Fast facts about Adam Mott
Current role: director of sustainability at The North Face, a division of the VF Corporation
Job history: I’ve worked in sustainability at The North Face, which is based in San Leandro, California, for seven years. I was previously at Steelcase furniture and a number of advertising agencies.
Lives in: the San Francisco Bay area
Education: bachelor of science in business administration, Bryant University; master of arts in industrial design, San Francisco State University
First job: dishwasher
Who or what inspires me: I’m inspired by thoughtful, responsible design. Looking to nature to help us solve our design problems is such a simple concept. Nature has been beautifully designing for durability, adaptability, and regeneration all while creating no waste for billions of years.
Bill McDonough and his book Cradle to Cradle have been an inspiration for me throughout my sustainability career.
Weekend passion: I love being outdoors, preferably sweating. I mountain bike, road bike and snowboard.
If I wasn’t doing this I would be …either a full-time designer or a chef.
What’s been your greatest accomplishment?
I feel like I have accomplished a lot at The North Face by helping to formalize and build the sustainability program. An example would be leading the charge to create a more responsible down and feather supply chain to address animal welfare issues in Europe and Asia. I helped design and launch the Responsible Down Standard (RDS), an auditing and certification standard that has the ability to evaluate and trace the original source of down used in a product, thereby creating a chain of custody from gosling to end product.
This goes beyond improving animal welfare and traceability. It is more about creating a model of sharing, transparency and doing things for the greater good that also help you as a brand.
What’s your biggest frustration?
I would guess that all sustainability professionals are constantly frustrated. If you are passionate about your job and your job is to effect change, it naturally leads to frustration. There’s so much to do and it can be overwhelming sometimes.
I wish things would move faster. Much of what we are doing at The North Face is rethinking and undoing industry-wide historical practices that have been adopted for growth and cost efficiency over the years. Often times these processes were developed without consideration for the environment and the community and have been ingrained as norms in the apparel industry. It can be challenging to stop the machine and rebuild it in a more thoughtful way.
What’s your goal for the next year?
My biggest goal is to help embed environmental and social responsibility in the design process at The North Face. We have done a good job of making incremental changes in the development and manufacturing of our products in areas like eco-preferred material selection, resource efficiency in manufacturing and chemical responsibility. However, to really effect change, we know everything needs to start with design. This is a long-term goal and we are just at the beginning of the journey. In the short term, we will continue our “undoing” by addressing our biggest impacts with aggressive goals like getting to 100% recycled polyester by 2016 and 100% RDS certified down by 2017.
Tell us a story that conveys a lesson you’d like to share.
I think the Responsible Down Standard (RDS) is a lesson in how sustainability should work – it’s not about exclusivity, competitive advantage or being better than everyone else. It’s about creating something to improve the industry as a whole. Anyone can use the standard and our hope is that widespread adoption will lead to fundamental industry changes for the greater good.
Away from work, what do you do to live more sustainability?
I try to tread as lightly as possible in my everyday life and just be smart about simple things that add up. Things like eating a plant-based diet, avoiding bottled water, line drying my clothes, and so forth. All of these things add up. I’ve found you can find fulfillment and appreciation in making a commitment to living a mindful life.
More five-minute interviews:
- Five questions for Paulette Frank of Johnson and Johnson
- Five questions for Amy Hargroves of Sprint’s sustainability program
- Five questions for Marcus Chung of The Children’s Place apparel
The supply chain hub is sponsored by the Fairtrade Foundation. All content is editorially independent except for pieces labelled advertisement feature. Find out more here.
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