Liz Muller
Principal – Liz Muller & Partners
Liz Muller is the principal of liz muller & partners. She and her team help organizations leverage successful models to create an effective strategy to build a more responsible and sustainable industry.
Liz Muller has over 25 years of compliance program development, auditing, and responsible supply chain strategy experience. liz muller & partners helps companies and industries develop sourcing strategies and protocols, implement audit programs, and train auditors, supply chain actors and brand sourcing teams.
As Gap Inc.’s Sr. Environmental Manager for over nine years, Liz developed and was the primary authority on all aspects of the company’s environmental strategy and programs. On behalf of Gap Inc., Liz was the first chairperson of the Better Cotton Initiative (BCI)—a multi-stakeholder initiative with the goal of improving social, environmental and economic conditions in cotton cultivation worldwide.
Today, much of Liz’s work centers on developing due diligence management systems based on the principles of the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development’s (OECD’s) risk-based due diligence framework, which has become the norm for due diligence best practices. Highlights of Liz’s experience:
- liz muller & partners was one of three global audit firms that conducted the first audits of smelters under the Responsible Minerals Initiative (RMI). Liz continues to support RMI by assisting smelters to come into conformance with RMI’s revised standard. As a direct result of her dedication to effective strategies, Liz received unexpected recognition from the Conflict-free Smelter Initiative for her team’s “”valuable contributions to the Conflict-Free Sourcing Initiative and Conflict-Free Smelter Program during five years of committed service from 2011-2016, distinguishing Liz Muller for her dedication to auditing excellence in supply chain assurance, which has advanced responsible 3TG sourcing globally.””
- liz muller & partners conducted one of the first due diligence assessments of a cobalt refiner. Liz and her team also conducted an assessment of a large-scale tin mine in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
- Liz supported the OECD in conducting an alignment assessment of the Sustainable Apparel Coalition’s Brand and Retail Module and accompanying How to Higg Guide with OECD’s Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible Supply Chains in the Garment and Footwear Sector (OECD Due Diligence Guidance).
- Most recently, Liz helped the Responsible Sourcing Network to develop the YESS: Yarn Ethically & Sustainably Sourced Standard and to implement a program to train yarn spinners and knitting and weaving mills on how to conduct due diligence and avoid sourcing cotton produced with forced labor. The YESS Standard is intended to align with the OECD Due Diligence Guidance.
In addition to her due diligence work, Liz has evaluated market drivers in agriculture supply chains for clients such as Oxfam, International Finance Corporation, and the International Labor Organization.
Liz has researched the fisheries supply chain to determine the root causes of, and challenges to, combating IUU fishing, human trafficking, and forced labor throughout the seafood industry. She has also contributed to the initial design of the Seafood MAP, a market, investor and development-incentivized program that will collect, process and present credible information on the environmental, economic, and social performance of seafood production systems globally.
Liz is also an expert panel member of The Copper Mark’s Chain of Custody Working Group and United Nations Economic Commission for Europe’s Enhancing Transparency and Traceability of Sustainable Value Chains in the Garment and Footwear Sector project.
Connect with Liz Muller on LinkedIn
