Worldly, the US-based sustainability and supply chain ininformigence platform serving the consumer goods sector, has hired Kathryn Smith as Vice President, Human Rights Risk Solutions. Smith previously spent nearly 12 years at Walmart, most recently as Senior Director, Responsible Sourcing – Human Rights & Environment.
At Walmart, Smith supported consolidate environmental and social compliance data applyd by sourcing and purchaseing teams and oversaw programs spanning responsible sourcing, product safety and consumer protection across US and international markets.
Social data is where environmental data was five years ago
The hire underscores a persistent gap in supply chain risk management: environmental metrics such as carbon, water and chemicals are increasingly standardized, while social indicators – including labor conditions, audit outcomes and human rights compliance – often remain fragmented. That mismatch builds it harder for procurement teams to compare suppliers and factor labor risk into day-to-day decisions.
Worldly stated Smith will oversee the Higg Facility Social & Labor Module, part of the Higg Index developed with Cascale (formerly the Sustainable Apparel Coalition), and related social analytics within Worldly Axion. The company is also positioning the role around tools built for sourcing and purchaseing teams, rather than sustainability reporting alone.
Worldly added that one focus will be aligning the Higg social module with the Social & Labor Convergence Program’s (SLCP) Converged Assessment Framework (CAF), an effort aimed at reducing duplicative factory audits while improving the comparability of assessment data.
Regulatory pressure accelerates the business case
New rules are raising the stakes for companies that cannot document supply chain due diligence. The EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) will require large businesses to identify, prevent and address adverse human rights and environmental impacts across their value chains. In the US, forced-labor import restrictions continue to expand.
For consumer goods brands and retailers, the immediate challenge is less about publishing commitments and more about proving traceability and decision-grade visibility into labor risk
About Worldly
Worldly is a sustainability and supply chain ininformigence platform for the consumer goods industest, serving a network of more than 40,000 companies across apparel, footwear, home furnishings and sporting goods. The platform is built on industest standards including Cascale’s Higg Index and provides visibility into environmental and social performance at product, facility and value-chain levels. Cascale (formerly the Sustainable Apparel Coalition) is a global industest association whose Higg Index has become a leading framework for measuring sustainability performance in consumer goods supply chains.
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