AMER / EMEA Session
Demith Gooneratne is the Director of Higg Facility Tools at Cascale. His key responsibilities include project management of the Higg FEM, in collaboration with a wide variety of stakeholders, and facilitation and coordination of Cascale members’ involvement. This role also continues the development of adoption resources that support the global scaling of the Higg Facility Module and QA testing in cooperation with technical teams and coordination of communications and case studies. He is based in Colombo, Sri Lanka.
Prior to joining the Cascale team, Demith was the Senior Manager – Environmental Sustainability at Hirdaramani International Exports (Pvt) Ltd; Sri Lanka, where he was largely responsible for the development of their Environmental Sustainability Department, and managing the environmental sustainability initiatives primarily in Sri Lanka for more than a decade and overlooking strategy level implementation in Bangladesh and Vietnam. He Holds a BSc Degree in Physical Science and a Master’s Degree in Environmental Science from the University of Colombo (Sri Lanka).
In his free time Demith enjoys swimming, watching Sci-Fi Movies and reading articles on new technologies and research findings related to Environment, Renewable Energy and Space Science.
Dhawall is Cascale Director of Training and Verification and is based in Bangalore, India. He is responsible for building, maintaining, and improving verification and training programs for the Higg Index suite of tools and ensure that the Higg Index is a trusted and credible measure for sustainability performance and benchmarking.
Prior to joining Cascale, Dhawall worked with C&A’s sustainable chemicals management team as a senior specialist. His role involved working with manufacturers of varying complexities and building their capacity to implement environment management systems. He has worked with vertically integrated textile manufacturer Pratibha Syntex as a sustainability manager and was responsible for executing sustainability projects like GHG accounting and reporting, life cycle analysis, internal and external sustainability communications.
Dhawall has been recognized in the 2017 GreenBiz 30 Under 30 cohort of global sustainability professionals. Through Sustainability Drinks Bangalore, he convenes the city’s sustainability community for networking and collaboration opportunities.
Vic Lau has over 15 years of experience in the corporate responsibility sector, where he has worked with leading consumer goods brands and retailers. He is an expert in managing social labor programs across the global supply chain. At sustainability insights platform Higg, Vic helps businesses understand how they can use data-driven solutions to improve their social and environmental impacts and scale their efforts. Prior to Higg, Vic worked for leading apparel companies including PVH Corporation and Ann Taylor.
