This article appeared in edited format in Ecotextile News August/September 2015 edition.
Have you heard about open data? And about open source?
Open data is “data that can be freely1 used, re-used and redistributed by anyone – subject only, at most, to the requirement to attribute and sharealike.“ (Source)
Open source, in contrast, originally denotes software – hence, the application that uses or creates the data – for which the original source code is made freely available and may be redistributed and modified in accordance to the indicated licensing terms.
The equivalent of open source in sustainability terms would be an ‘open standard’.
The European Interoperability Framework (EIF) for eGovernment defines the following minimum criteria for open standards:
- The standard is owned and managed by a not-for-profit organization, and its development following a transparent decision process.
- The standard is freely available and free to be applied and used.
- All intellectual property is freely licensed (e.g. through creative commons)
- No restrictions apply to the application and use of the standard
Why is the ‘open’ concept of such relevance for sustainability?
For the very same reason as it is and has become important for IT and data management:interoperability.
In other words: to enable collaboration in a systematic, as well as systemic, way.
Interoperability describes the ability of diverse systems and organizations to work together (inter-operate).
In the case of sustainability, the ability to interoperate means, as a consequence, the possibility to reduce redundancies and duplicate efforts, share audit results and best practise.
Why does the ‘open’ concepts matter to textiles and sustainability?
Unsurprisingly, these are the very same benefits we typically mentioned as a consequence of enforcing and rolling out industry-wide standards. Without interoperability, any such ‘global’ effort becomes entirely unthinkable from the very start.
But for what reason exactly?
Let’s revert back to the most famous of globalisation myths: the construction of the Tower of Babel where the (in)ability to communicate and align on a single standard (a language in this case) resulted in the complete breakdown of the tower-building effort: No one knew what to do, at which point of time, and in what way. Chaos followed by paralysis was the mythical result,
Further, interoperability is the undermining fundament for 2 more concepts: transparency and quality control.
The two most important reasons for this are as straightforward as relevant when it comes to standards with a global aspiration:
- Verifiability:
Black box tools of any kind and type cannot be verified, corrected and improved by any other entity than the creators themselves. Allowing for third party scrutiny of a methodology and a tool, strengthens the validity of the results, and the suitability of the method to the application area in question. - Trust (Risk Management)
Verifiability again, opens the doors to trust. It is clear from the beginning what we get, or not, from a tool or method. Where its risk areas are, what it can, or not, deliver in a specific context.
‘Open’ – type of approaches encourage and invite public scrutiny.
Once a standard, method, or tool is free available (e.g. for download), someone will be curious and expert enough to X-ray its intestines. It is but a matter of time until every smallest inconsistency is found, every decision re-assessed.
In other words: if managed well, ‘open’ is the door to what is likely the most thorough quality review process you can get your hands on.
4 eyes see more than 2, it is said. What about many, many dozens of eyes?
Mind the black box
Questions we’ve heard times and over again in our industry, such as “Are our tools good enough? How do they compare to others?” “what if we migrate one day?” can be answered in a best possible way once that such a tool is transparently displaying its intestines for review.
What needs to be pointed out though: questions such as these we ask in sustainability, are no different from those asked in supply chain management, management accounting, product management or warehousing.
In this time and age, finding a tool is simple.
Assessing its fit to a specific context is somewhat more complicated.
But when it comes to figuring out whether the underlying concepts are sufficiently thorough and thought through, of good quality and in addition compatible to future developments of the field and technology – this becomes a really hard nut to crack.
Banks and insurances have already made this bitter experience with their 1st generation tools built in the 1960 – many of which are, low and behold, still operational in the present for one reason or another, but specifically: because on the one hand these tools work highly efficiently, and on the other there is a prohibitive cost associated with re-engineering consequence of them being total black boxes. No one really knows, or can verify, what’s going on within them.
But: what does the banking and insurance world have to do with our own work in sustainability in textiles and fashion?
The answer is: First, the industry-wide rather critical reliance on proprietary approaches and the risk situation these create by being black box systems.
And second, the increasing availability of open and verifiable, frameworks, standards and methods.
Black-box-like systems have turned out to be a bad idea.
Unfortunately, proprietary quality and sustainability standards ARE, by definition, black boxes. Much of their value stems from the trust we place into their suppliers/creators – possibilities for verification are reduced or constrained.
Oversimplified this means: proprietary standards and systems, typically depend on what usually is a small pool of insiders’ expertise, are highly likely to increase the business risk as a consequence of their lack of interoperability, as well as for not being transparent, not scrutinize-able and quality assure-able by independent third parties. And, they
The case for open standards
The question of course immediately is: what’s in it for the different players in the field? The brands? The consultants? The standard holders? The auditors?
For brands, the case is relatively straight forward (see above): open standards are highly likely to decrease the business risk as a consequence of being transparent, and because of being scrutinized and quality assured by independent third parties. They allow tapping into the pool of global experts if managed well, and facilitate exchange with other systems.
In fact, in the software world, this has been for a long time the driver of the open source development, with over 85% of business citing inter-operability and verifiability as a key –driver, followed by considerations such as cost savings (77%) and the expectation to diminish and prevent dependency from individual suppliers (75.5%).
However, why would a consultancy, auditor or other entity openly publish a product that has cost so much time, effort and skill to create?
The answer to this is threefold:
An open standard/resources …
- … Is a showcase (business card) for their skill and expertise. The public proof of quality work. After all, standards are not the ‘manual’ to get to what is considered ‘good’, but rather the description of how ‘good’ looks like in its characteristics.
- … Stands a much higher chance of being ‘picked up’, leading to a higher potential for impact across a whole industry.
- … Invites interoperability and collaboration, as it is clear what data goes in, what data comes out, and what is being assessed in first place. This opens up new business opportunities.
There is no doubt that a lot of expertise has gone in some of these proprietary tools and approaches. And one should hope that they do their creators proud.
Yet: by definition, service providers are first and foremost ‘brain factories’ not ‘tool factories’. Opening such tools and standards up to public scrutiny allows the creators indeed to make their expertise evident, attracting further business and building trust. The business case hereby lies in the actual roll-out and implementation of such a tool, and the related capacity building.
In short: any service provider worth their money have nothing to fear from opening up their ‘proprietary’ standard to scrutiny by neutral 3rd party/parties, if indeed they are the experts they claim to be.
There are many standards out there that are ‘open’, while at the same time creating business for experts as they can truly leverage their skill and knowledge to help their clients rolling them out.
Examples in our own industry are: The Higg Index, Textile Exchange’s range of standards, GOTS, the NSF Traceable Down Standard or the ZDHC.
Once we look beyond our industry, many well known efforts also fall into this same category, among them: Fairtrade or SA8000 the range of national forestry standards summarized by the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification, as well as the ISO standards.
Summary & Conclusion
‘Open’ – type of approaches encourage and invite public scrutiny, and open the door to industry wide, or even B2B collaboration.
Once a standard, method, or tool is openly available, it is a matter of time until someone curious and expert enough decides to to X-ray its intestines.
Standards created through engagement of a Multi-Stakeholder Initiative (MSI) are typically not only open, but have undergone such ‘quality’ screening already.
However, opening a standard will always need to be accompanied by the specific requirements for objectively verifiable facts, figures and information (typically implementation manual or similar). These are just as much a part of the standard, and play a key role to proves whether a standard is of excellent value and trustworthiness, or none at all.
It is the expertise and role of the auditor, the brand’s and manufacture’s in-house staff, and consultants, to translate the standard’s ‘KPIs’ into methods and processes that so as to make the road to progress as smooth and effective as possible.
1 A resource is also considered ‘free’ in this context, if it is sold as a physical copy at print cost, i.e. covering mere basic overheads.
