Sue Williamson
Senior Sustainable Sourcing Associate, ASOS

Why did you choose to educate and train your colleagues? How does this fit into your sustainability strategy?

In order to drive ASOS’ sustainability strategy, we need to provide the knowledge and tools to guide and equip the teams to deliver our initiatives, goals and targets. The Sustainability Fundamentals online course has engaged our people and created passionate advocates within the business, who are raising the profile and supporting the integration of sustainability into their day to day roles, helping put us on track to meet our commitments.

How many colleagues from your company participated, and how did they respond overall to the education and training?

So far, we have trained 150 people across the business ranging from Buyers, Designers, Garment techs, Marketing and Press, and we currently have another 40 participants enrolled. The participants have really enjoyed the course – a recent survey of our Spring-term participants showed that 100% found the course engaging and fun, 93% found the course relevant for their job role and 93% would recommend the course to a colleague.

E-learning offered the flexibility needed for our people to complete modules at their own speed. It is engaging, well-structured, easy to understand, and contains relevant applied assignments that can be tailored to the individuals’ professional roles, while encouraging collaboration.

What have the benefits of the training been?

The course has been invaluable in delivering the foundations of sustainable training to our stakeholder teams within the business, enabling them to participate in the formation and delivery of our sustainability strategy. For example, improved fibre knowledge means our people can drive our fibre-switching program and are able to understand the methodology of a circular economy.

How important is leadership when integrating sustainability into your business, and for transforming the industry?

Leadership is key in order to drive forward the sustainability strategy within our business and accelerate innovation and new processes within the wider industry. Good leadership gives people the confidence to believe the right thing can be done and empowers them to make substantial changes to both behavior and established business models, underpinned by knowledge and expertise.

What advice do you have for other companies now planning to get the most of the SFA sustainability fundamentals course and SFA’s services overall?

Ensure your teams understand the time commitment needed to complete the course – while the setup is flexible, it can take some time to complete, meaning participants will need to allow time to fit the studies into their schedules. I would also recommend setting up a course co-ordinator who can ensure regular check-ins with the participants throughout the course, keep everyone on track and answer any questions that might come up. This is also a great opportunity for teams to get to know the sustainability, sourcing, ethical trade and compliance teams within the business.

We also had Michael come in to introduce the course to ASOS and the first participants, which everyone found very engaging. Michael is a fantastic spokesperson to drive enthusiasm within sustainability!