SDEX Digital Platform Pilot + OIA UK

All OIA members (Brands & Retailers) are invited to join the SDEX Digital Platform Pilot group.

The Sustainability Data Exchange Project (SDEX) was developed collaboratively between the European Outdoor Group (EOG) and Bundesverband der Deutschen Sportartikel-Industrie (BSI) and was launched in July 2023.

The SDEX Project is an industry initiative to enable consistent, efficient, and interoperable exchange of sustainability data across the value chain. The SDEX Standard is the defined framework of agreed data points, structures, and definitions for exchanging sustainability information between brands and retailers. The standard was developed in response to existing retailer questionnaires and evolving European policy requirements, identifying areas of overlap and duplication.

The SDEX Tool is the free version of SDEX that exists on Excel. The outdoor industry has tested this Excel file for three years and has provided feedback that an online digital platform is necessary. The SDEX Digital Platform is the software developed and operated by SDEX Platform Partners, facilitating the collection, management, exchange and use of data in accordance with the SDEX Standard.

The SDEX Digital Platform Pilot is now open to any Brands or Retailers in the outdoor industry.

Kick-off call recording: https://vimeo.com/1204778152/a374b1c2b0?share=copy&fl=sv&fe=ci

Most of the working groups are already full. We invite OIA members to join the vvast or CircKit working groups. Both companies are based in the UK and are data agnostic, connecting to your current tech stack.

If you have technical or legal questions, please reach out directly to the main contacts listed. If you have general questions about the SDEX pilot or the SDEX Standard questionnaire, please reach out to Hannah Piatok at hannah.piatok@europeanoutdoorgroup.com

Please use this link to select either vvast or CircKit for your pilot group: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/BTNMSC7

More information on vvast and CircKit:

1. vvast

Website: https://vvast.net/

Best suited for: Any brand or product with Apparel or Technical outdoor gear. Base level functionality is suitable for SMEs and extended features are suitable for larger multinationals.

Competitive Benefit: vvast leverages deep data to improve consumer education of brands and product data to be presented in clear way to the end consumer, via either brand website or consumer app.

Technology: Co-designed with participating brands, integrated into large PIMs, heavily optimized for future needs of Large Language Models (LLMs). Hosted in a secure cloud in the EU. Data shared via a simple file upload process in a secure environment.

Additional Information: This project is the keystone to retail and ecommerce in the AI age and will democratize impact of knowledge. This is beyond compliance and report, it is delivering recommendations across the value change for tangible improvements. Leveraging “Resource Futures” deep data on material recovery rates in specific regions to improve recovery rates. This enables the tool to apply real world implications of material choices made at a brand or retail level and help influence more sustainable choices at point of order.
Main Contacts: Richie Jones (richie.jones@vvast.net), Adam Hall (adam.bluestrategist@gmail.com)

2. CircKit

Website: https://circkit.com/

Best suited for: Fashion, Footwear and Textile brands and retailers with complex, multi-material products.

Competitive Benefit: The platform can work with fragmented product and sustainability data, working with any current tech stack. Solves the “too many spreadsheets” problem by being modular and interoperable. Provides pre-production insights, not retrospective reports, built for teams, not just specialists. The platform drives both compliance and commercial value, self-service rather than consultancy-heavy work.

Technology: AI-powered, multi-tenant SaaS platform, API-first and microservices-based. Designed to handle multiple data sources per brand simultaneously.