Howard Kwong, senior manager, public affairs, APAC, gave graduate students an insider look at global policy advocacy, APAC supply chain realities and takeaways from Cascale’s 2026 Annual Meeting.
Howard Kwong, senior manager, public affairs, APAC, at Cascale, joined graduate students at the Yale School of the Environment (YSE) on Oct. 6 for a guest lecture.
About 25 students attended the session, part of the “Transforming Global Value Chains for Sustainability: The Case of Fashion and Textiles” course. Michelle Gabriel, resident fellow at the Yale Center for Business and the Environment, teaches the course.
The lecture builds on Cascale and Worldly’s recently announced collaboration on the YSE course, which brings the Higg Index and industry insights into the classroom.
From Theory to Practice
Kwong’s presentation grounded sustainability frameworks in the commercial and regulatory realities of global supply chains. He walked students through Cascale’s policy framework, which spans global policy intelligence, capacity building and advocacy with industry associations, stakeholders, and policymakers.
Ahead of class, students received several Cascale public affairs reports as pre-reads. These included the Cascale APAC Policy Priorities Paper; The New Trade Landscape: What Global Trade Fragmentation Means for Consumer Goods Supply Chains policy deep dive, and the 2026 Global Due Diligence and Sustainability Reporting Legislation Report.
Drawing on those findings, Kwong explored the gaps between corporate boardrooms, factory floors and global regulators. Discussion covered C-suite trade-offs, regulatory fragmentation across the EU, U.S. and APAC, and climate and labor vulnerabilities at the factory level.
He also brought the central question of Cascale’s 2026 Annual Meeting in Athens into the classroom: Who pays, who profits and what actually changes? Sharing lessons from site visits, Cascale Forums and Annual Meetings, Kwong urged students to look past basic compliance. Instead, he encouraged them to consider how capital, incentives and risk-sharing can be aligned across the value chain.
From Ego-System to Ecosystem
Kwong closed by encouraging students to adopt an “ecosystem” mindset, moving away from isolated “ego-system” solutions toward pre-competitive collaboration. Lasting supply chain resilience, he said, depends on shared data, harmonized standards and collective action.
Students shared how approachable and generous the conversation felt. “I’m genuinely interested in the work Cascale is doing, and hoping to work in supply chain related management,” one student said after class.
For more about Cascale’s policy work and additional member benefits, explore Cascale membership.
