What Sustainable Fashion Career Skills Are in Demand? A Head of Science Shares
With Dr. Bahareh Zamani of Carbonfact, interviewed by Stella Hertantyo
Conscious Career Chats Series
Science and fashion can feel like industries that are worlds apart, but they have more overlaps than you may think — especially when it comes to creating more sustainable textile systems. And decarbonization is one of sustainable fashion’s imperatives.
Carbonfact is an organization working at the intersection of technology and fashion to achieve true decarbonization. They have developed the first fashion-specific Carbon Management Platform to help brands understand where their carbon emissions come from and how they can reduce them.
Dr. Bahareh Zamani is the Head of Science at Carbonfact. Well-versed in textile and fashion Life Cycle Assessments (LCAs), she advises brands on how to reduce their carbon emissions and align their business practices with planetary boundaries. Bahareh is on a mission to foster sustainability without compromising style or competitive advantage.
I interviewed Bahareh in the Conscious Fashion Collective Membership to explore her career journey, offer advice for anyone who wants to cultivate a career that merges science and fashion, understand why LCAs are one of the most in-demand skills in the sustainable fashion space, and how to become an LCA expert.
Below are some of the highlights from the conversation. Inside our membership you'll find the full recording with more insights from Bahareh (and get instant access to other expert Q&A recordings, workshops, and live events).
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Why should brands, that want to become more sustainable, look into the overlaps of science and fashion?
We know that the fashion industry is one of the most polluting industries. But what can’t be measured, can’t be managed. You need to be able to generate reliable data to understand your impact and make improvements.
Every brand should understand what's going on in the supply chain and what the most effective strategy to reduce their impact. This means not only reaching for the “low-hanging fruit” — such as packaging and transformation — but also looking at the systemic issues.
We can’t ignore that the large majority of carbon emissions in fashion supply chains are linked to what type of energy source is used and how much is used.
This is where science is useful. It equips brands with the data and knowledge to make sure they are making impactful decisions. For example, LCAs offer hotspot analyses that can establish what parts of the supply chain are causing the most harm.
Instead of looking retrospectively at the supply chain and pinpointing where the impacts were, LCAs help brands to be proactive about creating strategies that help them to reduce impacts ahead of time.
The time has come for fashion brands to understand that sustainability considerations shouldn’t only be the focus of marketing departments. We need to understand exactly what sustainability means in practice.
How did your career at the intersection of science and sustainable fashion begin?
A career in fashion was not what I planned for myself. I started as a chemical engineer. In my career as a chemical engineer, I decided to focus on sustainability. My Master's thesis project was about textile recycling, which taught me so much about the avenues for sustainability in the fashion industry.
For my Masters thesis, I looked at LCAs, which means measuring the environmental impact of every step in the supply chain of a garment — from when it’s created until when it becomes waste. Looking into different textile recycling options and understanding the opportunities for circularity inspired me to do more research.
Then my professor contacted me and told me about a relevant PhD project, at Mistra Future Fashion, that involved assessing the environmental sustainability of Swedish textile and fashion consumption. It was a multi-disciplinary project. We worked with the designers, policymakers, and management departments. We looked into different ways that LCAs and environmental impact assessments can help to inform sustainability strategies.
What led you to the position you hold today?
Unfortunately, when I finished my Ph.D. and was looking for work, the timing was not in my favor. At the time, the fashion industry hadn’t yet woken up to the importance of sustainability.
That led me to explore different jobs working in corporate strategy, in the energy sector, and as a sustainability consultant. That’s when I came across Carbonfact and realized our visions were so aligned. One of the co-founders reached out to me and asked me to join them as their Head of Science.
The work they wanted me to do was similar to what I had done for my Ph.D. Their idea was to turn my Ph.D. results into software so that any brand can measure their impacts and be able to make strategic decisions rooted in reliable data.
What kind of science-based job opportunities are available in the fashion industry?
The fashion industry is vast and there are many ways to get involved as someone with a background in science. One job I have noticed that is in high demand is LCA practitioners. A lot of brands are hiring in-house LCA practitioners who can deploy platforms, such as Carbonfact’s, and help brands build strategies for how to embed sustainability in their business.
For larger brands, they often have research and development departments that are involved in measuring the environmental impact and recyclability. Figuring out how to deploy lifecycle thinking into design and product development is another area that science can help with.
You can also become a data scientist, because a lot of brands are becoming more data-driven and are looking for people who know how to generate, interpret, and create strategies from data.
How can people best prepare themselves for working in a science-based role in fashion?
Here are my tips:
● If you are a designer, practice sustainability thinking. Ensure that you always keep sustainability in mind in your work. Often a huge focus in design is on materials and characteristics. So a deep knowledge of sustainable material choices is essential.
● Educate yourself about LCAs. Regardless of what role you work in, I think everyone should have a basic understanding of LCAs. This is especially in the product development phase, because it allows you to make more informed choices about the most eco-friendly option available to you.
● Keep an eye on regulation. There is a lot of legislation and regulation that is in place, or being developed, regarding compliance, how to report, and what to monitor when it comes to sustainable fashion. Make sure you are always aware of the latest developments so that you can adapt your focus in the workplace.
For people working in science, how can they pivot into fashion?
There are many ways to pivot. For example, if you are a material development scientist, you could look into working in the research and development department of a fashion brand. Or, you could work with sustainability reporting.
My general advice would be to make sure you are constantly learning and deepening your knowledge. I believe it’s important to be specialized in one industry. So if you want to pivot from science into fashion, you need to have a good knowledge of the dynamics of the fashion industry, supply chain, processes, and the production of textiles. To truly create impact, you need to understand the landscape that the brand is situated in.
As Head of Science at Carbonfact, what are your key responsibilities — day-to-day and more broadly?
I make sure that the data generated by our software makes sense, is science-based, and can be used to inform sustainability strategies.
LCAs are a complex methodology. They require a lot of assumptions and they are iterative. We want to make sure that we are compliant with different reporting standards, and also make the results as clear, understandable, and tangible as possible to help the brands to build their sustainability strategies.
For example, let’s say a brand approaches Carbonfact to establish the environmental impact of a cotton t-shirt and how to reduce it. We would need to follow up with a string of questions to understand what materials it’s made from, where it comes from, and how it’s produced. This list of questions tends to overwhelm brands.
Instead, we use science and LCAs to make the data collection process as effective and efficient as possible. At every step of the way, we ask the brands to refine our findings and create a collaborative relationship to ensure we are collecting the most relevant data.
Figuring out what data needs to be collected is a key part of my job. And then once the data has been collected, making sense of it and deciding how best to communicate and represent it is mandatory.
How can people obtain the skills, and experience, to conduct LCAs?
You can do whole degrees on LCAs. But you can also read the results, stay active in LCA forums, and learn it by yourself.
There's a traditional way of LCA. You learn about the methodology and then there is classic software to use to model for a product and get your results. The limitation of this is that it's time-consuming, because everything is done manually. This also makes it expensive.
What I have been noticing is a growing movement to automate LCAs. So of course, you can study and learn how to conduct a traditional LCA. But in the future, I see LCAs becoming fully automated with no need to build manual processes.
This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t learn about LCAs, because there is still a massive need for people who understand LCAs and can translate them into sustainability strategies. I think it’s wiser to invest your time in acquiring the skills needed to interpret LCAs.
This would require you to have some understanding of environmental science and the environmental impact of different processes. It’s important to have a general working knowledge of LCAs and then understand how to apply this in fashion.
How can brands implement LCAs to have a positive impact? What are the limitations of LCAs? How can brands work with suppliers to reduce carbon emissions? How can science and reliable data help brands avoid greenwashing?
To hear from Bahareh on these topics and more, watch the full recording in the Conscious Fashion Collective Membership!
