How a passion for sustainability shaped my career path

Inspiration for studying Sustainable Supply Chain Management (MSc)

“I studied for my BSc in Business Management at Cardiff University and loved Cardiff as a city, so doing an MSc elsewhere was out of the question.

During my BSc, I was confronted with the acute challenges society faces regarding sustainable development in the business sphere.

In the wake of anthropogenic, sea level rise and carbon emission escalation, the need for fast fashion brands to take responsibility for their contribution to the climate and ecological emergency is critical. Instead, brands are lying through greenwashing ad campaigns in an effort to gloss over rapid clothing turnover, harmful chemical use, and overconsumption of fossil fuels.

I have come to understand that transparency in the fast fashion industry can only materialise if consumers and future decision-makers are empowered through academic knowledge, and this is where I was convinced that an MSc in Sustainable Supply Chain Management, which is only offered by Cardiff University, would enable me to delve into the research agenda and my interests in depth.

Why I would recommend the MSc in Sustainable Supply Chain Management

The programme provides you with the necessary skillset for the workplace. Sustainability has also boomed in the last year with huge amounts of investment and notable corporations waking up to the fact they need to change their current ways of operating, making it a really exciting sphere to enter.

My career

I currently work as the Merchandising Assistant and Sustainability Manager at RIXO, a luxury womenswear label. Within my merchandising role, I am responsible for analysing fashion sales and performance reports to identify trends and trading patterns relevant to the season.

My role as Sustainability Manager arose through a personal passion for sustainable fashion. I approached RIXO's CEOs with a 'Sustainability Roadmap', and now consequently spearhead RIXO’s inaugural Sustainability Strategy.

I have definitely joined the brand at an exciting time wherein luxury fashion has the power to generate catalytic change in the sphere of environmental impact.

How the MSc helped me in my career

Without the course, I wouldn’t have been able to approach RIXO’s CEOs with a well-informed roadmap of how a business can move into sustainability without greenwashing or over-inflating their ‘green’ commitments.

Publishing my findings

Since completing my master's, Cardiff Business School’s Dr Maryam Lotfi reached out to ask if I would like to publish my MSc dissertation findings in Lampoon Magazine. Having never really thought of myself as an academic, I jumped at the chance to try something new and have my work read by a wider audience. Maryam went above and beyond throughout the entire process and the article, ‘the unsustainable impact of patriarchy on the industry’, is an amazingly insightful read.