When I reflect on the year 2025 and what’s ahead, I see in Cascale a clear mandate to meet moonshot ambitions with a maturing credibility to counter stagnation.

As our rebrand showcased, Cascale’s new era has evolved with renewed focus that centers impact. But as we know too well, we must bear into account today’s operational realities to evolve with strategic purpose.

Cascale aims to meet these rising demands with a decisive action plan.

Progress Made in 2025 

Today, our membership stands at over 300+ organizations across the value chain and globe. Higg Index adoption surpasses 40,000 – with verifications up year-over-year in line with improving standards on data quality.

Under the public affairs team, Cascale has helped members navigate fast-moving regulations in Europe and the APAC region. Using our convening power to align industry positions, we’ve brought supplier perspectives further into the policy discussion. This includes but is not limited to Cascale’s manufacturer dialogues with International Apparel Federation (IAF), the European Financial Reporting Advisory Group (EFRAG) recognition of Higg FEM In September, and the educational roadshow for the European Commission’s Product Environmental Footprint Category Rules (PEFCR) for apparel and footwear.

At the Annual Meeting 2025 in Hong Kong, we brought together 700+ participants globally, with 120+ speakers, 33 sponsors, and 18 exhibitors across six stages. What mattered most wasn’t the scale alone, but the intent: creating space for senior leaders to engage directly with manufacturers and suppliers, and to work through challenges together rather than in parallel.

This built on the momentum from the Cascale Forum in Ho Chi Minh City earlier in the year and sets a strong foundation as we look ahead to the Cascale Forum in Colombo in March 2026. The value of bringing the industry into the room, face to face, is increasingly clear and remains central to how we drive progress.

Since inception, there have been 85 participating manufacturers in the Manufacturer Climate Action Program, with eight sponsoring brands, and 40 targets validated. Along with roadmapping climate hotspots, our team’s expert contributions to a decarbonization playbook have earned praise and inclusion at the year’s main climate event: COP30.

There are countless other wins and inflection points as we strive to deliver on unique member and stakeholder needs.

Yet even amid this progress, we see the industry is losing sight of the urgency needed to deliver on collective goals – like a 45-percent reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and a rallying cry for embedding responsible purchasing into business operations.

An Evolution Imperative 

Over the past few months, you may have noticed a clear shift in both our pace and focus. That’s intentional. My mandate from the Board has been to help Cascale move from a period of transition into one of sharper execution and delivery.

What’s been visible externally reflects a year of internal work: leadership changes, strategic refinements, and decisions to strengthen Cascale’s foundations. This includes welcoming Better Buying and the Sustainable Furnishings Council into Cascale, and continuing the work to integrate these capabilities in a way that adds real value for our members.

Upon reflection, perhaps Board chair Tamar Hoek said it best: Cascale thrives in times of change, building an even stronger foundation.

Now, we have to move in even closer alignment. As our industry knows, the sustainability journey is sustained by the long-game not the short-term pivots.

And Operational Reset  

When I stepped into the interim CEO role, the Board and I were aligned on a small number of clear priorities. Cascale was at a moment where a reset was needed, and my mandate was to bring greater discipline, clarity, and momentum to how we deliver.

That meant taking an honest look at some of the fundamentals: our finances, how we define and price member value, how we’re organized, how we govern ourselves, and how we manage the dependencies across our ecosystem. We’ve made tangible progress across all of these areas, and we’ll be sharing more detail in the period ahead.

We now have an even stronger foundation than we did six months ago. What this means for you is that by 2026, 2027, 2028, and beyond – Cascale as an organization is set up to deliver more value. What you gain in return is a stronger, more credible, more impactful Cascale that continues to meet evolving expectations – starting with new membership pricing and benefits packages.

Our Moonshot Ambition   

Our Cascale community is ready for the next chapter. Stronger tools. Better data. Deeper supply chain reach and nuance. Expanded categories, a more streamlined structure, and the ability to operate at global scale.

This strategy turns this operational reset into a launchpad for industry-level impact.

As the year draws to a close, I want to leave you with one message. One of the industry’s most widely-used impact measurement tools, the Higg Index, was named after the Higgs Boson, a discovery that helped explain how the universe holds together. At its best, the Higg Index plays a similar role for our industry. It provides a shared foundation for understanding impact.

But our ambition goes beyond any single set of tools. Our moonshot is to help unify the industry itself.

That means moving beyond sustainability silos and being more open about both progress and setbacks. It means showing up not just in sustainability reports, but in annual reports, investor conversations, ratings, and indices. In boardrooms and on factory floors, we need to equip ourselves to design the future we’re aiming for.

This is the work ahead of us. Leading with credibility, authority, and a lot of heart.

Warmly,

Harsh