Sustainable Supply Chains: Can Retailers Be the Rising Tide That Lifts All Boats?

By Tim Greiner
Sustainable Brands
December 5, 2014

A whopping 97 percent of environmental impacts in the retail sector come from the product itself — from raw materials, transportation and product manufacturing. With impacts so heavily weighted in the supply chain, retailers are increasingly and creatively wading upstream to partner with their suppliers on their greatest impacts. The key to success lies in selecting the appropriate supplier engagement method and then using that approach as a vehicle to deeper collaboration. But can successful retailer approaches truly motivate meaningful supply chain improvements?

The benefits of engagement

Probing a vast supply chain that may extend across the globe and include thousands of raw material suppliers and as many materials and processes is not easy. But retailers don’t have to go it alone; there are many well-respected, third-party tools and surveys that they can leverage to support this work. And as retailers turn their attention to this challenge, they are finding exciting opportunities for collaboration and innovation…

…Efforts to examine supply chain impacts run the gamut from homegrown tools and surveys to industry-wide efforts, to the granddaddy of them all — The Sustainability Consortium’s (TSC) product category surveys and implementation tools.

Full article on Sustainable Brands