Managing certified materials is one of the most manual and most risk-prone processes in apparel supply chains.
Transaction certificates get mismatched, quantities don't align, and evidence gets assembled under audit pressure rather than maintained continuously.
In this live panel, we bring together experts from brands and certification bodies dealing with this directly. Columbia Sportswear and Patagonia share how they manage certified material claims at scale. ICEA offers the certification body perspective on what rigorous, audit-ready management looks like. Retraced will show how digital tools are changing the way certifications are tracked, verified, and reconciled.
What you'll take away:
- How leading brands like Columbia Sportswear and Patagonia handle certified material claims at scale
- What ICEA Certification Institute sees as the biggest gaps in how brands manage TCs today
- A look at how automation is changing certificate reconciliation, and where the human in the loop is still needed
Watch the Webinar Recording
Meet the Panel
Ellen Johnson
Sustainability & Innovation Manager, Columbia Sportswear
Ellen is a sustainability and innovation leader with 11+ years of experience building and advancing sustainability strategies, shaping industry standards, and guiding cross-functional teams in global apparel and footwear supply chains. Recognized for building transformative initiatives such as prAna’s Responsible Packaging Movement and Regenerative Organic Cotton program, co-leading the Textile Exchange Brand Advisory Group, and for translating complex sustainability topics into accessible, actionable narratives that drive industry collaboration and impact.
Nick Allen
Director of Transparency, Patagonia
Professional with expertise in supply chain traceability and compliance issues with experience in research, development, training, and client development and service. Program development and field experience in the following topics: C-TPAT, Wood Legality, Conflict Minerals, Country of Origin and Brand Protection/Grey Market diversion. Currently focusing on raw material traceability, sourcing and supply chain management.
Giuseppe Portarapillo
Lead Auditor Textile and Building Scheme Manager, ICEA Institute for Ethical and Environmental Certification:
Chemical Engineer with 9 years of experience in textile auditing, sustainability, and certification schemes. Skilled in compliance assessment, supply chain sustainability, and industry standards verification.
Philipp Mayer
CPO & Co-Founder, Retraced
Philipp Mayer is CPO and Co-Founder of Retraced. Before that, he built CANO, an ethical shoe brand, where wrestling with his own supply chain challenges pushed him toward a bigger question: why is traceability so hard for the entire industry? That question became Retraced. Today he works at the intersection of product development and sustainability, helping fashion brands get real visibility into where and how their products are made. He's spoken at the UN in Geneva, the Global Fashion Agenda in Copenhagen, and Cascale's Annual Meeting, always on the same core topic: What does it take to make supply chains more transparent?
Sarolta Hershey
Content & PR Manager, Retraced
Sarolta leads content and PR at Retraced, shaping how topics connected to supply chain transparency are communicated across different channels. She has spent years working closely with different teams to make complex topics easy to understand and worth discussing.
Webinar attendees asked
Questions & Answers
Ellen Johnson: We are putting a lot of effort into automation to help reduce the workload for everyone. I’m hopeful that what we are working on now will provide that and help make things more manageable in the long run.
Nick Allen: Agree with Ellen. We are hopeful that regulations will help brands to align on data requests, and provide suppliers with a clearer framework. The integration of AI into all of these processes holds hope that these workloads will decrease for everyone.
Ellen Johnson: Some certified suppliers have shared anecdotally that being certified has benefited them with things like:
- Increased business growth
- Building more trust and commitment with customers
- Better overall operating processes, including more efficiency and better record keeping
Nick Allen: We have seen how early adopters of environmental and socially responsible practices can differentiate themselves from their competitors. Moreover, as regulations increase the pressure for certification to back up claims, being an early mover means they will prove more attractive to brands as they will have access to accredited, third-party certification evidence.
The platform behind the Materials Matter Standard is Textile Exchange's Trackit system (dTrackit for Transaction Certificates). Our positioning is clearly complementary, not duplicative: Trackit is TE's infrastructure for issuing and hosting certificate data.
Retraced sits on top as the operational layer: connecting certificates to actual purchase orders, validating TCs, and managing certified materials coverage across a brand's entire supplier base and across multiple standards (not just Textile Exchange).
Just as a reminder: Retraced is one of only four technology providers in TE's official Multiparty Trackit pilot project, so we're directly involved in shaping how technology platforms will integrate with the new architecture.
Yes. TC validation and certified materials coverage is exactly what CMM does today, and we're actively preparing for the transition: through the Trackit pilot and dedicated research on the Materials Matter TC Policy v4.0, we're making sure CMM can process the new TC structure, including the redesigned certificate layout coming into effect in 2027.
A native Trackit API integration is also on the roadmap, with timing aligned to Textile Exchange's platform rollout. They are currently migrating their data infrastructure and rebuilding all APIs, with no new framework details expected before fall 2026 at the earliest (keep in mind they postponed Trackit several times for years now). So please don't commit to any concrete dates externally.
Ellen Johnson: I would recommend asking for a report from your manufacturer with the information needed for volume reconciliation and TC collection linked to your POs and inventory management system.
Nick Allen: As a brand, your responsibility should be in ensuring that your purchases match with what is covered on TCs. This will mean having information on the products, purchase orders, and composition. Generally, you should not be asked about volumes of fabric, as that is in scope for the garment factory audit.
Nick Allen: I think of certification and supply chain mapping as answering two different questions. “Does this product contain X preferred fiber?” vs. “What entities contributed to its making”? The TE standards in fact are set up in such a way that they do not reveal your supplier’s suppliers, and this was done on purpose in order to encourage businesses to get certified even if they did not want to reveal all of their sources. In the end, if you source TE standards you will have to conduct multi-tier mapping separately.
Ellen Johnson and Nick Allen: We collect finished garment level transaction certificates and do not use the Oeko-Tex standards right now. As mentioned in the call, we are moving our process into Retraced right now so I’m sure they would be more than happy to show you their tools.
Ellen Johnson: We follow their licensing requirements. We have not automated this process yet but it’s on the roadmap after textile exchange certifications.
Ellen Johnson: We don’t have anyone working on it full time, but typically there are 3 main people who lead the program as one part of their job description. Myself, and 2 leads in Vietnam. Then as I mentioned in the webinar, we have embedded specific tasks into standard roles at the company like production, sourcing, materials, and marketing.
However, since we are going through some big changes right now, we have expanded the leadership on the program to help get us through these changes. To do this, we have set up an implementation group of about 10 people across our brands and offices (remember we have 4 brands and a lot of suppliers) to support the change management plan and roll out updates to the program. We also have a strategic leadership committee who gives approvals on key milestones and provides guidance.
Nick Allen: Historically we had 3 people working on TC reconciliation on a part time basis. Now with the Retraced system, we have brought it down to 1.
Ellen Johnson: We are only collecting finished garment TCs from the suppliers as part of this program. However, we need the other documents (POs, invoices, packing lists, etc.) for our audits. Since those are already collected by other team members for standard business procedures, we rely on those teams for the documentation, not our suppliers.
Nick Allen: I second what Ellen said. We collect finished garment TCs only. Invoices and shipping docs are collected as part of standard business process.
Nick Allen: When we have analyzed the costs associated with scope and transaction certificates, generally this is considered a worthwhile investment, both as part of our due diligence, our marketing substantiation, and also to be ready for regulations, especially true in light of the upcoming EmpCo regulations.
Nick Allen: My understanding is that TE will be doing a lot of work on educating consumers on what the MM standards stand for, and the value behind it. It is definitely challenging to explain the nature of supply chains and preferred fiber production to a broad audience, so this will likely be a continuous process undertaken not only by TE but also by brands.