Cascale engages next generation of sustainability leaders through guest lecture at Columbia University.
Cascale recently engaged the next generation of sustainability leaders through a guest lecture at Columbia University in New York City.
The session was delivered as part of the university’s “Consumerism and Sustainability” course and brought together 37 graduate students from across Columbia’s sustainability management, international relations, human rights, and business programs.
Invited by lecturer Michelle Gabriel, Cascale’s editorial director Kaley Roshitsh explored how effective communication plays a critical role in advancing systems change across the sustainability landscape. The lecture highlighted how clear, credible messaging supports collaboration and progress not only within Cascale but across the broader industry ecosystem.
During the presentation, students received an introduction to the Higg Index, exclusively available on Worldly, which is the leading framework for measuring environmental and social performance across the consumer goods value chain. The interactive presentation covered the breadth of Cascale’s work, including decarbonization efforts, public affairs engagement, stakeholder collaboration, and initiatives such as Better Buying that support responsible purchasing practices.
The lecture also connected these industry topics with practical career insights. Drawing on experience in sustainable fashion journalism and communications, Roshitsh addressed how emerging professionals can pursue purpose-driven careers while avoiding common challenges in sustainability storytelling and reporting. Using her past experiences covering sustainability at WWD, she highlighted common greenwashing risks including a lack of public-facing commitments, fleeting supplier relations, and flagrant claims on materials and performance, among others.
Students showed strong interest in accessing Cascale resources and learning how the Higg Index tools can support academic work, particularly in lifecycle assessment (LCA) coursework. Several questions focused on industry challenges such as overproduction, the role of artificial intelligence, and how students and early-career professionals can engage more directly with sustainability tools and data.
Following the lecture, Cascale representatives also discussed opportunities for deeper collaboration with academic institutions. Conversations included the potential for integrating the Higg Index and related sustainability frameworks into university curricula, as well as helping equip students with practical knowledge and tools relevant to industry needs.
As with recent Cascale speaking engagements at Parsons (part of the New School), the University of Oregon, Berkeley College, ASU FIDM, and Ohio State University, this latest engagement reflects a growing demand from universities and young professionals for standardized tools, data, and collaboration. By connecting academia with practical industry frameworks, Cascale continues to support the development of future leaders.
Cascale brings real-world insight to sports-product management students on aligning sourcing strategies with climate action and decent work.
Cascale brings real-world insight to sports-product management students on aligning sourcing strategies with climate action and decent work.
This week, Cascale’s Joleen Ong, senior director, brand and retailer membership, joined the University of Oregon Sports Product Management (SPM) graduate program to explore how sustainability is operationalized across global supply chains — and why sourcing and costing decisions matter for both climate and decent work outcomes.
Ong was a guest lecturer at the sourcing and costing strategies course led by instructor Eric Goldner, where 48 graduate students explored the intersection of purchasing practices, environmental performance, and the impacts of tariffs. Goldner is a seasoned supply chain executive with over 25 years of experience at major brands including Nike, Coach, and Columbia Sportswear, while Ong worked in the outdoor and sporting goods industry – first at Columbia Sportswear, then Fanatics – before joining and leading Cascale’s brand and retailer membership. She gave a compelling lecture on the sourcing challenges faced by sustainability professionals.
A Deeper Dive on Sourcing Challenges
Following an overview of recent U.S. tariff developments, Ong’s session explored Cascale’s role in convening brands, manufacturers, and stakeholders to align on credible tools and shared standards. She also uncovered real-world sourcing and costing case examples from industry experience at Columbia Sportswear and Fanatics. Using a factory audit walkthrough, Ong highlighted how common social and environmental violations are often symptoms of poor purchasing and planning decisions. Finally, she touched on the role of responsible purchasing and Better Buying approaches in addressing root causes and strengthening decent work across supply chains.
Throughout the session, students demonstrated strong engagement and thoughtful questions about how collective action can move the industry from compliance to measurable impact.
Importance to Industry
The University of Oregon Sports Product Management Program was co-founded by former Nike leader Ellen Schmidt-Devlin and prepares talent for the sports and outdoor industry. The specialized, industry-partnered program teaches the full product creation lifecycle, supported by advisory board participation from brands, manufacturers, and organizations such as Cascale, where Ong has served as an advisory board member since 2024.The curriculum emphasizes hands-on learning through its Portland-based innovation lab, located in a city widely recognized as a global hub for the footwear and athletic apparel industry, often referred to as the “sneaker capital of America.” Approximately 90 percent of alumni work within the industry.
Engaging with academia helps connect Cascale’s work to the next generation of sourcing, product, and sustainability leaders. It also reinforces a key message: decisions made upstream – across areas like planning, costing, and purchasing – directly shape environmental performance, worker outcomes, and long-term business resilience.
Several students expressed interest in future internship opportunities, signaling strong alignment between emerging talent and the industry’s growing focus on credible, collective sustainability solutions.
The lecture follows a series of Cascale student engagements including speaking opportunities at Parsons, the Ohio State University (via the Educators for Socially-Responsible Apparel Practices (ESRAP)), and more this quarter.
Foundational course connects sustainability systems, traceability, and sourcing realities for over 1,000 first-year students.
Cascale recently joined a first-year course at the Parsons School of Design, part of The New School, to engage the next generation of designers on sustainability systems and supply chain realities.
The February 12 session took place within “Sustainable Systems,” a foundational course reaching all first-year Parsons students, approximately 1,300 students annually. Joleen Ong, Cascale’s senior director of brand and retailer membership, presented to the class. She introduced Cascale’s role as a global alliance convening brands, retailers, manufacturers, and stakeholders to drive measurable progress across the consumer goods value chain.
Students then presented findings from a traceability assignment that challenged them to map an item back to its factory and material origins.
The exchange underscored the growing interest among emerging designers in advancing sustainable design approaches in the existing and future sustainability landscape. Questions from students covered topics related to systems change, Cascale membership, NGO stakeholder engagement, and access to the Higg Index.
Since 2014, Parsons has required students to take sustainable design curriculum. As part of this focus, Parsons faculty is exploring ways to embed more sustainability coursework into the core and advanced curriculum. As a starting point, Cascale has been invited to participate as a recurring guest contributor in this required course, as well as others.
Shaping upstream talent entering the apparel and footwear industry is a powerful opportunity to embed systems-level sustainability from day one. Today’s students are tomorrow’s sustainability leads, sourcing managers, and Higg Index users. By connecting early with future practitioners, Cascale looks to strengthen the foundation for credible measurement, aligned standards, and collective action across the industry.
The ESRAP Educates session connected students and faculty with Cascale, the Higg Index, and Worldly to build career-ready sustainability skills.
Cascale recently joined a new educational workshop series led by Educators for Socially-Responsible Apparel Practices (ESRAP), creating a direct connection between industry tools and the next generation of fashion and sustainability professionals.
Facilitated by Andrea Kennedy, fashion department lead at Berkeley College, a Cascale member, and Tasha Lewis, a fashion and retail studies professor at The Ohio State University, the session marked an early installment of ESRAP Educates. The speaker-panel series is designed to equip fashion faculty with practical insights and resources they can bring back to their classrooms. More than 45 students and educators participated, representing programs in sustainable fashion, apparel, and footwear.
Speakers from Cascale and Worldly explained how the two organizations work together to support credible sustainability education and real-world application. Cascale’s communications director Rachel Lincoln Sarnoff shared an overview of Cascale’s mission as a global nonprofit alliance and steward of the Higg Index, which is exclusively available on Worldly. Then, Charlie Gustafson, product marketing manager at Worldly, shared the organization’s role as the comprehensive data and analytics platform that helps scale the Higg Index tools.
Together, the directors illustrated how industry-aligned standards, trusted data, and scalable platforms work in tandem to turn sustainability goals into measurable action. The discussion focused on how educators and students can use these tools to develop practical, career-ready skills aligned with current industry expectations.
The workshop also explored opportunities for students and academic institutions to engage with Cascale and Worldly, including access to resources, learning pathways, and membership benefits that support teaching, research, and workforce development.
By participating in ESRAP Educates, Cascale continues to expand its engagement with the academic community, supporting educators as they prepare students to navigate sustainability challenges with clarity, consistency, and credible data.
