The Root Episode 6: The New Standard is broken down into 3 parts — 1) coproducers Dominique and Kestrel interview each other to get a brief feeling of how this project has impacted them individually, 2) we share interviews with 4 of our sponsors from this project, and 3) we share more on what "The New Standard" means to us, the pillars it is built upon, and what questions we all need to be asking moving forward.

THE ROOT SPONSORS

SAMATA, CEO of Red Carpet Green Dress "It's mandatory listening to the point where it should be curriculum. And I always advocate for teaching people about how clothes are made - that they come from trees and farms and rivers and lakes and hands. But I think the other part is that we need to educate people about the systems that exist within the industry - not just the products and how they're made." REBECCA BURGESS, Founder of Fibershed "Our culture is so superficial right now around the conversations around race. And I think what The Root did is - it literally rooted in the variances between those of us who have been in migration patterns that just keep going, those of us who have been more rooted in place, experiences of socio-economic variation … there's just so much that's involved that's so intersectional - I like that you gave space for those intersections!" KELSEY SABO, Marketing Manager, Sustainability at MATE "Our biggest key takeaways … having a better idea of how that white washed narrative has not been getting to the reality that sustainability at its core has been advocated for by the BIPOC community since far before any white people have been talking about it."

PATRICK WOODYARD, CEO of Nisolo "I've been front and center working in sustainable fashion now for almost 10 years and I think the fact that I've learned more from one podcast about inequity of BIPOC in the fashion industry than I have from years of going to conferences and reading sustainability articles from the top editors in the United States covering sustainability - that reality reveals not only my own blindspots but certainly the disgraceful blindspots of the industry as a whole right now." THE NEW STANDARD

After listening back to The Root project over and over, we have uncovered a framework — something we're calling The New Standard. The New Standard is a rubric / a tool for holding ourselves accountable, exploring opportunities for equitable partnerships, and taking ownership of our own responsibilities in order to propel actions forward. The New Standard is the baseline for any conversation or activation in sustainability.

The below 3 pillars represent this new standard approach —

• Education → accountability

• Equitable partnerships → opportunity

• Action → responsibility

After listening to this entire project, we welcome you to join us in asking difficult questions that fall within or across The New Standard pillars. Begin asking the hard questions in your personal life, in your work, in your community, in your corporation, because after this project — The Root — one of the most important things we can all do is go into a self assessment stage, so we can understand what we need to work on, and we can get ACTIVE!

Thanks to this week's sponsor - Red Carpet Green Dress™ (RCGD), a women-led global change-making organization working from 'moment' to movement, bringing sustainability to the forefront of conversation and action within the fashion and apparel industry.

Learn more at RCGDglobal.com.

If you're interested in RCGD's monthly virtual workshop series, you can get tickets here >

And RCGD currently has two surveys live if you'd like to share your feedback:

• 'Language and Sustainability Survey'

• 'Cultural Sustainability Survey'