---
title: "YOEK: Streamlining Restricted Substance Compliance in Fashion"
description: "How YOEK used Spirefly to compare chemical limits across AFIRM and Zalando standards, update their RSL, and handle borderline test results with confidence."
url: "https://www.spirefly.com/case-studies/streamlining-restricted-substance-compliance"
collection: "Case studies"
published: 2026-06-12
license: proprietary
---

#### Challenge

## Reconciling three updated chemical substance standards

AFIRM and Zalando have updated their chemical standard. For YOEK, this meant a comprehensive gap analysis between three lengthy, technical documents, and with that:

- Hiring external consultants for multi-hour assessments
- Not building internal literacy on the topic
- Having to resort to consultancy for ad-hoc questions that come up year round in relation to their chemical substance policy.

#### Solution

## Chemical limits compared and discrepancies flagged automatically

Spirefly is equipped with specialized tools to access, review, and improve chemical substance policies in a structured process. This allowed Renée to:

- **Compare** chemical limits across all three standards, flagging discrepancies and generating a prioritized action plan.
- **Advice** on how to deal with test samples that come back from the factory and do not comply with their standards.

#### Result

## Faster policy updates and confident borderline-sample decisions

- **Significant external costs avoided.** YOEK can now reduce external expertise to focus on verification rather than creating the analysis from scratch.
- **Continuous access to guidance.** The system, having been informed of YOEK’s chemical policy and company portfolio, is now equipped to rapidly assess the severity of any infringement of chemical limits.