Dr. Thiwanka De Fonseka is Komar’s Chief Sustainability Officer, working on sustainability across the apparel brand’s global value chain. Dr. Thiwanka De Fonseka’s public posts discuss practical ways to reduce supply-chain emissions, energy and water use, and waste.
Use Dr. Thiwanka De Fonseka to connect factory-level energy, water and waste improvements with apparel sourcing and supplier decisions.
Best for
An apparel brand or consultancy assessing supply-chain decarbonization and factory energy-efficiency work.
Not for
A consumer-facing campaign, product launch or effort to drive shopper purchases.
Key takeaways
Correcting a dyeing batch repeats its water, chemical and energy use.
Cut avoidable energy demand before sizing costly electrification investments.
Sourcing decisions should weigh carbon performance alongside cost, quality, capacity and lead time.
Check first: Confirm audience demographics, engagement results for comparable posts and any commercial partnership format.
Main ideas
Cut wasted energy before funding bigger equipment · Brands can enable supplier decarbonization through how they buy · Efficiency figures need to be checked against total impact
Thiwanka De Fonseka is Komar’s Chief Sustainability Officer, leading sustainability work across the apparel company’s value chain.
Their posts connect factory-level improvements—from reducing dyeing rework to using energy more efficiently—with the larger decisions that shape environmental impact, including product design, sourcing and supplier investment.
For readers working on apparel sustainability, they make those connections concrete and show where conventional metrics can miss important parts of the picture.
De Fonseka pairs practical manufacturing detail with a wider view of how brands and suppliers make decisions.
In their explanation of right-first-time dyeing, they show how correcting a batch can repeat its water, chemical and energy use, making a quality measure a sustainability lever.
They also connect those measurements to commercial choices: brands can help suppliers decarbonize through predictable orders, longer-term relationships and sourcing decisions that recognize carbon performance, not just cost.
Together, these ideas give readers practical questions to bring from factory operations into product and purchasing decisions.
Thiwanka De Fonseka treats apparel sustainability as a business and supply-chain challenge, not just a matter of choosing better materials. Their posts ask whether efficiency gains reduce total impact, factory investments are sequenced sensibly, and brands’ purchasing practices help suppliers change.
Cut wasted energy before funding bigger equipment
They argue that factories should reduce avoidable energy demand before investing in solar, heat pumps or electrified boilers.
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Efficiency can lower emissions now and shrink the size and cost of later investments, particularly for manufacturers with limited capital.
Dr.
Thiwanka De Fonseka recommends measuring energy use by process, fixing losses such as steam leaks and poor insulation, verifying savings, and then sizing larger projects.
They cite a Bangladesh program that reported 12,746 tonnes of annual emissions reductions across 12 wet-processing facilities.
Brands can enable supplier decarbonization through how they buy
Dr.
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Thiwanka De Fonseka argues that supplier transition is not simply a question of who pays for equipment.
Predictable orders, longer relationships, better forecasting and technical support can help suppliers invest.
They say brands’ contributions should reflect their purchasing volume, influence and capacity, and that sourcing should reward suppliers’ climate performance.
After two Cascale Annual Meeting 2026 panels, Dr.
Thiwanka De Fonseka argued that a small customer should not bear the same responsibility as a factory’s largest buyer.
They also urged brands to consider carbon performance alongside cost, quality, capacity and lead time.
Efficiency figures need to be checked against total impact
They warn that lower impact per garment does not necessarily mean lower overall emissions or water use: production growth can outweigh efficiency gains.
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They add that the watershed matters, because equal volumes can have very different consequences in places with different levels of water stress.
Dr.
Thiwanka De Fonseka illustrates the emissions point with a business that cuts emissions per garment by 30% but grows production by 50%, leaving total emissions 5% higher.
For water, they compare mills using the same daily volume in water-abundant and highly stressed basins.
Look beyond material claims to the whole value chain
Dr.
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Thiwanka De Fonseka’s posts broaden sustainability beyond preferred fibers and circular products to design, manufacturing processes and supplier capability. They draw attention to operational measures that broad targets can miss, and to the need to report setbacks as well as progress.
Dr.
Thiwanka De Fonseka connects right-first-time dyeing to resource use: a batch that needs re-dyeing repeats water, chemical and energy processes.
In a separate post, they say Komar’s 2025 report disclosed increased Scope 3 emissions alongside progress on other goals.
See how De Fonseka approaches factory decarbonization in practice: this post lays out their proposed order of operations and the factory losses they say to investigate.
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De Fonseka argues that factories should cut avoidable energy demand before investing in solar, heat pumps or boiler electrification.
Their sequence is concrete: measure energy by process, fix operating losses, implement and verify efficiency measures, then size larger investments.
The post points to leaks, poor insulation, boiler losses and machine idling as examples, and cites a Bangladesh program that reported annual reductions of 12,746 tCO₂e across 12 wet-processing facilities.
For brands planning a campaign
For an energy-efficiency engagement, start with process-level measurement and a prioritized list of low-cost measures and paybacks. Treat electrification as a next step sized to reduced demand, not a substitute for efficiency work.
Looking for a specific operational lever rather than a broad climate target?
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This example shows how De Fonseka turns a production-quality metric into a sustainability question.
This post connects a quality measure—Right First Time (RFT), the share of dye batches that meet the target shade without rework—to water, chemical and energy use.
It describes manual weighing errors and lab-to-bulk recipe transfer as failure points, then names practical controls such as computer colour matching, stored recipes and real-time monitoring of pH, temperature and conductivity.
De Fonseka says a dye house below 75% RFT may be repeating resource-intensive processes on roughly one in four batches.
For brands planning a campaign
A supplier-improvement brief could test whether dye houses track RFT alongside resource intensity, identify the main causes of rework, and assess whether process controls can improve first-pass results before larger capital projects.
Need to understand how De Fonseka thinks brands and suppliers can share responsibility?
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This post gives their clearest account of the commercial and purchasing changes they see as part of the transition.
Reflecting on two Cascale Annual Meeting 2026 panels, De Fonseka argues that brands can enable supplier decarbonization without directly financing every installation.
They list order predictability, longer-term relationships, better forecasting, technical support and collaboration among brands as commercial levers.
They also say responsibility should reflect purchasing volume, influence, financial capacity and the investment involved—and that sourcing decisions should reward suppliers’ carbon performance alongside cost, quality, capacity and lead time.
For brands planning a campaign
For a cross-company decarbonization engagement, map the buyer’s purchasing influence and identify commercial levers it can change alongside direct funding. Include sourcing criteria and supplier relationship terms in the proposed plan.
De Fonseka argues that brands can help suppliers cut emissions through predictable orders, longer relationships, better forecasting, technical support and shared financing—not only by paying for equipment.
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They say sourcing should reward suppliers’ climate progress, with fair contributions based on purchasing volume, influence and capacity rather than equal shares.
Connects climate goals to sourcing decisions, supplier economics and shared investment.
For brands planning a campaign
A campaign on factory decarbonization could examine how purchasing practices and supplier relationships make energy investments viable, alongside the technologies themselves.
De Fonseka presents factory efficiency as a practical first step before capital-intensive electrification.
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Examples include fixing steam and compressed-air leaks, improving insulation and recovering heat. They recommend measuring process energy, finding losses, verifying savings and then sizing larger investments.
Sequences actions from measurement and operational fixes to larger capital projects.
For brands planning a campaign
Useful for an engagement focused on energy audits, low-cost improvements or preparing manufacturers for renewables and electrification. The post cites short-payback examples; verify results at the specific facility before using them in a project.
De Fonseka's posts broaden sustainability beyond preferred fibers and circular products to include product design, textile processing, supply-chain operations and supplier capability.
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They also point to design choices such as material use, garment weight and durability as decisions that can shape impacts before production.
Frames sustainability as a value-chain issue and links strategic ideas to operational examples.
For brands planning a campaign
Relevant to campaigns spanning design, sourcing and manufacturing rather than a single material claim. De Fonseka describes a supplier-learning initiative, but the Komar training platform they mention is for its suppliers and is not publicly accessible; ask whether access is available for the proposed campaign.
De Fonseka highlights right-first-time dyeing as a quality measure with consequences for water, chemicals and energy, because re-dyeing repeats processing.
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They also argue that credible reporting should disclose setbacks as well as progress; Komar’s 2025 report post acknowledges increased Scope 3 emissions and discusses possible drivers.
Makes an overlooked operational metric visible, then connects it to resource use and accountability.
For brands planning a campaign
A campaign could connect factory process control to environmental outcomes or show how a brand reports progress and gaps. Check specific performance figures against the underlying facility data or report.
De Fonseka's public posts disclose one employer and a small set of named business relationships.
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The central relationship is Komar, the US apparel brand where they are chief sustainability officer.
Posts describe their 2025 promotion from director of sustainability, the company's 2030 strategy and supplier programs, and its annual progress reporting.
Other named relationships are Komar's Sri Lankan subsidiary Star Garments Group, learning-platform technology partner Zero Gravity, and Cascale, the industry association where Komar holds "Leader" status and they have spoken.
Businesses cited in analysis posts — Aii, IFC, the World Bank, WRI, PwC, and McKinsey — are research sources, not working relationships.
Ask about any sponsorship or affiliate arrangements.
Komar
Employment
De Fonseka is Komar's chief sustainability officer.
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In a year-end 2025 note, they write that they started 2025 as director of sustainability and were promoted to CSO mid-year.
Later posts confirm their role at the US-based apparel brand.
They describe leading Komar's global sustainability work across climate, renewable electricity, water, chemicals, materials, and supplier programs under the 2030 "Sus-Tex 2030" strategy, and publishing the company's annual progress reports.
Komar's Sri Lankan subsidiary, Star Garments Group, has its own sustainability team and strategy while contributing to Komar's group-wide 2030 goals, De Fonseka writes.
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In Komar's 2025 progress report, they present Star's results alongside the parent company's: 100% renewable electricity from 4.8 MW of on-site solar and I-RECs, 92% wastewater reuse at owned facilities, and three hectares of restored mangrove forest.
Original disclosure
Star Garments Group, Komar's Sri Lankan subsidiary
Komar's technology partner for the supplier sustainability learning management system De Fonseka announced.
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The free platform covers climate, water, energy, materials, chemicals, waste, biodiversity, traceability, and regulatory topics for suppliers in tiers 1 to 4. They credited the Zero Gravity team, along with named colleagues, for building it.
The apparel and consumer-goods industry association where Komar holds "Leader" status and De Fonseka has been an invited speaker.
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At the September 2026 annual meeting in Athens, they spoke on two panels: one on what leaders must prepare for as climate, regulation, transparency, and sourcing expectations shift, and another on who pays for decarbonization and what fair cost sharing looks like. They offered what they call a brand's perspective.
Thiwanka De Fonseka writes short, argument-led LinkedIn posts about making apparel supply chains lower-carbon in practice.
Start with the piece on cutting wasted factory energy before funding heat pumps or solar, then read the account of the Cascale panel on who should pay for supplier decarbonization and the posts on why per-garment efficiency figures can hide rising total impact.
Together, they show a consistent method: take a number the industry already reports, test what it leaves out, and ask what a brand, supplier, or designer should do differently.
The tags below group the work by subject; nearby profiles offer the same themes from an investor, a supplier-engagement convenor, and a supply-chain software perspective.
Apparel sustainabilitySupply chain decarbonizationScope 3 emissionsIndustrial energy efficiencyWater stewardshipRaw materials and sourcingSupplier engagementSustainability reportingData-driven sustainability analysisLinkedIn postsApparel brand teamsSuppliers and manufacturers
Both argue that climate goals move only when treated as ordinary commercial decisions.
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De Fonseka applies this to apparel sourcing, asking brands to weigh carbon alongside cost, quality, and lead time; Miller applies it to capital, explaining why industrial firms and investors fund unproven low-carbon technology years before regulations require them to.
Miller writes from the venture-capital and climate-data side, addressing investors and founders on where capital should go. De Fonseka writes from inside an apparel brand, focusing on factory-level detail such as energy measurement, supplier financing, and dyehouse process control.
Both focus on how brands ask suppliers to decarbonize and whether procurement rewards them for doing so.
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Hurrey reports what more than 500 suppliers said about customer requests, including that cost still decides contracts and requests arrive through too many platforms. De Fonseka makes a parallel argument: predictable orders, longer relationships, and shared financing are the levers brands hold.
Hurrey convenes a cross-industry peer group and reports collective supplier feedback from many companies and sectors. De Fonseka argues from a single apparel brand's strategy and its supplier training and reporting programs.
Both treat carbon and supply-chain data as a decision layer rather than a reporting layer, connecting decarbonization to cost, sourcing choices, and resilience.
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Heinrich describes reading carbon data down to materials, parts, and suppliers so companies can act before conditions change. De Fonseka makes the same case for apparel, arguing that sustainability belongs in commercial decisions and purchasing practices.
Heinrich writes from a supply-chain software perspective across sectors such as aerospace, defense, and critical minerals, covering geopolitics and material concentration. De Fonseka focuses on apparel and textiles, with brand-side and factory-floor examples.
A LinkedIn-first placement fits an apparel sustainability or supply-chain decarbonization campaign, but the account does not verify followers’ job titles, employers, seniority, geography or buying roles.
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Dr.
Thiwanka De Fonseka’s LinkedIn account shows 7,910 followers as of 9 October 2026.
Their posts address industry practitioners, covering Scope 3 emissions, supplier decarbonization, energy efficiency before electrification, Right First Time dyeing, water impact, design-stage carbon decisions and supplier capability programs.
Buyers seeking apparel brand, manufacturer or sustainability-consultancy professionals through LinkedIn thought leadership have strong topical alignment.
To assess access to specific roles—for example, sourcing directors at large apparel brands—ask for recent LinkedIn audience demographics (geography, seniority, industry and function) or a short audience survey, plus engagement results for comparable supply-chain decarbonization and energy-efficiency posts.
For consumer campaigns, the fit is weaker: the follower figure is from a professional platform, and the content is B2B.
The posts do not identify any commercial partnership, sponsorship or affiliate formats for Dr.
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Thiwanka De Fonseka.
They publish as Komar's Chief Sustainability Officer, not as an independent media property selling placements; no rate card, sponsored-content policy, audience specification or booking route is published.
Their visible activity instead centers on unpaid, association-organised professional engagement and supplier-facing programmes—distinct from a paid partnership offer.
They appear as a panel speaker at industry events, including two sessions at the Cascale Annual Meeting 2026 in Athens: one on preparing leaders for value-chain transformation and one on who pays for decarbonization and fair cost sharing.
Their own year-end summary also lists speaking engagements at the Worldly customer forum, the Oeko-Tex Summit and the SustainableNXT conference.
Separately, Komar runs supplier-facing capability programmes they describe publicly, including a supplier sustainability learning management system covering climate action, water stewardship, energy efficiency, sustainable materials, chemical management, waste, biodiversity, traceability and regulatory readiness.
The platform is free to Komar suppliers and is not open to the public; it is a company programme, not a partnership product.
A buyer cannot build a plan around an off-the-shelf creator partnership based on the published posts: they identify no sponsored-placement, co-branded-content or affiliate format, nor an official inquiry route for partnership or sponsorship requests.
Before committing budget, ask whether such an offer exists and how to make an inquiry.
The review covered their own posts; an offer could exist on a separate company or agency page.
An apparel brand or sustainability consultancy assessing Dr.
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Thiwanka De Fonseka for a supply-chain decarbonization and energy-efficiency engagement could use them to diagnose factory energy waste, sequence efficiency before electrification and get suppliers to act.
Decision: suitable as an adviser or working contributor, rather than for an independent media placement.
The strongest reason is their practical order of operations.
In a post on electrification, they argue for measuring energy at process level, finding losses, verifying savings and only then sizing solar, heat pumps or electric boilers.
They name the losses to look for: steam and compressed-air leaks, poor insulation, boiler blowdown, inefficient combustion, machine idling, uncontrolled drying, missed condensate and waste-heat recovery.
That is close to an engagement scope, not a slogan.
They also address the buyer's role: brands can enable supplier decarbonization through order predictability, longer relationships, better forecasting, technical support and pooled or blended finance.
Sourcing decisions, they argue, should weigh carbon performance alongside cost, quality, capacity and lead time.
For a consultancy that needs a brand's procurement and finance teams to accept a plan, this commercial framing is as valuable as the engineering list.
Their position adds to the fit.
As chief sustainability officer at a global apparel brand, they write from inside the industry and discuss who pays for decarbonization on industry panels.
They can bring the technical and cost-sharing conversations into one room.
A worked angle is below.
Before committing budget, ask whether they accept outside advisory or speaking engagements, whether any conflicts need clearing, and what their terms are.
Their posts appear in their executive role at Komar and include company supplier programmes and a sustainability report.
Their LinkedIn following is 7,910; no demographics or engagement data are available, so ask for audience data before planning distribution reach.
When to choose a specialist
A consumer-facing campaign—for example, a resale marketplace, direct-to-consumer fashion label or consumer app seeking a creator to promote a product launch to shoppers and drive purchases.
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Decision: poor fit based on the posts reviewed.
The posts target industry practitioners, covering Scope 3 accounting, Right First Time dyeing, basin-level water stress and supplier capability programmes.
The only measured figure is a professional-platform following of 7,910, with no published demographics.
Dr.
Thiwanka De Fonseka cites consumer research from PwC and McKinsey to make industry arguments; that is not the same as having a consumer audience or making consumer claims in their own voice.
The posts also do not document a commercial partnership format, such as sponsored placements, co-branded content or affiliate arrangements, or provide an inquiry route.
They publish in the context of their role as the sitting chief sustainability officer of an apparel brand, so ask about booking, briefing and whether an arm's-length product endorsement for another company is possible before pursuing a campaign.
If the goal is to reach sourcing, sustainability and manufacturing decision-makers rather than shoppers, they are a credible fit for a B2B engagement.
If the goal is consumer purchase behaviour, choose a different creator.
A worked campaign example
Worked angle for an apparel brand: a two-stage supplier decarbonization engagement, run from the brand's own sourcing position.
Stage one—a scoped diagnostic workshop with the brand's sustainability, sourcing and finance leads.
The agenda follows Dr.
Thiwanka De Fonseka's published sequence: measure energy at process level, identify operational waste, benchmark intensity, capture no-cost and short-payback measures, verify savings, then size renewable electricity, heat pumps, electric boilers and thermal storage against reduced demand.
The practical output: a prioritised factory action list separating measures that pay for themselves from those requiring capital or co-financing, plus the data the brand must collect from suppliers to verify results.
Stage two—a commercial-terms session on how the brand will put that list into action.
Their cost-sharing position is that contributions should reflect purchasing volume, influence and financial capacity rather than equal shares.
Brands have levers beyond writing cheques, including order predictability, longer contracts, better forecasting, technical support and aggregated or blended finance.
Sourcing decisions must also reward suppliers that invest, so a facility is not undercut next season after spending on energy efficiency.
A buyer could commission four concrete deliverables: (1) an efficiency-first roadmap template for use across a supplier group; (2) a one-page sourcing-criteria note adding carbon performance alongside cost, quality, capacity and lead time; (3) a board-level briefing on who pays and why fair does not mean equal; and (4) an optional recorded session for supplier training, paired with the brand's own supplier programme. An article or interview on the same themes could accompany the engagement, not replace it.
Two cautions: the figures they cite—for example, a Bangladesh wet-processing programme reporting 12,746 tonnes of confirmed annual CO2e reductions, and research on re-dyeing costs—are published references in their posts.
Check the underlying sources before repeating the numbers.
Also confirm that they accept outside engagements and that no conflict applies before approving spend.
Consider Oliver if the apparel decarbonization engagement needs to start with supplier feedback and procurement behavior.
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In a post describing feedback from more than 500 suppliers, Oliver identifies concrete obstacles: sustainability losing out to price in contract awards, customer specifications shaping supplier emissions, duplicated reporting, limited supplier capacity, and short-term tenders. Oliver’s work offers a stronger starting point for a buyer workshop on aligning requests and commercial incentives with supplier needs.
The posts focus on supplier voice and procurement collaboration, not a factory-level efficiency sequence.
They do not provide the operational measures for finding energy waste before electrification that would make Dr.
De Fonseka a closer fit for a technical efficiency brief.
Ask for Hurrey’s identity and outside-engagement terms before proceeding.
Consider Bernhard if the need shifts toward connecting decarbonization with supply-chain resilience and product risk.
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Bernhard’s posts frame carbon data alongside energy prices, trade, regulation, supplier availability, materials and geography, and argue that companies should connect those factors earlier in product and sourcing decisions. That perspective could help a brand make the business case for decarbonization to leaders focused on cost, competitiveness and resilience.
The posts do not show the factory energy-efficiency methods or supplier cost-sharing detail needed to lead the original engagement.
They focus on exposure and decision-making across supply chains, so Dr.
De Fonseka remains the more directly evidenced choice for sequencing factory efficiency and electrification.
Ask for Heinrich’s identity and outside-engagement terms before proceeding.
This profile covers 15 LinkedIn posts published by Dr.
Thiwanka De Fonseka between 31 December 2025 and 6 October 2026, in full.
They cover Dr.
Thiwanka De Fonseka's promotion to chief sustainability officer at Komar, the company's 2025 sustainability report, an award, supplier training and learning-platform work, industry panels at the Cascale Annual Meeting 2026, and data-led essays on dyeing rework, factory energy efficiency, water use, absolute versus intensity measurement, design-stage decisions, circular supply chains, materials claims, and equity between large and small brands.
Claims about roles, programs, and relationships come from these posts, including the pages they link to.
Similar creators include Noah Miller, Oliver Hurrey, and Bernhard Heinrich, whose LinkedIn posts were published between July and October 2026.
The only audience figure stated here is 7,910 followers, observed 9 October 2026; the posts here do not state demographics or engagement data.
No rate card, sponsorship policy, or booking route appears in the posts here, no paid partnership is documented, and the posts do not state whether outside advisory or speaking work is accepted or how it is cleared against Dr.
Thiwanka De Fonseka's executive role.
This page covers Dr.
Thiwanka De Fonseka's signature themes in these posts; it does not claim to cover the full career or every subject Dr.
