What Are We Actually Measuring?

A lot of people ask what we do at OneThread. This is the thing, it didn’t start as a system. It started as frustration.

I Tried to Build a “Sustainable” Brand

In 2020, after COVID, I moved out of the nonprofit space and into design. The goal was simple: build a sustainable fashion brand, make ethical choices, and create real impact. But almost immediately, I hit a wall. The definition of sustainability I kept encountering was incredibly narrow. It was focused on materials, sourcing, and production. And yes, those things matter - but they were also expensive. Either it cost too much for me to produce, or it cost too much for the customer to buy. And then I found myself constantly explaining why things were priced the way they were, trying to justify sustainability to people who didn’t fully understand or feel connected to it.

And I realised something: if sustainability is only accessible to a few, then it’s not actually sustainable. It’s exclusion.

So I Went Back to the Drawing Board

So I went back to the drawing board and asked a different question: what would sustainability look like if it was holistic? Not just materials. Not just sourcing. But everything that allows something to continue. Because at its core, sustainability simply means the ability to be maintained over time. And if you look at this continent, despite every narrative that suggests otherwise, things do sustain. Businesses continue, communities function, people survive, even when nothing changes. Which means there is already sustainability here. We just weren’t calling it that.

Six Years of Research, One Realisation

Over the last six years, I’ve studied brands, businesses, and communities across this continent, and I started to see patterns. Sustainability wasn’t one thing. It showed up in multiple ways. So we mapped it into ten pillars not just materials and sourcing but also:

• Community engagement

• Circularity

• Cultural sustainability

• Innovation

• Transparency

• Shared value

Because sustainability isn’t a department. It’s a system.

The Problem With the Current System

At the same time, the global conversation around sustainability has been shifting, especially with new regulations like the Digital Product Passport (DPP) in the EU. Brands are now being asked to track, trace, and prove their sustainability. And I agree - verification matters. These are serious claims, and they should be backed up. But the way it’s being implemented is turning sustainability into compliance. It’s becoming a gate. Another way to say,

“you are not doing enough, you don’t qualify, you don’t get access”. And that disproportionately affects brands on this continent.

What OneThread Actually Does

We built an 80-question assessment (long, intentionally) because sustainability is complex.

But more importantly, it’s not just about answering questions. It’s about what those answers reveal.

What the Report Actually Shows

Once a brand completes the assessment, we don’t just give them a score, we map their sustainability in context.

Because when a brand finishes the test, we don’t just give them a score and move on. We sit with the full picture of how their business actually operates, and where it’s holding together, and where it’s quietly at risk.

One of the first things we look at is infrastructure. Not in a technical sense, but in a practical one: what are the one or two things that, if they were strengthened, would change everything?

Not just what’s missing, but what’s getting in the way of the business sustaining itself properly.From there, we start to map the system.

We look at how the brand performs across its strongest and weakest areas - usually the top three and bottom three pillars - and we don’t just score them, we interpret them. What does this actually mean for how the business runs? Where is it stable? Where is it exposed? Where could something be misread as a sustainability claim that isn’t fully backed up yet?

And that’s where an important distinction comes in: some gaps are behavioural: things that are already being done but not consistently or intentionally. Others are structural: systems that simply don’t exist yet. And those require very different solutions.

We also look at how all of this shows up internally. Because sustainability isn’t isolated. A brand might be strong in one area and weak in another, but those things interact. Sometimes one strength is quietly compensating for a gap somewhere else. Sometimes the gaps are reinforcing each other. And if you don’t see that clearly, you can end up fixing the wrong thing.

From there, the conversation shifts.

It’s no longer just: “How sustainable are you?”

It becomes: “How does your sustainability show up, and how is it being perceived?”

Because part of the work is not just doing the right thing. It’s being able to communicate it in a way that is clear, credible, and aligned with where the industry is going.

And then we bring it back down to earth.

Three to five next steps.

Not twenty. Not overwhelming. Just the things that will actually move the brand forward - especially when it comes to documentation and verification, because that’s where the gap usually is.

Not starting from scratch.

Not becoming something else.

Just becoming more visible in what’s already there.

Because Most Brands Are Already Doing the Work

Because this is the part that matters most: African brands are already sustainable. They work with limited resources, they use what’s available, they upcycle out of necessity, they produce in small batches, and they build within community. But because they don’t frame it that way, because they don’t document it, and because it doesn’t fit Western definitions, it doesn’t count.

And that’s the gap.Sustainability should not be a checklist, a punishment, or a barrier to entry. It should be a support structure. It should be a way to say: you’re doing something right, let’s build on it - not you’re not enough, try again.

The Goal

Right now, our focus is clear. We want to get African brands DPP-ready, but not by forcing them into someone else’s definition. We do it by translating what they already do into language the world understands. Because we are not behind. We’ve just never been measured properly.

You Don’t Have Sustainability Without Ubuntu

At its core, sustainability is not about materials. It’s about people. Ubuntu teaches us: “I am because you are.” If you don’t care about the person next to you, you won’t care about the water you pollute. If you don’t care about community, you won’t care about the systems you extract from. You cannot prioritise penguins and ignore people. That’s not sustainability. That’s performance.

So What Are We Measuring?

So what are we measuring?

We’re not measuring perfection. We’re measuring what already exists, what is already working, and what can be strengthened. Because sustainability isn’t something you become.

It’s something you reveal.