Payal Luthra

Payal Luthra is the Global Apparel and Textiles Lead at WWF, where she directs the organization's global sustainability strategy for the apparel and textiles sector across freshwater, biodiversity, climate, and energy. She builds transformational partnerships with leading companies, convenes industry stakeholders, and supports landscape and supply chain initiatives in more than 10 countries.

Her work spans the full apparel value chain, from the production and sourcing of key materials, including cotton, leather, wool, and cashmere, through manufacturing and end-of-use systems. She works with WWF teams, brands, and industry partners to integrate science into business action, advancing water and biodiversity stewardship, climate resilience, and circularity. A key focus is connecting corporate supply chains with conservation priorities in critical landscapes and river basins.

Payal represents WWF across global industry platforms and multi-stakeholder initiatives, advocating for greater recognition of the apparel sector's impacts and dependencies on nature and helping shape approaches that can drive change at scale. She works across WWF's international network to build capacity and align action, mobilizes resources for sector transformation, and regularly speaks at global industry events and forums.

Drawing on a background spanning architecture, participatory planning, fashion design, and consulting, Payal has focused throughout her career on the connections between environmental challenges, social outcomes, and the systems that shape them. Her graduate thesis at Harvard's Graduate School of Design explored environmental and social design strategies for an informal settlement in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. Working directly with residents through a participatory design process, she explored approaches integrating ecological sanitation, waste-to-resource systems, watershed restoration, and social infrastructure to strengthen community agency and identity.

Before joining WWF, she founded an ethical and sustainable fashion label that celebrated nature through design while supporting conservation efforts. These experiences continue to inform the multidisciplinary perspective she brings to her work today.

Education

• Master's, Architecture (MArchI), Harvard University Graduate School of Design, Cambridge, MA
• BA, Colby College, Waterville, ME

Areas of expertise

• Apparel and textiles sustainability
• Water stewardship
• Supply chain transformation
• Corporate sustainability strategy
• Responsible sourcing
• Multi-stakeholder partnerships and collective action