Traceability and Sustainability Program Manager

Job Summary

The Traceability and Sustainability Manager is accountable for supporting and executing GoldBug’s initiatives pertaining to environmental compliance, product sustainability, and supply chain traceability programs in collaboration with cross-functional teams. This role executes GoldBug’s initiatives and reports progress internally, and externally within the supply chain and industry.

This position manages, tracks and reports updates and data related to environmental and traceability programs and applicable regulations. This role also works closely with cross-functional teams, and suppliers to develop positive working relationships, ensuring their comprehension and adherence to GoldBug’s goals, procedures, and requirements.

The Traceability and Sustainability Manager is the subject matter expert, responsible for informing the decision-making process and decision makers, as well as, ensuring that retailer and regulatory sustainability and traceability initiatives are met per defined parameters and within the corresponding timeframes, engaging the appropriate teams and keeping all parties informed.

Key Roles and Responsibilities

• Build, implement, and maintain processes to support sustainability and traceability strategies and customer specific initiatives related to product, packaging, and supply chain with a focus on tier II suppliers.
• Manage the internal and external traceability programs, across all suppliers.
• Manage data collection, calculation, and reporting for various annual customer and regulatory requirements including GHG emissions through the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), Conflict Mineral surveys, extended producer responsibility regulations (EPR), and other environmental reporting expectations.
• Identify, research, and recommend certifications for products and product inputs to support sustainability claims, educating internal teams to the certification criteria.
• Be proactive and stay current on industry trends related to sustainability and supply chain mapping, communicating updates to appropriate internal and external teams.
• Maintain pulse on upcoming state, federal, and international regulations (i.e., emerging chemicals of concern, sustainability, and traceability), determine applicability to GoldBug’s business, and develop and implement plans to ensure the company’s compliance as regulations become effective.
• Develop and refine internal procedures, supplier guidelines, tools, and training to scale implementation of pilot programs, in partnership with cross-functional teams.
• Collect, evaluate, and verify chain of custody documents.
• Participate in industry led sustainability working groups, workshops, informational webinars, and customer driven training programs.
• Adapt processes to support migration of traceability workflows into technical platform and communicate data management and analysis requirements to internal and third-party tech teams.
• Build and maintain programs to routinely measure supplier readiness to respond to traceability requests and implement CAPs to address gaps in performance working with overseas teams and factories.
• Communicate all traceability, sustainability and environmental requirements and updates to suppliers and internal teams, keeping all informed of expectations and ensuring compliance.
• Initiate and roll out the Worldly (formerly Higg) facilities modules to our suppliers and ensure annual completion according to customer specific deadlines this includes coordination and tracking of FEM, vFEM and FSLM.
• Work with Design and Product Development teams on new sourcing to ensure that suppliers have correct certifications before starting business relationships as well as developing current suppliers towards the correct certifications for any claims made.
• Support cross functional teams including product development, production planning and overseas teams on material management projects related to supplier discovery, vetting, and nomination.
• Engage with industry organizations, regulators, and customers.

The Ideal Candidate

• 3+ years of experience in sustainability, supply chain, or relevant work, preferably within the children’s, footwear, apparel, or textile industry.
• Knowledge or experience related to sourcing chain-of-custody documentation (e.g., cotton, recycled polyester), supply chain mapping, conflict minerals reporting, UFLPA, etc.
• Strong understanding of and experience with industry best practices in developing and scaling compliance requirements in manufacturing supply chains, including regional/global organizations and certifications supporting fair labor practices or product sustainability.
• Knowledge of global industry trends related to corporate environmental and social responsibility.
• Strong project management, organizational skills, strong data analysis capability, and willingness to undertake diverse projects.
• Ability to create strong and meaningful relationships with stakeholders including internal teams, suppliers, and any other 3rd party organizations to drive change.
• Ability to travel as needed on a limited basis.
• Proficient skills in MS Office suite and other data analysis and visualization programs. 
• Experience calculating and submitting GHG emissions through CDP.
• Has professional communication skills, a strong set of organizational skills, and has a keen attention to detail.
• Ability to communicate complex, technical topics to non-technical audiences. 
• Self-motivated to accomplish tasks on time and the ability to manage time efficiently, and able to predict the next reasonable action.