TrusTrace, a global leader in supply chain traceability and compliance, announced its fourth Industry Playbook: The Data Advantage – A Practical Guide to Building De-risked, Compliant and Future-Ready Supply Chains, launching during the Global Fashion Summit in Copenhagen.

Amidst unprecedented regulatory pressure, climate risk, and calls for transparency – placing substantial reporting demands on suppliers – this playbook introduces The TrusTrace Compliance Canvas™: a timely, practical framework for brands and manufacturers to align on a streamlined, standardized set of supply chain data, supported by insights from industry stakeholders.

The playbook features interviews with leading brands including adidas, Hugo Boss, and Primark, alongside pioneering suppliers such as Epic Group, Karacasu Tekstil, and Impetus Group. Contributors share their approach to data collection and traceability, as they navigate compliance with evolving regulations and environmental targets.

“At Primark, we’ve focused on creating clarity for our suppliers by aligning on the data that matters most and building the internal systems and skills to use it well. Working with TrusTrace has helped us turn complex data requirements into something more manageable for our teams and suppliers,” said Cari Atkinson, Head of Product Traceability and Assurance at Primark.

“My North Star is to get supply chain-related data to the same robustness as financial data. That’s where we need to get to, with an effective data landscape and a standardized approach to data collection and evaluation,” said Sigrid Buehrle, Senior Vice President of Sustainability and ESG at adidas.

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“This work is going to create a demand for data… and the lack of harmonisation across countries means we need a taxonomy… besides just the [rule of] law,” said Tércio Pinto, Head of Innovation at Impetus Group.

The executive briefing section features forward-looking insights from Policy Hub on the future policy landscape, commentary from Textile ETP on how the global manufacturing community must prepare, a corporate climate litigation briefing from the London School of Economics Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, and a look at how TrusTrace’s dynamic risk modelling supports more proactive and resilient supply chains.

A Playbook for Action

The playbook equips fashion brands and suppliers with insights for more strategic data collaboration, structured around four key pillars:

• The Minimum Data Package – The TrusTrace Compliance Canvas™: A summary of essential data points needed to comply with industry-relevant regulations, offering a common foundation for collaboration.
  
  
• Understanding Data Requirements: A breakdown of ESG regulations, outlining what data is needed, why it matters, and how to prepare.
  
  
• Practical Insights from Industry Leaders: Exclusive insights – spanning raw material sourcing to garment finishing – on the current state of data collection and what’s needed to evolve toward a future with verifiable impact data and traceable, digital records.
  
  
• Executive Briefing – The Future Risk Outlook: Leading voices from Textile ETP, Policy Hub, London School of Economics, and TrusTrace on the growing legal, financial, and reputational risks – and how supply chain data strategies can mitigate them.

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A Call for Pragmatism and Partnership

The playbook makes it clear: supply chain data isn’t just a tool for compliance – it’s a lever for smarter sourcing, better investment decisions, and long-term risk mitigation. Yet too often, manufacturers’ implementation expertise is overlooked when data is collected simply to check boxes, rather than generate meaningful insight.

“A fascinating insight from these interviews is that despite the already huge data burden, with myriad tools and many platforms and certifications, what’s collected is mostly documents, not meaningful data or numbers for calculating and addressing actual environmental impacts. It’s mere foundational due diligence,” said Brooke Roberts-Islam, the book’s author and a longtime sustainability journalist.

Contributors emphasized that subjective interpretation of regulations and lack of standardized methodologies and certifications were a barrier to achieving real-world outcomes.

“As data becomes the new cornerstone of compliance and climate readiness, brands need more than intention – they need infrastructure,” said Shameek Ghosh, CEO and Co-Founder of TrusTrace. “This playbook outlines what actionable, standardized data collaboration should look like.”