While the ZDHC Wastewater Guidelines set clear expectations for semi-treated wastewater quality at the facility level, the ultimate goal of the ZDHC Programme is to ensure zero discharge of hazardous chemicals into the environment. In practice, many suppliers discharge into centralized effluent treatment plants (CETPs) that receive effluents from multiple industries, often outside the textile/apparel sector and not aligned with ZDHC MRSL or ZDHC principles. Given that the final treated water from such CETPs is what eventually enters the environment, doesn't this compromise the ultimate goal of the ZDHC Programme? How does ZDHC address or plan to address this systemic gap, where the final discharge quality is beyond the direct control of compliant facilities?

In many regions, especially South and Southeast Asia, the supply chain is dominated by small and medium enterprises (SMEs). While the ZDHC programme offers strong frameworks, adoption remains a challenge due to limited technical capacity, infrastructure, and cost sensitivity. I'm interested to hear from others: •What practical steps or models have worked in supporting SME onboarding? •Are there any specific capacity-building approaches, incentives, or tools you’ve found effective? •How can we ensure measurable progress without overburdening suppliers with reporting fatigue?

We’re weighing up API feeds from Data Hub against manual Excel checks.  How are other brands keeping tabs on ZDHC data? How do we create an API? Does it cost?