Winner of £300k grant funding to transform supply chain risks

Bendi Software has been awarded an innovative UK SMART grant worth c.£300k alongside the University of Leeds and industry partners to reduce social and environmental supply chain risks for the textile and apparel sector.

Bendi is creating an automated solution to enable fashion and textile enterprises to model science-based sustainability scenarios, minimising supplier and production sustainability supply chain risks.

Sue Rainton, Associate Director of the Leeds Institute of Textiles & Colour at University of Leeds said

“The University of Leeds looks forward to working with Bendi. Leeds is home to the longest-established and most highly regarded colour and textile science activities in the world. Senior Academic Prof Chee Wong is the Principal Investigator for this project, an experienced researcher of green supply chain management with a specialisation in information sharing in a supply chain, sustainability reporting, transparency and accountability. Especially, the studies how a multi-tier supply chain shares information and works together to collect/share data on sustainability practices and performance”

Ben Norsworthy, Chief Sustainability Officer at Bendi noted

“An item of clothing may involve manufacturing in five countries on three continents: material suppliers, textile mills. fabric processors and  garment factories. Brands have limited interaction with suppliers beyond tier one. Data gaps and data siloing are significant challenges for attributing sustainability actions: 95% of fashion's value chain data is paper or electronic documents”

Bendi is an award winning start-up team; Tech Nation, Innovate UK, Cambridge University Sustainability Leadership. A diverse team (30% female, 70% BIPOC and 70% LGBT owned) led by Co-founders Mandeep Soor, CEO (Ex-Boston Consulting Group & British Business Bank), Benjamin Norsworthy, CSO (Ex-Burberry & Global Fashion Agenda) and Olivier Bacs, CTO (Ex- The Economist & CircleCI).