Retraced Released Certified Materials Management to Automate Certificate Reconciliation for Fashion Brands
Last updated: September 8, 2026
Retraced, a platform for supply chain transparency and vendor management in the fashion industry, has released Certified Materials Management, an AI tool that reconciles certified material claims across purchase orders, transaction certificates, and shipments. Columbia Sportswear Company and Patagonia are both rolling it out.
Behind every organic cotton or recycled polyester claim sits a paper trail of certificates, orders, invoices, and shipping documents. Keeping that trail complete and audit-ready often means weeks of manual work.
Most brands that source certified materials collect documents from suppliers over multiple tiers. They match certificates to orders, reconcile quantities across shipments, and do it again before every audit. The claims are backed, but proving it costs a lot of time. Teams are often small, and the reconciliation takes them months per season.
Certified Materials Management changes that manual process. When suppliers upload certificates, invoices, or packing lists, AI extracts the key data and links each document to the relevant purchase orders. It then cross-references them to surface discrepancies, such as a buyer name that does not match or a quantity that does not align. Each finding returns with a clear status: Valid, Needs Review, Manually Validated or Does Not Match. Teams review what needs attention, and the system handles the rest.
Nick Allen, Director of Transparency at Patagonia, is rolling out the module. "We estimated we spent around 100 hours per season on TC reconciliation with our previous method. Last year, working with Retraced, we simplified our TC management already, which brought the number of hours down significantly. I've started to use the new Certified Materials Management module, and I've found it's even faster; the system already helps you by telling you what's consistent or not. It's a huge improvement so far."
At Columbia Sportswear Company, the module is being introduced across several teams. "We're currently onboarding the Certified Materials module, and the benefits extend far beyond our sustainability team," said Ellen Johnson, Sustainability and Innovation Manager at Columbia Sportswear. "It will streamline processes for our production and materials teams as well, creating significant time savings across the organization. We're also automating scope certificate collection, which is a major opportunity given that we work with more than 100 tier 1 suppliers and even more tier 2 suppliers. Having a two-way, vendor-managed compliance tool is critical for reducing administrative burden and freeing up valuable time for higher-impact work."
The gains show up on the supplier side too. "The number of people required to look at this is far fewer, and the amount of time for our suppliers also appears to be less, because they can simply dump the TCs into an upload folder and the system does a lot of the rest for them," said Allen. "Multiply that across hundreds or thousands of POs per supplier per season, and that's a lot of time saved. We're really excited to see these efficiency gains."
On 27 September 2026, the EU's Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition Directive starts to apply. From that date, an environmental claim made to EU consumers has to be specific and backed by evidence. Generic wording like "eco-friendly" is banned unless the brand can point to outstanding, recognized environmental performance. Certified Materials Management links transaction certificates to purchase orders, products, and delivered quantities, so the evidence is ready to share.
"A certificate is easy to show. What's harder is showing that it belongs to the product you're advertising," said Daniele Seiffert, ESG Legislation and Policy Expert at Retraced. "If a brand says this shirt is organic cotton, the question from September is which certificate covers this shirt, and for what quantity. That is not the same as having a certified supplier. Many brands do the work needed to prove a specific claim entirely by hand."
Your PR contact: Sarolta Hershey, PR & Content Manager, sarolta.hershey@retraced.com
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