascade, by the way. And we start talking to these new brands and retailers. They all know about the Higg index. And our only obstacle is their perception that, it's not just for apparel. And then we educate them a little bit. Nope, it's not. And, and, it's working really well. And again, the most exciting part is the scaling, the impact, right. In a way that makes sense for all players, not just brands and retailers, but those manufacturers and suppliers too.

Helena: So how long is it going to take J to scale? If we think how long it's taken to scale within fashion, but obviously that's kind of studying the foundations and getting the, getting the technology to work. guess once that's working and people know about it, the opportunity to scale across all of these other categories, hopefully can happen quicker because the technology is there. It's then more about the import of new data, I guess, new materials, bill of materials, impacts assessment.

Jay Gaines: We are. That's right. Yeah. Materials are a big part of how we expand effectively. Right. ⁓ so, so that's big part of it, but how long it will take. That's a very good question. ⁓ you know, if it was just me and the worldly team driving this forward, ⁓ I'm not sure how long it would take, but we've got Rick with us and Rick has done this before. Right.

Rick Ridgeway: you

Jay Gaines: Right. So, so that accelerates things because we don't have to like figure it out from scratch. Rick actually convened a group of businesses in the apparel industry and has proven that it works. So that's a big accelerator for us. So I think that we have a real shot at seeing real expansion and adoption of more standards. And by the way, I'm not just talking about the HIG index and the SLCP, which worldly aligns to because they are shared standards, but there are other great standards out there. I think we're going to start seeing more more adoption of those standards. And what I care most about is just standardization, right? Obviously I'm passionate about the Higgindex. I believe that's a great standard, but standardization in general matters. the other thing I'll say is that right now in this time we're all going through, ⁓ where we're seeing a lot of pullback, ⁓ know, one of the things we've observed at Worldly is a lot of public targets being quietly retired. We see the watering down of certain regulations that have been emerging. In the context of all that, I'm very optimistic for one specific reason, which is I see a lot of businesses, our customers at WorldBee, moving towards a much more pragmatic approach to sustainability. So the 2030 targets that were set might not all be met, but what... It's really good that's happening is broader ownership of sustainability within these brands and retailers and a big link to real pragmatic business outcomes around risk, business resilience and continuity, ⁓ cost reduction. And I think that's what makes us durable, right? And makes it last. And that's being forced to happen right now. And it's happening. So I think that that's going to accelerate everything and make a lot of the work that's being done less vulnerable to economic and political cycles and even business cycles. And again, I'll point to the work that Rick has done throughout his career pointing out that the smart thing and the right thing are not opposed. They're often very well aligned, but we just need to do a lot of education.

Helena: Yeah, I'm 100 % with you there. And even a conversation that had this morning, people say, you know, what's happening to the sustainability conversation? People don't care as much and so on. People aren't shouting about it as much, but the work's being done. It's just being done with the departments and it's being done as reducing risk as a business and building inefficiencies as a business. you know, the rhetoric around it, the storytelling around it is different, but it's still there. And I think that we need this to be

Jay Gaines: Yes. Exactly.

Helena: ⁓ everyday business, need it to be the way business is done and not something that's separate. And so I think the easier we can make that, the more that we ⁓ intertwine it into business language, I think the more opportunity there is for us to do more. I'm very aware that I've taken up loads of your time today, but gosh, I could talk to you guys for hours. My last question to you both and maybe Jay will start with you and then Ruth will come with you to end if that's okay.

Jay Gaines: That's right.

Helena: If we look five years into the future, what do want it to look like five years? Because if we can see it and we can tell the story of it, we can build it.

Jay Gaines: Yeah. So five years from the future, I'll start by saying this. I think all of this stuff should be boring. I hope that it's boring. Right. And when I say all of this stuff, what I mean is sustained, you know, supply chain, sustainability data. We're not still struggling to figure out how to get at it. We're not still struggling with figuring out how to create standards and get people to adopt those standards. It's becomes foundational. It becomes expected. It's not the special project anymore. It's just there. And I think, you know, One of the reasons why I want to see that happen. And the other thing I'll say is, is I want to see that data that suppliers and manufacturers provide flowing through all the jobs that need to get done where it's relevant. That's really critical because what that will then drive. And this is what's most important to me having worked so closely with so many of our manufacturer and supplier customers at worldly is in five years, ideally we're seeing suppliers having to do a couple. or a tops a few audits and assessments every, every year so that they can focus on doing work that grows their business, but also work that reduces their impact. And every factory owner I've talked to has said that is a real issue for them. cannot do both at the same time. They cannot be in 200 days of audits every year and drive impact reduction at the same time. So I want to see that happen. And I also want to see more economic upside for manufacturers and suppliers as well. It has to be there. They're doing all of the work. ⁓ they're making all the investments that has to be there and that can come in. There's many mechanisms for that to come, but it requires more collaboration and more community. ⁓ so, and what I mean by that is, you know, yes, there's access to capital at better terms, but also the big thing for suppliers will be does. Performing well in sustainability drive more business for them. And the fact is, is that right now it really doesn't in most cases, unless they're working with a great brand like Patagonia or somebody similar, but for the most part, it doesn't right now, but that's beginning to change as brands and retailers are seeing the more pragmatic business outcomes that can come from doing the right things with their suppliers in the area of sustainability. So those are the big things I want to see. want to see more economic upside, more adoption of standards. And again, not just the HIG index, just suppliers doing fewer audits and assessments every year. And then, you know, also, I think we have to see frankly, fewer tools. There's a lot of innovation and all that's really exciting, but it's a lot of fragmentation, which is driving a lot of redundancy and a lot of inefficiency ⁓ in the space. So yeah.

Helena: Yeah, I totally agree. I love that. And we've got a piece of work actually at the minute where we're saying, what are the brands asking for? What are the retails asking for? We're mapping the whole thing. We're saying, right, come on, there's got to be some efficiencies and some alignment within that. And I know I've been talking to Michael and the team on how we can share that data when it's done with you and the team. Thank you for that, Jay and Rick. know that, you know, when the sustainable apparel coalition started, there wasn't even that much. life cycle assessment data. There wasn't a huge amount of data that connects. And now we're in a, in a time like Jay was saying where people are asking to disclose this information. How many, you know, how many times does a poor factory have to do another audit, fill in another, another piece of paper or upload onto another platform? You know, they, they, they are really struggling. But it's changed so much over those years from when it started. But if we go five years ahead, because, you know, hopefully we are picking up pace. What would you love to see,

Rick Ridgeway: Well, ⁓ to build on what Jay said, I would like to see the continuation, the acceleration of the chain of the expansion is happening right now and other categories of consumer goods. ⁓ wasn't going to work with apparel in their name. And that's happening. ⁓ last year, they announced the acquisition of the Sustainable Furnishings Council. And I'm working closely with them now on that expansion into home and office furniture ⁓ that Jay and his team is helping us with as well. Certainly like to see that continue. ⁓ And then there's still a missing piece. It's still something we identified back in the very beginning, ⁓ those ⁓ thinkers at MIT who were specialists on how to change big systems. Back then, they helped me recognize that ⁓ we're only going to see the change that we really want to happen when the whole measurement system becomes fully transparent. And transparency is a... We haven't achieved it to the degree we need to yet. It'll probably ultimately require some policy changes to mandate it. I recognize that. But I'm always advocating for that because at the end of the day with full transparency becomes full disclosure to ⁓ all the, customers and not B2B customers to the consumers. even though I hate to use that word, all of us who buy stuff, all of us who are buying consumer goods, we need to be able to see those measurements and understand them easily. So I'd love to see that continue to head in that direction, to see it unfold within five years. So we can see by measurement what the impacts are of all the stuff that we surround our lives with. But then here's what I'd really like to see.

Helena: Yeah.

Rick Ridgeway: This is the most important thing of all. That it's not the numbers that measure the impacts through the whole supply chain and all tiers of all the consumer goods that we use. But it's how we use those numbers to manage those impacts to achieve that larger goal of year over year, reducing the environmental footprint and increasing the social justice of all the consumer goods with which we surround our lives. So that in aggregate, Achieving those two things, we can then achieve the biggest goal of all. And that is changing the numbers that measure the health of our home planet. And I'm talking about the numbers that measure climate change, the numbers that measure freshwater eutrophication, that measure desertification, that measure deforestation. The measure ocean acidification, all those numbers are continuing to go in the wrong direction. And until we reverse those numbers, until we start bringing in better numbers there, we got to keep working hard. We, all of us have to keep using every tool that's in our box to make as much change as we can in the time that we have here on our one and only dear home planet.

Helena: I totally agree with you, Rick. And hopefully with digital product passports and EU regulation, it's a start, but ⁓ we need so much more. ⁓ And it's just been a real privilege to talk to you, Rick and you, Jay, ⁓ on both of your stories. ⁓ And hopefully there'll be people within our community that will listen to this. And next time they go into that meeting, they'll start to push for change. and that they'll come on that journey and do more or start to share their stories or, you know, the whole point of this is that we inspire a generation of people within industry to do the right thing. So huge thank you. can't thank you for your time today.

Rick Ridgeway: My pleasure, Helena

Jay Gaines: Thank you, Helena