ZDHC and Canopy collaborate closely to guide and encourage continuous improvements for MMCF suppliers. Canopy started releasing its annual Hot Button Report in 2017, to illustrate the performance of the MMCF industry's suppliers. To incorporate the sustainable chemical management efforts made by MMCF suppliers in the Hot Button Report, ZDHC aligned our MMCF Guidelines with Canopy's Hot Button Report Criteria under a Chemical Management section.

Updated Sustainable Chemical Management section

To determine each MMCF supplier's overall sustainable chemical management performance under the Hot Button Report's Sustainable Chemical Management section, ZDHC assesses the supplier's engagement with ZDHC, and their performance in each area, following the ZDHC MMCF Guidelines' chapters: chemical recovery, wastewater, and air emissions. Resulting in the following Sustainable Chemical Management section:

Following the ZDHC MMCF Guidelines Industry Standard Implementation Approach V2.2, for the Hot Button Report (2023 and 2024 Edition) the Sustainable Chemical Management section will focus on Viscose and Modal production only and whether these facilities have reached the Progressive level in each area (i.e. C2, C3, and C4).

From ZDHC MMCF Module to Canopy Hot Button Report

To establish alignment between the ZDHC MMCF Module and Canopy's Hot Button Report, ZDHC needs to take into account several pieces of information from each supplier. Because the ZDHC MMCF Module gauges the performance of MMCF production at the facility level, whereas Canopy does so at the supplier level, to translate the performance of each area from the facility level to the supplier level, ZDHC needs to:

1. Determine the level achieved in each area of a facility based on their assessment result on the ZDHC MMCF Module. A ZDHC level outcome (Foundational, Progressive or Aspirational) is allocated for each area based on the following reasoning:
   
   Note: If the Meets Requirements score is achieved, this is considered to be Aspirational. If the Doesn’t Meet Requirements score is achieved, this is considered to be Alert.
   * If the majority of the parameter levels is Aspirational and one or more Foundational level is obtained in the same assessment, the final level outcome will by default be Progressive.
2. Allocate a weight to each facility based on the facility’s share of the production volume of the supplier to determine the final outcome of the supplier’s performance for each criterion.

The following example shows the previously explained logic in practice for a supplier with 3 viscose and modal facilities:

Timeline

Finally, since the MMCF Module assessment can only be conducted at the end of the reporting year, due to the ZDHC MMCF Guidelines needing annual data which are only available from the end of the reporting year and the beginning of the following year, it is therefore only possible for ZDHC to provide producers’ Sustainable Chemical Management performance (i.e. criteria) based on the previous year of the Canopy Hot Button Report. For example, in next year’s Hot Button Report (2024 Edition) the producers’ Sustainable Chemical Management performance will be based on their 2023 performance.