Alpine Group's Approach to Sustainable Fashion

So I'm Claire and I am Vice President of Sustainability and Impact at Alpine Group, which is a globally connected, vertically integrated supply chain partner to household apparel brands like Under Armour and the North Face.

So my role encompasses sustainability, due diligence and compliance.

as well as social impact as well.

And I think, you know, my job is really about connecting the dots.

So we're bringing our teams together to make sure that we're turning sustainable ambitions into practical realities.

And what about day to day? What's your sort of role? What does your role undertake?

Good question.

Well, no day is ever quite the same, which is something I love about the job, right? So it might be that I am briefing our leadership on the latest human rights regulations, compliance matters.

I might be working with our team to look at how we're driving decarbonisation with our male partners in China.

or talking to brands about our latest collective social impact initiatives or working with the factory teams to understand what's going on locally on the ground as well.

But again, I think, you know, like I say, really important that we're bringing all those teams together to join the dots to make sure that our sustainability ambitions become reality.

And how did you get to this point in your career? Where has your journey taken you and have you always wanted to work in sustainability?

Honestly, I didn't start off my career thinking I was going to end up in sustainability.

I'd say it was sort of a happy accident.

I did, however, always love fashion, been a passion of mine since I was a little girl.

And actually my background is communications, which I also think actually helps me within the field of sustainability and social impact because obviously you're looking at how you break down those complex issues and communicate them in a way that's digestible and understandable so actually I started my career in communications in London spent the first 12 years of my career here working for fashion and beauty brands and then decided to explore other avenues working for various consumer brands and you know hospitality healthcare you you name it, I kind of worked in that sector as well.

And then I found myself in Asia, living in Singapore, and I was working for Hilton at the time and then got introduced to the founders of the company actually in COVID, so we virtually met.

I was looking for a different challenge and I just really loved the ethos of the founders of the company, you know, Ashok, who's our chairman and co-founder, He's been there and seen it all, right? So he's physically seen the dyes running into waterways in India.

He's seen perhaps bad practices in mills from yesteryear.

And he set up the company to really do something about making the fashion industry a better place.

And that really runs through the DNA of the company, both from an environmental standpoint and a people standpoint as well.

So when I joined the company, I was actually joining to... set up the communications and marketing department because the company was nearly 40 years old, but had never really told its own story.

Okay.

Had grown through word of mouth and good work it was doing with its brand partners.

And then obviously, you know, there was sustainability initiatives going on across the business, but I think it needed some organization around it and a sort of strategy to help drive that forwards.