Member-led collective and the outdoor industry’s catalyst for meaningful change, the Outdoor Industry Association (OIA) announced that Julie M.H. Brown has joined the team as Director of Sustainable Business Innovation. Brown will direct and manage OIA’s sustainability department in its mission to unite, empower and guide the outdoor industry to become climate-positive by 2030.
Along with driving OIA sustainability initiatives into the future, Brown will oversee OIA’s Climate Action Corps, the consortium comprising more than 75 outdoor businesses that have made significant progress on measuring, setting targets, reducing emissions and advocating for policy action in Congress.
Brown also will lead OIA’s Clean Chemistry and Materials Coalition (CCMC), the program that provides the association’s members with strategies, scalable action plans and solutions for phasing out perfluoroalkyl and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) and other harmful chemicals from their products.
The new director brings a wealth of experience in sustainability to OIA, with a history of working with brands in the apparel and outdoor markets, where she executed strategies for global brands, technology companies and circular economy partners.
Most recently she served as Head of Sustainability for EON, a technology company, where she led the development of cloud-based digital identities for products. Prior to that, Brown worked as Director of the Higg Index at the Sustainable Apparel Coalition, where she collaborated with OIA to launch and optimize the Higg Index for the outdoor industry.
“The outdoor industry is uniquely positioned to drive meaningful impact and inspire profound change through sustainable innovation, advocacy, and research,” Brown said. “In today’s world, transparency in sustainability performance is not just a choice; it’s a necessity.”
For more information, visit outdoorindustry.org
