Scott Raskin has spent the past 35 years of his life in the tech industry. In March 2023, he retired from his company and began living that quintessential life of leisure in Park City.

Just two years earlier, Raskin, his wife, teenage son and daughter, their two dogs and cat, packed up their belongings and moved here from San Francisco.

“During the pandemic, we visited a friend that lived here. We fell in love with Park City and immediately decided to make it our home,” he said. 

---

---

Since making the move, Raskin has fully embraced the Park City lifestyle.

“It’s like living in a summer camp!” he exclaimed. He became even more enamored with the area after joining the local chapter of the Young Presidents’ Organization.

---

---

“I have been a member of the YPO for almost 20 years. I am now part of its Gold Level,” he said with a laugh. “Or as those of us like to say, drop the G — the Old Level. Our chapter has over 100 CEOs that have all chosen Park City as the place they want to live. It’s an incredible network and we do all kinds of interesting stuff together. The Park City community is amazing, and I was looking forward to retiring here.” 

But fate had other plans for the tech expert. A few months into retirement, Raskin was approached to work with a company called Worldly.

“At first I declined,” he said. “But then I learned what the company was doing around environmental sustainability.”

So much for retirement, which lasted all of four months. By that July, he was the new CEO of Worldly. 

“Once I became involved with Worldly, I realized how behind we are in ensuring there will be a planet where we all can live,” he said. “I want to make sure there will be a place for our kids, their kids and their kids’ kids.” 

By now, most people understand the threat of climate change. Each year the planet gets hotter as carbon dioxide and other air pollutants collect in the atmosphere and trap the heat. However, one may be surprised to learn that consumer goods — apparel, footwear, home furnishings and textiles — account for 20% of global warming.

“The manufacturing of these products is a huge contributor to CO2 emissions and all impact it has on the environment,” Raskin said.

So how does Worldly help to combat climate change? 

“We bring awareness to the impact,” Raskin said. “There’s an old saying, ‘You can’t fix something until you measure it.’ We do that by capturing environmental data through assessments of over 40,000 factories, across 33 countries, mostly in Asia. From there we provide the information needed to drive positive improvements and then we measure those improvements.” 

In addition to measuring the environmental impact from the consumer goods industry, Worldly also monitors the social impact the industry has on people.

“If you’re a brand and you’re outsourcing all your manufacturing to other countries, it’s critical that the workers are given a decent wage and that they have safe work environments,” Raskin said.”If not, you have a level of responsibility for their conditions.”

Worldly helps manufacturers and brands improve social impacts by providing analysis on primary data input and aids them in understanding what improvements need to be made to ensure they are meeting the necessary regulatory standards and compliances.

Because the apparel industry has such an impact across the globe, in 2010 industry leaders created Cascale, formerly known as the Sustainable Apparel Coalition Apparel. Cascale has brought over a third of the industry’s companies together. However, being a global nonprofit, it can only move so quickly, which does not bode well for the planet.

Given the urgency of climate change, a group of institutional investors recognized that to improve the industry’s negative environmental and social impact, a more nimble approach was required.

Thus, Worldly, a public benefits corporation was established. It is the exclusive platform for the Higg Index, a suite of sustainability assessments developed by Cascale. Worldly’s objectives are precise — speed, execution and delivery at scale — and due to his knowledge in taking “large data and consumer data and turning it into meaningful insights,” Raskin was brought on board as CEO.

Although it’s true we are behind on reversing the damage we have done to the planet, Raskin said there have been some optimistic steps forward.

“The majority of brands and retailers we do business with are very focused on what they can do to improve their environmental impact,” he said. “In the last six months, countries and governments have started to enact serious regulations. The European Union just passed two pieces of legislation and California did as well.”

Raskin said there remains a long way to go in a short time. He has pushed his personal retirement off indefinitely and said is committed to helping Worldly grow and succeed.  

“When I told my kids what I was going to be doing, they said they were proud of me,” he said. “That felt really good. Where else can I spend my time saving the planet?”