New Delhi, 30 September, 2022: Shahi Exports, India’s largest apparel manufacturer, announced that Anant Ahuja has joined the Board of Directors of the Better Buying Institute (BBI). BBI was set up in 2015 with a mission to enable buyers and suppliers to work together with responsible purchasing practices to achieve shared goals of profitability and social and environmental sustainability. As the first South Asian supplier to join the BBI Board, Anant’s appointment is a significant step towards the industry-wide transformation of buyer purchasing practices. This will further strengthen buyer-supplier relationships contributing to the overall well-being of supply chain workers and improving environmental practices.
As the Head of Organizational Development at Shahi, Anant is primarily responsible for positive change across the business through innovation and strategy, aligning the company’s growth with the development of people, communities, and the environment. Anant is also the CEO and co-founder of the Good Business Lab, a not-for-profit labor innovation start-up that conducts research to find common ground between worker well-being and business interests. He was also a part of NITI Aayog’s ‘Champions of Change’ initiative.
Shahi Exports operates over 50 factories and three processing mills across nine states in India, employing over 113,000 people. Women workers constitute nearly 70% of Shahi’s workforce.
Anant Ahuja, Head of Organizational Development at Shahi Exports, said:
Anant Ahuja, Head of Organizational Development at Shahi Exports
“Better Buyinghas led the way in measuring and raising awareness of the state of purchasing practices by driving transparency, and this is an exciting time to be joining the Board.”
“There is growing awareness and acceptance in the industry that purchasing practices have a massive impact on workers’ wellbeing, environmental sustainability, and innovation. Buyers are significantly more open to working with suppliers to understand the pain points and develop win-win partnerships, and suppliers are increasingly aware of the knowledge and influence they hold in driving a sustainable future for the fashion industry. But there’s still a long way to go in rebalancing the power dynamics between buyers and suppliers. The time for the industry to come together and act on purchasing practices is now.”
Ahuja joins fellow Board members Nina Smith, founding Chief Executive of GoodWeave International; Dr. Peter Cheng, Co-founder and Chairman of Hanbo Group; Tom Rausch, Global Lead, Agrostart – BASF, and Michael Gilson, CEO, and Founder of Cormac Advisors.
Dr. Marsha Dickson, President, and Co-Founder of the Better Buying Institute said:
“Anant has a deep understanding of the challenges suppliers face in their business relationships with brands and retailers. He also has a track record of implementing new approaches to address workplace and business opportunities. With this valuable background, Anant will be helping us explore how Better Buying’s work can add even more value to both buyers and suppliers as they collaborate around new practices and ways of working together.”
Manufactured is a podcast started in 2020 with the intention of providing an insider perspective on sustainability in the fashion supply chain. Hosted by Kim van der Weerd and Jessie Li, two industry professionals who have worked directly in and with factories, this podcast spotlights those working in the supply chain, from factory owners and textile manufacturers to designers and sustainability officers. Through this approach, Manufactured is able to amplify key perspectives from the ground on complex issues such as buyer-supplier relationships, worker-management relations, subcontracting, and more. The long-form format of podcasting further enables this project to achieve its mission.
We believe in the greater need for transparency and open dialogue, so when Kim and Jessie reached out to Shahi to participate in an episode we were grateful for this opportunity. Transparency is often seen as consumer demand, however even as a supplier, there are benefits to being transparent including gaining valuable feedback that can help us learn and improve as well as having the opportunity to present our perspective on important events.
Two members of Shahi’s Organizational Development team, Anant Ahuja and Gauri Sharma joined Kim and Jessie for the latest double-episode of Manufactured which is now in its third season.
Part 1 (Episode 27) covers the following topics:
The journey of Shahi over the last 45 years
Why suppliers need to take a leadership role in the sustainability agenda
Barriers to genuine partnership and collaboration between buyers and suppliers: Power dynamics, lack of trust, and perceived lack of incentives for suppliers to invest in sustainability
Why Shahi set up Good Business Lab and the need for an evidence-based approach to worker wellbeing programs
Part 2 (Episode 28) covers the following topics:
The advantages of becoming a vertically integrated supplier
Sourcing cotton in India and the challenges faced by cotton farmers
Our new research project with the Hong Kong Research Institute of Textiles and Apparel (HKRITA), through which we are reclaiming textile waste to grow cotton more efficiently as a way to support cotton farmers
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Creating sustainable solutions for the apparel industry needs the entire supply chain to work together. So why are suppliers always so absent from the global conference stage? Read this blog post to understand our opinion.
At one of Europe’s biggest sustainable fashion conferences last year, some of the most important and inspiring voices of fashion were sharing ideas and commitments on the industry’s biggest sustainability issues. Brands, academics, designers, and young people were all represented. It was diverse and thoughtful but, as speaker, after speaker spoke about supply chains and the challenges of bringing suppliers on the sustainability journey, one critical voice was barely heard: that of suppliers themselves.
Cut to another major annual conference in New York last autumn. Again the main stage was diverse and exciting. Forums delved deeper into topics like supply chain transparency and sustainable supplier financing. But no supplier voice was present. A prominent sustainability head of a US fashion brand asked the audience to raise a hand if they had problems keeping their suppliers in line on sustainability targets – there was no thought that some of them might actually be suppliers.
Sustainability, ethical practices, and transparency will only advance at scale if we are all speaking and acting as one aligned industry. So I was left wondering why suppliers are being cut out of the international conference narrative – not only on the stage but even as attendees.
Perhaps it’s an assumption that suppliers need to be led by buyers to achieve better sustainability and social performance. To a large extent, that has been true. But this view fails to recognize some incredible work that is being undertaken by the companies that are actually closest to the big issues of the fashion supply chain.
Look at Twinery, MAS Holdings’ collaborative innovation campus in Colombo developing new technologies to tackle 15 sustainability issues by 2025. Manufacturers like Pratibha Syntex and Cotton Blossom worked behind the scenes to bring to life the world’s first Cradle-to-Cradle (C2C) certified GOLD T-shirts, in partnership with C&A. And consider some our own initiatives at Shahi, from incubating an academic research lab that’s building an unequivocal business case for investing in worker wellbeing, to committing to 100% renewable electricity in the coming years, and training 58,0000 women by 2024 in P.A.C.E.- a Gap Inc. proprietary life skills program being implemented at Shahi since 2007.
The wealth of garment manufacturing knowledge that exists in the global East and South is immense – and it is matched by the ambition and commitment of some of its top manufacturers to tackle the industry’s most pressing issues. However, just as brands will never reach their targets without the cooperation of suppliers, those suppliers will never reach their impact goals without the support and recognition of the brands they serve.
So in 2019, I hope that we all start to see a new kind of diversity on the stage at global sustainability conferences: that of suppliers from emerging markets who are working to transform the industry from the bottom up. Then perhaps we can open a genuine and exciting dialogue that will lead to innovative, co-created solutions and commitments.
*Editorial Note: This post was originally published on March 6, 2020, and was updated on September 30, 2020.
