Will Apple Finally Embrace Corporate Social Responsibility & Sustainability w/ Tim Cook at Helm?

If you have been a frequent reader of this space, you’d know my position on Apple and the manner in which it’s conducted its supply chain sustainability programs…or hasn’t.

2011: Game On (or the Collective Karma Ran Over Your Dogma)

Last fall, I wrote about the follow up efforts by Chinese NGO Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs (IPE), who performed five more months of research and field investigations and reported that “the pollution discharge from this enormous industrial empire has been expanding and spreading throughout its supply chain, seriously encroaching on the local communities and their environment… the volume of hazardous waste produced by suspected Apple Inc. suppliers was especially large and some had failed to properly dispose of their hazardous waste.”

Six months before that (nearly a year ago), I presented my thoughts about the IPEs report that leveled complaints against the IT/Electronics industry and the overall performance of nearly 30 major manufacturers and their respective key parts suppliers.  The report focused on “the openness of IT firms and their responsiveness to reports of environmental violations at suppliers”.  Concerns were raised in the report regarding levels of environmental toxins and pollutants being discharged in rivers and streams and into air sheds.

Many people have asked me over the past half-year why Apple is being uncooperative or secretive.  Well, “secrecy” has always been part of the Apple mystique, but of course so has evolutionary and disruptive innovation. The problem as I saw it then (and this thought has now been vindicated) is when it comes to corporate social responsibility and sustainability, transparency is the name of the game, not secrecy.  I also suggested that Apples supplier network may be too big to handle and they lack the tools, systems and technologies to perform adequate supplier training and oversight.  Combined with inconsistent Chinese regulatory agency oversight on its industrial manufacturers, this presented difficult challenges to a workable, and meaningful sustainable supply chain solution. But Nike did it, so why couldn’t (or wouldn’t) Apple, I asked?

My advice last September to Apple and new CEO Tim  Cook was to step up and be as evolutionary on corporate social responsibility and sustainability matters as it is with its products.  My exact words were: “show humility, take responsibility, and act swiftly and collaboratively.”

Gladly I am happy to report that Apple has wised up and stepped voluntarily under the glare of public scrutiny.

2012: Enter Mr. Cook…the New, Improved, Socially Responsible Apple?

"Good Apple"

In its Supplier Responsibility 2012 Progress Report, the company states it is “committed to driving the highest standards for social responsibility throughout [its] supply base”. It adds: “We require that our suppliers provide safe working conditions, treat workers with dignity and respect, and use environmentally responsible manufacturing processes wherever Apple products are made.”

The 156 companies it lists alongside the report on its Supplier Responsibility website account from more than 97 per cent of what Apple pays to suppliers to manufacture its products.  A complete picture of all the thousands of suppliers in Apples supply chain may be daunting, but at least the company has captured the suppliers where the “greatest spend” is.

Highlights from the 2012 Report

• In 2011, we conducted 229 audits throughout our supply chain — an 80 percent increase over 2010 — including more than 100 first-time audits. We continue to expand our program to reach deeper into our supply base, and this year we added more detailed and specialized audits that focus on safety and the environment.
• Apple-designed training programs have educated more than one million supply chain employees about local laws, their rights as workers, occupational health and safety, and Apple’s Supplier Code of Conduct.
• Our audits have always checked for compliance with environmental standards. In 2011, in addition to our standard audits, we launched a specialized auditing program to address environmental concerns about certain suppliers in China. Third-party environmental engineering experts worked with our team to conduct detailed audits at 14 facilities. We uncovered some violations and worked with our suppliers to correct the issues. We will expand our environmental auditing program in the coming year. [violations unearthed included dumping wastewater onto a neighboring farm, using machines without safeguards, testing workers for pregnancy and falsifying pay records]
• We have a zero-tolerance policy for underage labor, and we believe our system is the toughest in the electronics industry. In 2011, we broadened our age verification program and saw dramatic improvements in hiring practices by our suppliers. Cases of underage labor were down significantly, and our audits found no underage workers at our final assembly suppliers. [Apple said it found six active and 13 historical cases of underage labor at some component suppliers, but none at its final-assembly partners]
• We offer continuing education opportunities at our suppliers’ facilities free of charge. More than 60,000 workers have enrolled in classes to study business and entrepreneurship, improve their computer skills, or learn English. And the curriculum continues to expand. We’ve also partnered with some local universities to offer courses that employees can apply toward an associate degree.

Apple has vowed to deal with worker abuses, hoping to deflect criticism it was turning a blind eye to cases of poor working conditions in a mostly Asian supply chain. Perhaps in a huge move, Apple will allow independent auditors from the Fair Labor Association to also be part of the future auditing process.  In an interview last Friday, Mr. Cook said Apple’s vow to double the number of supplier audits along its supply chain is “raising the bar” for the entire high technology industry, and that more change is on the way.  Cook said “All of this means that workers will be treated better and better with each passing year…It’s not something we feel like we have done what we can do, much remains to be done.”

The San Jose (California) Mercury News quoted analyst Ken Dulaney with Gartner Research who wondered why this may have taken so long to happen. “Who knows why they didn’t do this sooner? It could have been because of Steve Jobs. Maybe with Cook’s financial background he’s trying to move Apple toward less secrecy, which would be a very good thing. It’s part of their trying to be a good global citizen.”

Under Scrutiny

Either way, Apple will continue to be under watchful eyes, as environmentalist and labor activists continue to push for more reforms by American companies doing business overseas.  Apple still will need to double down its efforts to respond more proactively to the many environmental impact related issues reported in the past by its major suppliers, especially in China.  But for a company that has played its cards extremely close to the chest, it’s a major breakthrough, if time proves the intent to be true.

Judy Gearhart, executive director of the International Labor Rights Forum in Washington, D.C, said that how the industry as a whole responds” depends how engaged they [Apple] are going forward. You see companies make these commitments and there’s often a lot of fanfare, but it doesn’t always pan out the way they say it will.”

Maybe Mr. Cook is the one “Good Apple” that will save the bunch.  Let’s hope so.

“COP-Out”- The Durban Climate Talks and the Tragedy of the Climate Commons. Will Business Innovation Save the World?

Feeling a bit like the holidays for sure.  And I feel like humanity just got “scrooged”.   A year ago, I wrote about the COP16 U.N. Climate Conference in Mexico City and how governments were playing “kick the can” with climate policy. I noted that there was “some progress on establishing more robust means to appropriate and distribute micro-finance funds to support development of technologies in developing countries that lack the dollars themselves to manage their own greenhouse gas footprints.”  I also noted that many companies, rather than countries were taking unilateral initiatives to reach deep into their supply chain to develop innovative, new products that are less impacting to the environment and that can help developing-nations likely to be hit hard by global warming.

Based on what has (or has not) transpired at the recently wrapped up COP17/CMP5 in Durban the past two weeks, I am left feeling that global consensus on this issue, while not completely out of the question, is getting closer.  But the incremental, baby step pace of progress is (according to most climate scientists) insufficient to avert seemingly unstoppable rise in year over year average global temperatures.  It’s not the science that appears in question, rather it appears that there appears to be ongoing hesitancy to bear accountability and resolute responsibility on the part of those who carry or deny the mantle of developed nation status (hint: United States, China, India).  Despite the last minute efforts of the 194 nations in attendance and working past the official end of the conference, hopes for a meaningful and comprehensive global agreement appeared to be faltering.

As an example, the recent article in the Guardian stated that “The EU has found it hard to push through its “roadmap” that would establish an overarching, legal agreement committing all countries to emission cuts”.    So, the EU got what it wanted.  Also, according to an African delegate, “The US has what it wants. There is no guarantee that the new agreement will legally bind governments to cut emissions.”  The U.S. indeed got what it wanted. China and India continue to maintain they are still too undeveloped on the whole to be accountable in the same manner as western, industrialized nations and also claims they are implementing what they have already pledged to do at prior UN conferences.  Um…show me.

The one big victory I did hear that came out of the past two weeks was on an agreement on establishing a $100 billion/year climate fund to help developing countries address climate change.  But before we celebrate that breakthrough, there’s a small outstanding issue …there is no clear mechanism for how that money will be raised. In the recent words of GOP candidate Gov. Rick Perry… “Oops”.  In addition, rich countries would be allowed to offset their emissions by making payments to poor countries which protected their forests.  Is this a bilateral effort or are poorer counties expected to bear 100% of the burden of making that happen.  What is thought to be enough isn’t.  Tim Gore, policy adviser for Oxfam, stated “Governments must really get to grips with the climate crisis.”  That’s an understatement if I ever heard one.  Gore summed up his take on the winners, losers and likely impact on the poorer nations here.

So, while COP17 by most measures succeeded where prior UN gatherings failed, the agreements on which progress will be measured (using the 2015 and 2020 yardsticks established at Durban) may not be swift enough to stem the slow bleed that climate change is bringing on around the world.

Supply Chain Sector Gets Some Attention

Going into the climate conference, two key supply chain sectors, aviation and shipping, were targeted for discussion. According to the Civil Air Services Navigation Organization, “After a number of days of tough negotiations on aviation, there was still no decision on some of the key aspects of Common But Differentiated Responsibilities (CBDR) and how they relate to aviation and shipping, and the ability for countries negotiation under the UNFCCC to tell negotiators at ICAO what to do.

In the final agreed Durban Platform text on aviation, there was a brief placeholder text:  “International aviation and maritime transport… Agrees to continue its consideration of issues related to addressing emissions from international aviation and maritime transport;”

Basically, there was no agreement was reached …end of story.  That being said, I have written countless posts on the administrative and technological advances underway by large intermodal shippers and transporters and the aviation industry to quell fuel use and has been exploring how to develop sustainable aviation biofuels, including in developing countries to meet the Climate Fund goals established in Durban.  Aviation and transportation stakeholders have concluded that “agreement amongst nearly all countries [is] that [International Civil Aviation Organization] ICAO is the most appropriate place to deal with aviation emissions. The industry will continue to engage with ICAO to ensure that an ambitious work program can deliver an outcome on aviation emissions by the next ICAO Assembly in 2013”.

Moving past Durban

The Huffington Post summarized the main outcome of COP17, the so-called “Durban Platform”, including the “establishment and empowerment of an “Ad Hoc Working Group” to develop a new protocol and to “complete its work … no later than 2015 in order … [for the new protocol] … to come into effect and be implemented from 2020.” The new protocol is to be a “legal instrument or an agreed outcome with legal force” with this critical stipulation: “applicable to all Parties.” Nowhere in this agreement do the words “common but differentiated appear.” (Full details in this draft document: “Establishment of an Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action.”)”

Writer and author Marc Gunther summed up the positive and negative spins on the Durban conference, and suggested that perhaps the evolution of climate negotiations will transcend universal treaties, relying more on regional, collaborative agreements and technological advances as the primary means of progress.  Gunther nails the takeaways by suggesting that “First, those companies that worry about climate change need to bring their voices more forcefully to the policy arena; they can’t assume that governments are on the right track. Second, companies ought to prepare for climate change–when they site new facilities, for example–because it’s unavoidable.”

The Durban Platforms emphasis on more dialogue, more planning and lack of clear immediate is tragic.  Not for the planet.  No sane person can look me in the eye and say with a straight face that seven billion people, with all their wants and needs, have not affected the global ecosystem.  But despite all the perversities and ravages that we’ve inflicted on Earth, the planet will survive.  But for us, the larger mass of humanity, we hold our own fate in our hands …and we are blowing it.  Why?  Because there are nations (the EU, United States, China and India among them) that cannot…or will not…move past their “self interest”.  They are just kicking the can down the road.

The Tragedy of the Commons

In 1968, ecologist Garrett Harding published “The Tragedy of the Commons in the journal Science. I was introduced to Hardin’s theory many times during my undergraduate and graduate environmental law studies. His highly controversial and criticized theory presented a hypothetical situation involving herders sharing a common parcel of land, on which they are each entitled to let their cows graze. Hardin theorized that it was in each herder’s “self interest” to put more cows onto the land, even if the quality of the common is damaged for all (through overgrazing). The herder receives all of the benefits from an additional cow, while the damage to the common is shared by the entire group. Further if all herders make the same choice, the common will be depleted or even destroyed, to the detriment of all.  Systems ecologists called this an exceedance of “carrying capacity” resulting in other tragedies likie overfishing, depletion of forest resources, water supplies and arable land.   And while the acts of an individual or one corporation may singularly have little impact, the cumulative effect can be overwhelming and often leave irreversible impacts.

Hardin’s theories have been widely criticized from an economic point of view.  Political scientist Elinor Ostrom, the first woman to win the Nobel Prize for Economics (2009), showed that the “Tragedy of the Commons” (its overuse and destruction) doesn’t happen, at least when all the people who share the commons can get together and talk about it.   Ostrom found that, when there are no internal or external forces preventing the “commoners” from a free, open and robust discussion of how they should agree to govern and limit their use of it so it doesn’t get overgrazed and thus ruined for all, then the commons goes on thriving.

And that, dear friends and readers is the tragedy of the Climate Conference in Durban…the political process and governmental self interest appeared once again come up short, co-opting the outcomes “to the detriment of all”. As noted in a National Public Radio broadcast in 2009, “Every nation wants to act in its own interest but that may not be the same as the global interest.”

Innovation, Technology and a Collective Conscience

I believe now, as I believed and wrote about during COP16 in Mexico City and after COP15 in “Nope”nhagen that governments were putting off today what we can technologically achieve now. What happened?  Has humanity lost its mojo…or is something else going on?

In a fascinating article by venture capitalist Roland Van Der Meer, Holding Off the Tragedy of the Commons, he describes some of the underlying factors that he believes have contributed to the global decline in natural resources, and lack of environmental stewardship…and it comes down to innovation.

Both governments and corporations are institutions that exist for the reason of self promulgation, actualization, and advancement (to further itself, to continue to exist, to not change). The methodologies that they deploy and back is their best practice, it is what they believe, what they will hold on to and how they will exist and thrive. And this is the failure point. It is not meant to change. Its very survival depends upon the lack of change.

What is missing is a catalyst for change. Why change? Because what worked best 100, 50,  20 or even 10 years ago is no longer the best methodology or practice.

The institution is good at doing what it was designed to do and it stubbornly holds on to that design at the expense of its own destruction or the method it protects. Change is needed.

The incumbent companies and regulations are stuck in a process and framework which prevents and disincentivizes change. They even go further to lock out or block change because it would lead to their own destruction…. it is our collective resources that are at stake. We need to be open and create the new enterprises that will create, invent and adapt in the basic resources areas.

I believe, as do organizations like the Responding to Climate Change (RTCC) that the private sector can “pick up the slack” in tackling climate change where government agreements have (up to this point) failed.   However, to effectively incentivize innovative technologies, the private sector must continue to be a part of the larger policy debate.  There is a way out of the mess we have made and one of my personal life influencers, Amory Lovins, has a plan.  In his new book, Reinventing Fire- Bold Business Solutions for the New Energy Era offers “actionable solutions for four energy-intensive sectors of the economy: transportation, buildings, industry, and electricity”. The Rocky Mountain Institutes Lovins states “business can become more competitive, profitable, and resilient by leading the transformation from fossil fuels to efficiency and renewables. This transition will build a stronger economy, a more secure nation, and a healthier environment.” Imagine if this approach can be applied at a global level, with a combination of government/business and monitored, measurable multi-national collaboration and a collective common conscience. What have we got to lose?

When it comes to real action on climate change, the upside of heretical innovation is huge…and the downside unthinkable.

With a Change in Workplace Comes Reflections on Society, Sustainability and a Balanced World

Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tsa1/5543988340/

You may have noticed that this space has been “dark” of late.  Why, since I’ve been gone and the world has spun round and round: the Occupy Wall Street launched (and perhaps corporate social responsibility entered the public eye), Kim Kardashian got married AND divorced, Libya fell, the St. Louis Cardinals won the World Series,  the debt ceiling crisis…well that’s still with us.   No, I didn’t disappear into the abyss after my Africa trip in August.  No, I didn’t burn out or give up.  Instead, I’ve moved forward a notch in the journey.

I’ve always maintained to family, friends and colleagues that “change is good”, and that it continues to drive us to continually improve on a personal and professional scale.  As I announced in early October to 800 of my closest personal friends and colleagues on LinkedIn, I recently started a full time position as Associate Director- Environment, Health & Safety (EHS) for Elan Pharmaceuticals, Inc. in South San Francisco, CA.    A long time client of mine, Elan is at the forefront of neuroscience based biotechnology.  Elan’s work includes research and development activities for neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease and autoimmune diseases, including multiple sclerosis.   I am proud to be aligned with a company that is focused on tackling some of the most troubling and challenging diseases of the mind and body, some of which have affected members of my own family.

With my days (and occasional evenings) fully committed with Elan, I’ll be placing ValueStream Performance Advisors on hiatus. Despite the change in venue, my enthusiasm and passion for heretical thinking, innovation, systems-based management and organizational sustainability, remains the same.  I’m happy with what ValueStream was able to accomplish through from 2009-2011 along with my many collaborators and clients

However, while my social media presence may change in the months and years ahead, I will nonetheless continue to be an ardent advocate for organizational sustainability, and proactive EHS compliance and management (which Elan has graciously endorsed as well).  I am truly appreciative of all of the support you, as readers have given me and continue to value the business relationships that we’ve established. To date, over 90,000 (!!!) visits have been made to this site to learn, share, argue and discuss key ideas and issues focused around sustainability.

Managing Change and Life’s Risky Balance

Like my change in workplace, you will also see some changes in the look and content of this site as well, starting with the banner photo.  This was a shot of the iconic acacia trees that I took while on a mini-safari this past summer in the Spioenkop Nature Reserve in the Drakensberg, KwaZulu Natal, South Africa.  Riding on horseback among the roaming wildlife (among them rhinos, giraffe, zebras and hartebeests) I was reminded of how critical it is that we all take a moment to reflect on the nature of humankind, how far we have come in a relatively short period of time on this planet, and how easily we have drifted away from lifes precious balance.    Not far from the ancient cave dwellings of the aboriginal San people, I realized how out of step humanity is with what’s around them, and what a ruinous course we may be on.  We are perhaps the species most at risk.  I also noted in my related post following that South Africa trip discussing environmental, health and safety, that ” companies must take care of basic HSE issues and lay a firm foundational framework for continual improvement first before they can progress along the sustainability journey.  …Regarding sustainability, it makes little sense force feeding a business approach that has little immediate bearing on managing organizations immediate risks.”  This is one of many reasons why I elected to refocus my career work on managing basic EHS issues to assure that a solid foundation is in place to support systematic sustainability efforts.

We are at a critical juncture on this fragile planet of ours.  We all have a moral imperative to passionately recast our “lot” in a much larger, infinitely complex global ecological system.  As Gregory Reggio so eloquently and powerfully captured in his epic 1982 film, “Koyaanisqatsi”, we live in a world…a life, out of balance.  How ironic that the United Nations COP17/CMP7 International Climate Conference has convened this week in  Durban, South Africa, to discuss  the most critical “out of balance” issue of our lifetime, climate change. …just a few short hours away from where the banner shot on this page was taken.

Humanity has the combined technical capability to use science, politics,  innovative technology and cultural awareness  to reshape the global natural, social and economic environment  to a point of balance and equity.   Do we have the collective wisdom to use that knowledge to achieve and maintain that balance?    I think we do, but like the sustainability journey we are on together,  it’ll take many steps and the political will to get there.

Please take a moment to add my new email to your contact list. I’ll retain dmeyer@valuestreamadvisors.com  address as a general professional networking address, or you can reach me here or at Elan — my new contact details are pasted below. And of course, you can still find me on Twitter and my commentary on Sustainable Business Forum, Sustainable Plant, Kinaxis Supply Chain Expert Community, and other media sites.

All the Best!

Dave R. Meyer, Associate Director- Environment, Health & Safety

Elan Pharmaceuticals Inc.

800 Gateway Blvd., South San Francisco, CA 94080

Direct: +1 650.877.7624

Email: david.meyer@elan.com

Meeting Basic Health, Safety and Environmental Risk Before Sustainability- Watch Your Step

This week has been all about “R-I-S-K”.  Risk that my three flights around the globe to South Africa will be on time. Risk that my luggage will accompany me.  Risk that I will meet my driver.  Risk that he will be a safe driver, negotiating darkness and harrowing roads full of heavy trucks travelling between Durban and Johannesburg.  Risk that my digestive system can handle all the amazing foods I’ll sample while at the NOSA-sponsored NOSHCON 11 conference.  Risk that my talk on integrated sustainability management systems will go off without a hitch.

Risk (noun): A situation involving exposure to danger

Risk (verb): to expose to danger or loss

The Setting Tells a Story- “From Stone Age to Hard Won Democracy”

Risk.  We all live with risk and all are in position to control and influence its outcome.  This week’s conference was devoted to exploring risk in the workplace and its related effects on worker safety, health and environmental impact.  South Africa is the perfect place to explore this issue, because of all of the social, political, economic and workplace/environmental challenges that this special country has endured over the generations.  Throughout the two-day conference I have become painfully aware of the risks that exist amid the beauty of the KwaZulu Natal and Central Drakensberg region of South Africa.

View from my Guest House Looking Toward Champagne Castle

This great place of beauty has seen wars fought over land and water for thousands of years and countless generations, between indigenous tribes first, then between the Zulu and the Dutch Afrikaners, then the British and Boers and finally blacks and whites through the practice of “apartheid”.  This place has seen the likes of King Shaka, Gandhi and Mandela walking its ground.  This is historic ground where people took incredible risks to protect what they believed in, and suffered enormous costs and joyous victories.  I won’t use this space to opine on that matter just to say that issues run deep and wounds take generations to heal.  But all citizens of the Rainbow Nation are trying their very best to level the playing field.  But all along the way, all the players in this real life drama have had to manage risk.

Snakes!!

To illustrate how risk is all around us in the workplace and at home, NOSHCON brought out the snakes…yes, snakes.  Not the safe variety…I mean the pythons and puff adders.    Through a safety company called Unplugged Communications, the idea of “Snakes for Safety” was presented to a fascinated, but somewhat skittish audience of 600.  The analogy is that puff adders are like accidents waiting to happen…they hide, camouflaged in the bush and only strike when you are right on top of them.  By then the damage has been done, injury’s result (and it the case of the puff adder, you have seven minutes to call a loved one and say goodbye!).  Cobras on the other hand represent a hazard that is harmless when small, but if left unchecked, the hazards can grow to an unmanageable point when great harm can occur. Snakes.  Risk.  Managing the basics of health, safety and the environment (HSE) in developing economies like South Africa is foremost in businesses minds and correctly so.

Risk Management and Meeting Basic HSE Needs First

“There are risks and costs to every program of action.  But they are far less than the risk and costs of comfortable inaction”- John F Kennedy

Last year I wrote a two piece series on risk management and accountability in the aftermath of the BP gulf oil spill and Massey coal mining disaster.  In the second post on risk, I noted that a continuous risk management process helps organizations understand, manage, and communicate risk and avoid potential catastrophic conditions that can lead to loss of life, property and the environment. Briefly, risk management helps organizations:

• Identify critical and non-critical risks
• Document each risk in-depth
• Log all risks and notify management of their severity
• Take action to reduce the likelihood of risks occurring
• Reduce the impact on  business, life, and the environment

In this post I laid out a typical six-step process to achieve effective risk management and failure mode control.  I also noted ”What will be … fascinating will be the lessons learned and if businesses truly embrace risk management planning and implementation as a central function of business, take it seriously and hold themselves accountable.”

Takeaways from Far Away- Sustainability May Have to Wait

The author with a less venomous snake

My talk focused on integrated management systems and how they can leverage risk and liability and support sustainability in the business marketplace.  The audience was attentive to be sure, and I listened and observed NOSHCON delegates listen to several other fantastic presentations on corporate social responsibility, carbon management and sustainability.  My impression however is that while there are pockets of excellence in sustainability focused companies, South African businesses are just beginning to think about sustainability as a value-added aspect of their businesses. Perhaps rightly so, many companies in the mining, agricultural and heavy industry sectors continue (especially the majority small to medium-sized and under-resource companies) are focusing on the basic critical issues of life safety in the workplace, education and meeting basic environmental compliance operations first.  To meet this pressing need, organizations like NOSA have developed world-class frameworks of occupational, health, safety and environmental  risk management.  And despite rampant complaints of lax enforcement of labor and environmental protection laws, the South African government has implemented its King III corporate governance policies (similar to the U.S Sarbanes-Oxley provisions) that recognize CSR and reporting obligations.

I am firmly of the belief that companies must take care of these basic HSE issues and lay a firm foundational framework for continual improvement first before they can progress along the sustainability journey.  The central themes I heard about how this can be accomplished are through increasing monitoring, education, awareness building, management accountability and trust.  Regarding sustainability, it makes little sense force feeding a business approach that has little immediate bearing on managing organizations immediate risks.  One must be able to manage the snakes; you know….one by one and step by cautious step.

Be patient South Africa.  You have such great resources, professionals hungry to learn, and have fantastic opportunities to excel in the sustainability space in the years ahead.  I have been truly blessed and humbled to have been able to participate at NOSHCON and hope to be able to hear of great things coming out of South Africa in the coming years.

“Baie Dankie”. “Ngiyabonga kakhulu”. Thanks very much!

Lean Design, Lean Manufacturing, Lean Inventory/Supply Management – A Sustainability “Trifecta”

Source (Popular Mechanics)

You’d have to be living in a mountain cave or vacationing on the south coast of France to not know that world stock markets are being whipped around these past two weeks.  The USA Today has attributed what’s been happening in the markets here in the U.S. along seven key elements, all of which is related more to external factors such as the European money woes, general investor fear and lack of policy direction from the federal government.

The general market fear and scurrying for shelter reminds me that when hikers are caught in a sudden storm, they often seek shelter in a “lean-to” or other protective cover until the skies clear.

I thought that in light of the economic body slamming that has been going on this past week, it’s worth reflecting on some efficiency-based ways that  businesses can use to overcome (or at least buffer) some of the external factors that are causing such economic uncertainty.  Like the hikers seeking shelter from the storm, there are some “lean-to”-like steps that company’s can take to exert some control and influence — and it all relates to a leaner, greener, smarter enterprise.

The Lean and Green Enterprise

Last winter I wrote about how importance a “lean and green” enterprise was in establishing a smarter, leadership position in a rapidly changing global marketplace.  I noted then that a 2009 study suggested that “lean companies are embracing green objectives and transcending to green manufacturing as a natural extension of their culture of continuous waste reduction, integral to world class Lean programs.”  Lean was more rapidly accomplished with a dedicated corporate commitment to continual improvement, and incorporating ‘triple top line’ strategies to account for environmental, social and financial capital.  I also argued by looking deep into an organizations value chain (upstream suppliers, operations and end of life product opportunities) with a ‘green’ or environmental lens, manufacturers can eliminate even more waste in the manufacturing process, and realize some potentially dramatic savings

So I was reminded this past week that Lean in design, Lean in manufacturing, and Lean in inventory can individually or collectively be key success factors in managing waste in all its many forms.  Collectively, this can have a measurably positive effect on a company’s financial, and hence, business performance.  A couple of recent articles touched on this topic this week while you were watching your 401(K) equity or stock value tank.   But first let’s touch on Lean Design.

Lean Design

I came across an older but very relevant article written in the aftermath of the Internet stock crash in the early 2000’s.  The article described product development as involving “two kinds of waste: that associated with the process of creating a new design (e.g., wasted time, resources, development money), and waste that is embodied in the design itself (e.g., excessive complexity, poor manufacturing process compatibility, many unique and custom parts).”  The article cautioned that because the design process is the cradle of creative thinking, designers needed to carefully watch what they “lean out” or risk cutting off the creative process to reduce waste.  What has happened in the ensuing years has been an incredible emphasis on “green design” that focuses on full product life cycle value, such that “end of life management” considerations have taken on a more relevant and embedded nature in manufacturing.

A Lean Manufacturer Can be a Sustainable Manufacturer

In yet another recent article by manufacturing consultant Tim McMahon (@TimALeanJourney), he notes that “Lean manufacturing practices and sustainability are conceptually similar in that both seek to maximize organizational efficiency. Where they differ is in where the boundaries are drawn, and in how waste is defined”.  He notes, as I have in my past posts, that Lean manufacturing practices, which are at the very core of sustainability, save time and money — an absolutely necessity in today’s competitive global marketplace.

The key areas to control manufacturing waste and resource use during the design and manufacturing cycle, can be broken down  and managed for waste management and efficiency in the following five ways:

Reduce Direct Material Cost – Can be achieved by use of common parts, common raw materials, parts-count reduction, design simplification, reduction   of scrap and quality defects, elimination of batch processes, etc.

Reduce Direct Labor Cost – Can be accomplished through design simplification, design for lean manufacture and assembly, parts count reduction, matching product tolerances to process capabilities, standardizing processes, etc.

Reduce Operational Overhead –  Efficiencies can be captured by minimizing impact on factory layout, capture cross-product-line synergies (e.g. a modular design/ mass-customization strategy), improve utilization of shared capital equipment, etc.

Minimize Non-Recurring Design Cost – Planners and practitioners should focus on platform design strategies to achieve efficiencies, including: parts standardization, lean QFD/voice-of-the-customer, Six-Sigma Methods, Design of Experiment, Value Engineering, Production Preparation (3P) Process, etc.

Minimize Product-Specific Capital Investment through: Production Preparation (3P) Process, matching product tolerances to process capabilities, Value Engineering / design simplification, design for one-piece flow, standardization of parts.

Can a Lean Inventory Management Drive Sustainable Resource Consumption?

Business Colleague Julie Urlaub from Taiga Company  (@TaigaCompany) summarized a post in a recent Harvard Business Review by green sage Andrew Winston (@GreenAdvantage).  The article, Excess Inventory Wastes Carbon and Energy, Not Just Money describes how the global marketplace “ is sitting on $8 trillion worth of ‘for sale’ inventory [the U.S. maintains a quarter of that  inventory].  These idle goods not only represent a tremendous financial burden but an enormous environmental footprint ” that was generated in the manufacturing of those goods.  Mr. Winston maintains that “If we could permanently reduce the amount of product sitting idle, we’d save money, energy, and material.”  The problem is predicting and managing inventory in such fickle times.   Winston went on about new predictive tools being advanced by companies that hold promise in nimbly driving inventory demand response up the supply chain.  For instance, he noted that “ using both demand sensing software and good management practices, P&G has cut 17 days and $2.1 billion out of inventory. All that production avoided saves a lot of money in manufacturing, distribution, and ongoing warehousing. It also saves a lot of carbon, material, and water.”

What Mr. Winston found shocking though (me too!) was that “even with the fastest-selling, most predictable products, the estimates are off by an average of more than 40 percent. Imagine that a CPG company believes that 1 million bottles of a fast-turning laundry detergent will sell this week. With 40 percent average error, half the time sales will actually fall between 600,000 and 1.4 million bottles. And the other half of the time sales will be even further off the mark.”  The process becomes self perpetuating and the inventory racks up along with the parallel environmental footprint, unless somehow the uncertainty can be better predicted.  While companies like to have on hand what Mr. Winston referred to as “safety stock”, I have come to know as reserve inventory driven by “just in time” ordering .  But that process was shown to have its own flaws such as when orders for goods dried up overnight in 2008 and when it came time to ramp up in early 2010, part counts were insufficient to meet the rising demand.

I really pity the supply chain demand planner, who like the weatherman is subject to the fickle nature of an unpredictable force.  Winston wrapped up his article by stating that “ reducing the inventory itself could be the greenest thing [logistics executives] can do”.  I had the chance to speak and attend the 2010 Aberdeen Supply Chain Summit where demand response planning was discussed at length and where green supply chain issues were recognized as one of many key attributes in effective supply chain management.  In such a volatile economy, its vital that companies keep inventory management in mind as a way to leverage its costs and simultaneously look toward environmental improvements that can reduce waste.

Partnering for Progress

A relatively recent pilot program in the State of Wisconsin just shows how partnering to create a lean focused sustainable manufacturing cluster can have enormous dividends.  According to a recent article in BizTimes.com, the Wisconsin Profitable Sustainability Initiative (PSI) was launched in April 2010 by the Wisconsin Department of Commerce and the Wisconsin Manufacturing Extension Partnership (WMEP). The goal according to the article is “to help small and midsize manufacturers reduce costs, gain competitive advantage and minimize environmental impacts”.  Forty-five manufacturers participated in over 87 projects evaluated. These projects focused on “evaluating and implementing a wide range of improvements, including reducing raw materials, solid waste and freight miles, optimizing processes, installing new equipment and launching new products.  The initial results show that the projects with the largest impact do not come from the traditional sustainability areas such as energy or recycling. Instead, outcomes from the initial projects suggest that transportation and operational improvements are places where manufacturers can look to find big savings, quick paybacks and significant environmental benefits.”

The program is projected to generate a five-year $54 million economic impact, including: $26.9 million in savings, $23.5 million in increased/retained sales and $3.6 million in investment.

Lean design,  Lean manufacturing, Lean inventory management – a Waste Containment and Efficiency “Trifecta”

Together, lean design,  lean manufacturing  and effective, lean inventory management offer a “trifecta” approach for industry to identify, reduce or eliminate and track waste.  Effective use of these tools cannot only drive both in how the product is designed and  produced but offers opportunities all the way up the supply chain to manage effective inventory and resource consumption. As the University of Tennessee studied concluded,  the implications of lean strategies are 1)  Lean results in green; and 2) Lean is an essential part of remaining competitive and maintaining a quality image.  Put the two together and a company can virtually be unstoppable…or a least a bit more recession-proof and “shelter from the storm”.

This One’s for Ray- Reflections on the Passing of a Sustainability Giant & Radical Industrialist, Ray Anderson

Ray Anderson died this week.  Most of us in the business just called him “Ray”, because he really was such an approachable guy.  I saw him speak in San Diego three years ago, and even to a business green business veteran like me, he was sage-like.  To most outside the world of sustainability in business, the name hardly rang a bell.  But to those of us within its three concentric circles, Ray was an icon.  As many know, Ray Anderson ran InterfaceFLOR.  As the leader of a major global carpeting brand, which at that time relied on heavy use of industrial chemicals, hydrocarbon based products, energy and water use, InterFaceFLOR, like other carpet manufacturers was enduring a major challenge to rethink how its products were being made.

By the mid 1990’s when Ray had become the company’s CEO, more customers were asking questions about the company’s sustainability efforts.   In 1994, Ray had an awakening of sorts (his so-called  “point of a spear into my chest” moment), when after having a number of meetings and discussions with his staff and reading Paul Hawkens the Ecology of Commerce,  he became an enlightened, radical industrialist. He had come to the  conclusion that the environment was at risk and a lot of that was caused by industry and companies such InterfaceFLOR  that were based on petrochemicals and energy.

I, myself, was amazed to learn just how much stuff the earth has to produce through our extraction process to produce a dollar of revenue for our company. When I learned, I was flabbergasted. We are leaving a terrible legacy of poison and diminishment of the environment for our grandchildren’s grandchildren, generations not yet born. Some people have called that intergeneration tyranny, a form of taxation without representation, levied by us on generations yet to be. It’s the wrong thing to do.-Ray Anderson

The Radical Industrialist Takes on the Supply Chain

Ray was simply on a mission- for InterfaceFLOR to not only cut waste, but to be a leading, responsible business.  He became the face of the “radical industrialist” (the title of his last autobiographical  book which I received signed by him just two months ago is called Confessions of a Radical Industrialist) and in 1994 launched InterfaceFLOR into a first mover role to reduce its environmental and social footprint.  The data is quite extraordinary in the 17 years since the company launched its many environmental initiatives. Of course, Ray started with a plan- one that by necessity started small- but was across the board, an overhaul affecting every link of the supply chain.  Ray also smartly knew that go get his shareholders on board, he needed “obliterate costs/footprint associated with waste; silencing the shareholders that were uncomfortable with the risk involved with completely revolutionizing your company”.

We began to tackle the face of mountain we identified as waste. We defined waste, by the way, as any cost that we incurred that does not add value to our customer and that translates to doing everything right the first time, every time. It’s not just waste material, scrapped and low quality and so forth. If you send something to the wrong destination and have to get it back and reship it — that’s waste. If you incur a bad debt — that’s waste. So we defined waste very broadly and over time we actually said that any energy that comes from fossil fuel by our definition is waste and we need to eliminate it. We really began to think in different ways about our business in terms of climbing this mountain and it became very clear very quickly this was the smart thing to do. Not only did we start to generate answers for those customers, they embraced us for what we were trying to do. The goodwill in the market place has just been stunning. The rest of the business case is pretty simple. I cost it down not up. – Ray Anderson

According to Lindsay Parnell, InterFaceFLOR’s CEO for Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia, the company has “reduced waste to landfill by 80 per cent since 1996, curbed water use by the same amount, reduced energy use per unit of production by 43 per cent, and cut greenhouse gases 44 per cent, partly by generating 30 per cent of its energy from renewable.  But what also stands out (and what made Ray such a business visionary) was that there was a phenomenal financial payback that could be realized from “going green”.  According to Parnell, “We could see that the millions of dollars were stacking up.  Between 1995 and 2010 we have saved $433m – that is a huge amount for a company with revenues of around $1bn. There is no way we have invested $433m in this, but that is what it has saved.”

It’s not just the right thing to do, it’s the smart thing to do. – Ray Anderson

Climbing Mount Sustainability

Rays efforts were noticed for sure.  Time Magazine featured him in an article this past spring and Fortune Magazine called him “America’s greenest CEO”.  He went out and “evangelized” over 150 times a year, until his fight with cancer started to finally slow him down.  The awards and honors bestowed on Ray and the companies over the past two decades are too many to mention here. Recently, Interface ranked 11^th worldwide in the 2010 Sustainability & Innovation Global Executive Study & Research Project by MIT Sloan Management Review and The Boston Consulting Group.  They ranked second behind Unilever in the 2011 Global Sustainability Leaders Survey from GlobeScan Inc. and SustainAbility Ltd.  Suffice it to say though that InterfaceFLORs efforts disruptively changed the way the carpet, building materials and textile industry operate today as compared to 20 years ago.

Meanwhile, in the last couple of years the company launched its highly ambitious  Mission Zero ™  sustainability strategy, which aims to turn InterfaceFLOR into a zero-impact organization.  Ray often spoke about how climbing the sustainability mountain in business was akin to climbing Mount Everest and that there were seven paths or fronts to get there:

• Eliminate Waste: Eliminating all forms of waste in every area of business;
• Benign Emissions: Eliminating toxic substances from products, vehicles and facilities;
• Renewable Electricity: Operating facilities with renewable electricity sources – solar, wind, landfill gas, biomass, geothermal, tidal and low impact/small scale hydroelectric or non-petroleum-based hydrogen;
• Closing the Loop: Redesigning processes and products to close the technical loop using recovered and bio-based materials;
• Resource-Efficient Transportation: Transporting people and products efficiently to reduce waste and emissions;
• Sensitizing Stakeholders: Creating a culture that integrates sustainability principles and improves people’s lives and livelihoods;
• Redesign Commerce: Creating a new business model that demonstrates and supports the value of sustainability-based commerce;

Making the Business Case

When you are being asked to make the business case for sustainability – perhaps ask them to make the business case for being un-sustainable. – Ray Anderson

You see, for the past 30 years I’ve been evangelizing like Ray for organizations to make “the business case” on behalf of reducing waste of any kind (be it over-consumption, generation of waste, human productivity waste, etc) so the bottom line is optimized and employees, communities and the environment are protected.  To me it’s a “no brainer” and for folks like Ray it took an epiphany to make that realization.  Since Ray’s awakening in 1994, and especially in the past half decade or so, more CEO’s and manufacturers with local to global reach are coming to their own realizations and drawing their own conclusions.

Ray stepped out of his comfort zone to challenge the status quo.  He forged a new business normal that called for a respect of the land, responsible use of resources, smart design and innovative end of life (cradle to cradle) management of products.  Mission Zero will continue for the many thousands of employees of InterFaceFLOR around the world- all because of one man’s vision. All because of Ray.

As Ray said back in 2008 when I saw him, “There are noble fortunes to be made in the transition to sustainability.” That inspirational quote stands right up there with my son’s from back in 1991 when he introduced me to his pre-school class as the Dad who “saves the planet”.   Sometimes, being radical is not such a bad thing.

Mr. Anderson…er, Ray, thanks for all the inspiration- this one’s for you.

‘Green’ Procurement: Getting its ‘Value Creation’ Game On to Drive Supply Chain Sustainability (Part 2)

In Part 1 of this series on sustainable procurement, I laid out my vision of the heart of a sustainable, green supply chain that runs through its procurement function.  It’s simple to show how every product has a hidden human health, environmental and social impact along the entire supply chain.  However, it’s been challenging to bring sustainable procurement into a central decision making role in line with organizational business goals.  The results to date have been a mixed bag, as I alluded to when I mentioned Aribas new Vision 2020 report and companion dialoguing process, now underway.

Sustainable Procurement: back to management!

On the heels of the Ariba effort comes a promising benchmark report recently released by HEC-Paris and Ecovadis. Entitled “Sustainable Procurement: back to management!” this study (available for download on Ecovadis’ site) has risen to rescue and tempered my fears of devolving sustainable procurement.  In fact, the report may suggest a positive “tipping point” in favor of sustainable procurement.  The efforts behind the 2011 edition of the HEC/EcoVadis Sustainable Procurement Benchmark were carried out between the fall of 2010 and early 2011.  This benchmarking process started in 2003 and the 5th conducted since that time.

The objective of the benchmark is to provide a snapshot on what’s trending in the area of Sustainable Procurement practices.  According to the authors, the following overarching questions were explored:

• How has the vision of the Chief Procurement Officers (CPOs) evolved?
• What tools and initiatives seem to be the most effective over time to drive changes?
• How is Sustainable Procurement progress measured?
• What are the remaining challenges faced by most Procurement organizations?

The study identified three main drivers behind Sustainable Procurement initiatives: Risk Management, Value Creation, and Cost Reduction.  These findings mirror some of the trending areas and critical issues identified in the Ariba report.  HEC and Ecovadis suggested that these three drivers’ shows that many organizations are now facing new expectations in terms of Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability from the Procurement Departments of their clients and, suggest that having a sustainable procurement program in place can become a competitive advantage.

 Sustainable Procurement Remains High on Executives Agenda

1. 92% of the surveyed Companies consider Sustainable Procurement a “critical” or “important” initiative, even though for the 1st time this year, “Risk Management” took over as a priority initiative.
2. The major progress made in 2011 is on the support from the Top Management (+24%) thus demonstrating that Sustainable Procurement is attracting more and more interest from Executive Committees, and significant progress was made in implementation of tools and organizational changes.
3.  Significant organizational changes have been implemented: 45% of companies already have “dedicated teams” and 57% report having trained a majority of procurement staff on Sustainability.
4. Whereas in 2007 only 1/3 of companies were using formalized methodologies for assessing their suppliers’ sustainability performance, in 2011 two-thirds of them are now implementing dedicated tools (either internal or leveraging 3rd parties).
5. Finally 92% companies have increased (56%) or maintained (36%) their budgets related to Sustainable Procurement, which should yield more changes in the future years.

Tools for Sustainable Procurement on the Rise

The HEC/Ecovadis study found that basic tools such as “Suppliers Code of Conduct” ,  “CSR contract clauses” and “Suppliers self-assessment“ were now the rule rather than the exception among companies surveyed by a ratio of 2 to 1,  but interestingly were still found to  limited value in terms of risk management.  What I found encouraging was that the study found maturation in the types of tools used, including “Supplier Audits” and “Supplier CSR information databases“.  This type of work has clearly been evident in what I have reported in the past, especially among multi-national companies with contractor manufacturing operations in developing economies (like China, India and Brazil).  These advanced tools offered more opportunities for suppliers to engage directly with buyers, allow for data verification, and offer direct recommendations for supplier CSR and sustainability improvement.  Over half of the companies surveyed had advanced to this next level.  Finally, when asked what the most effective uses of resources were in developing a Sustainable Procurement Program, respondents mentioned 1) top level support, 2) creation of cross functional teams and 3) training, as key success ingredients.   All three of these success factors had shown substantial improvement over the past several benchmark cycles, according to the study.

Sustainable Procurement Creates Value

This is not the first study that has come along that demonstrates value and return on investment from sustainable procurement.  I wrote earlier of a joint study by Ecovadis, INSEAD and PriceWaterhouseCoopers that demonstrated similar results.  In that study, payback from most green procurement activities was huge. Companies surveyed were able to benefit quickly from risk management reduction and potential revenue growth opportunities, due in part to sustainable procurement.  The study also found that there were additional ‘value creation’ opportunities that could be realized if procurement departments collaborated more closely with the marketing and R&D departments upstream on the projects.

Also, a study in 2009 by a company named BrainNet (Green and Sustainable Procurement: Drivers and Approaches”)  looked at sustainable procurement and value creation and found that “… procurement with an ecological and social conscience is not a cost factor, but a value factor…Companies that pursue a consistent approach to green and sustainable procurement receive an above-average return on capital deployed.”  The study produced what they describe as an “evolution curve for sustainable procurement” that describes the maturity of various approaches of sustainable procurement.  This curve compares well with the most recent EcoVadis/HEC findings and suggests that there may be a widening gap between leaders and laggards.

Sustainable ‘green’ procurement embraces a holistic approach, one that encompasses organization, people, process, and technology to create greater product value along the entire supply chain.  This type of value creation can managed by establishing firm triple bottom line based metrics from upstream suppliers to downstream users and using the procurement function to support product and process innovation and accounting for total cost of ownership (TCO).

What’s Next?

According to the most recent HEC/EcoVadis benchmark report, it is clear that new green and social business models depend upon innovation, and a gap still among many organizations to implement a truly Sustainable Procurement vision.  This was clearly in evidence by the lack of mentions by Chief Procurement Officers that I discussed last week in the Ariba study.

The HEC/Ecovadis report suggests that when implementing Sustainable Procurement practices, a three phase process can get the ball rolling, starting first by orienting and energizing the procurement function through:

“1. Communication activities: Building awareness among employees regarding the approaching change, the benefits and the steps to be implemented.

2. Training and Performance support: ensuring that the initiative is being understood among those who are to execute the change or be part of it, and leading to buy-in of the key stakeholders.

3. Rewards and recognition: ensuring that employees – and suppliers – who embrace change are properly recognized and rewarded. This final step is when implementation is not only measured, but also celebrated.”

I’m going to say it again…and again. All sustainable business roads lead through the procurement function.  The procurement function is the perfect nexus and a critical organizational player that touches product designers, engineers, multiple tiers of suppliers and subcontractors, manufacturing operations, logistical warehousing and distribution and the end users.  Yes indeed, things are looking up for sustainable procurement…it’s ‘game on’.

Got Sustainable Procurement? Yes! No! Maybe. Supply Chain Surveys Read the Tea Leaves (Part1)

Courtesy LeoReynolds via Flickr CC

To paraphrase  a timeless Bob Dylan song, “The Times They Are A’ Changin’” is no understatement.  You can read the details from across the globe in the news every day and are rapidly happening simultaneously on political, economic and social levels. And business is also making radical changes in the sustainability and corporate social responsibility (CSR)  frontier.

“Then you better start swimmin’
Or you’ll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin’.”- Dylan

One area that appears to be in movement is Procurement. You know, those folks on the third floor in the back that order stuff?  Well, wrong! I’ve maintained that the heart of a sustainable supply chain runs through its procurement function.  That’s because every product- every single purchase- has a hidden human health, environmental and social impact along the entire supply chain.  My previous posts have discussed how the procurement function is a vital cog in product value chain.  Purchasing staff are the “gatekeepers” that can access powerful tools and serve as a bridge between supplier and customer to assure that sustainability and CSR issues are taken into account during purchasing decisions.  2010 was a watershed year for sustainability initiatives and supply chain management and I predicted that 2011 would see greater progress.

So I was incredibly excited when I recently got my hands on a relatively new white paper from Ariba, entitled “VISION 2020 -Ideas for Procurement in 2020 by Industry-Leading Procurement Executives”.  According to the conveners of the document, the “objective [of the effort initiated in 2010] is to initiate a dialogue on the future of procurement and to create a roadmap for how to get there.”  For that, they connected with leading practitioners and executives from around the world and across a variety of sectors to share their ideas, best practices and to read the tea leaves as to where procurement might be in 10 years.

And while the initial report laid out some pretty intriguing and widely varying trends and predictions about the state of procurement in the corporate function, I was unfulfilled.  I was all ready to read about how the emergence of sustainability in the marketplace was going to drive procurement decisions.  I expected to hear how top flight companies around the world were collaborating with their supply chain, implementing staff training on ‘green purchasing’ practices, and implementing sustainability driven supplier audits and ratings scorecards.

Boy, was I wrong!  Only ONE  mention of the word “sustainability” (thank you Dr. Heinz Schaeffer, Chief Procurement Officer, Northern and Central Eastern Europe for AXA), and no mentions of “responsible sourcing”, “green supply chain” or “sustainable sourcing”.  I would have expected more from chief procurement representatives from the likes of KeyBank, Maersk, Sodexho, and former execs from Hewlett- Packard, General Motors, and DuPont.  Most of these companies are generally considered leaders in the sustainability space.  So why would there be a disconnect between what companies are doing in design, manufacturing and product life cycle management and the procurement function?

Before we go too far, its helpful to define what “sustainable procurement” is.  While there is no singular definition for it, I like the definition offered up by the  UK-based Chartered Institute of Purchasing & Supply (CIPS).  CIPS definition is  “a process whereby organisations meet their needs for goods, services, works and utilities in a way that achieves value for money on a whole life basis in terms of generating benefits not only to the organisation, but also to society and the economy, whilst minimising damage to the environment.”.  And what CIPS defines as  ‘whole life basis’ is that “sustainable procurement should consider the environmental, social and economic consequences of design; non-renewable material use; manufacture and production methods; logistics; service delivery; use; operation; maintenance; reuse; recycling options; disposal; and suppliers capabilities to address these consequences throughout the supply chain” [emphasis added].

It’s a good thing that the authors from Ariba stated that “The [2020 Vision]report is intended not as an end, but rather as a point of departure for much discussion and debate around where procurement can and should be setting its sights for the year 2020 and beyond.  In fact, Ariba invites readers to “join the debate and to extend the discussion with new ideas by joining the conversation.  I have and I hope you will too.  But I think I’ll start right here first.

Key Findings of Interest:

The report identified six key trending areas and take-aways among the participants who have weighed in so far, namely:

1. Procurement devolves- with spend management requirements shrinking, companies are being forced to optimize what resources they have and make better informed decisions.  More work at the business line level will occur, possible eliminating the central procurement function entirely.  Money and metrics will drive most decisions as companies face leaner profit margins.  There will be a need to engage end customers more and more and leverage relationships.
2. The new supply management emerges– some traditional sourcing functions may become outsourced.  Strategy “will tie directly to an enterprise’s end customers and it will be more cognizant of the diversity of desires and requirements within the customer base”.
3. Skill sets change.  The Chief Procurement Officer and staff must have broader skills that allow them to not only create opportunities for revenue enhancement internally and optimized “spend”, but also be more in touch with end customer values-driven needs. Procurement staff need to be tuned into multiple tiers of the supply chain, dive deep “inside the supply chain and bring [issues] forward to the designers within [individual] companies”.
4. Instantaneous intelligence arrives.    Market pricing will become more transparent [the Cloud forces transparency to some degree].  Companies will have to rapidly extract innovation and other value from supplier bases, and build exclusive commercial relationships with leading suppliers that share both risks and rewards.
5. Collaboration reigns- There will be as the report notes a “big emphasis on driving and taking innovation from the supply base… the supply role will be less ‘person-who-brings-innovation-in’ and more ‘person-who-assembles-innovation-communities-and-gets-out-of-the-way’.  Suppliers are being asked more often to participate in early design and product development as a way to leverage risk and control overall product life cycle management risks.
6. Risk management capacity and demands soar– as companies are already realizing, effective procurement relies on response to risk management variables (financial, ethical, and operational performance).  Companies must create “360-degree performance ratings and provide greater transparency into market dynamics, potential supply disruptions, and supplier capabilities”.  A few participants noted that  there will be a “big expansion in the kinds of risks companies address in their supply chains, considering, for example, such things as suppliers’ sustainability, social responsibility…”.

Now if I read in between the lines, I can easily pluck out a number of key procurement trends from the 2020 report that transfer well to sustainability and responsible sourcing.  Risk Management.  Collaboration.  Design phase (life cycle) engagement of multi-tiered suppliers.  Key performance metrics. Responding to consumer demands. Supplier performance ratings. 

Courtesy babycreative via Flickr CC

One takeaway for me appears that there may be a disconnect still between the procurement function and other functions within organizations. So is the procurement function still operating in obscurity in most organizations?  It all depends who you talk to but also on your skill at reading the tea leaves.

Rest assured that compared to only a few years ago, more companies that are seeking to manage the life cycle environmental impact of their productsfrom design and acquisition of materials through the entire production, distribution and end of life management.  They’re finding sustainable procurement to be a valuable tool to quantify and compare a product or component’s lifetime environmental and social impact early on in a products value chain while positioning the company for smart growth in a rebounding economy.  We may be at a sustainable procurement “tipping point” and Part 2 will present the results of a very promising benchmark report recently released by HEC-Paris and Ecovadis, which tells a much different story.

The times they are [indeed] a’changin’.

A Year After the BP Oil Spill- a Slow Recovery, Continued Risk Management Challenges

A year ago last week, and for months afterward, we were bombarded with horrible images of potentially catastrophic proportions.  The Gulf Coast was under siege from the Deepwater Horizon blowout and resultant spill.  Dead or dying waterfowl and sea life haunted our dreams.  Tourists scooped up tar balls from Gulf Shores, Alabama to Pensacola, Florida.  Round the clock news coverage of the economic devastation was heaped unexpectedly on the gulf coast.   Cleanup crews deployed nearly useless 20^th century solutions to a 21^st century problem.  Hapless oil executives spun their stories and federal government agencies did too little, too late.  And the problem kept growing while the oil kept spewing from the blown out well, miles below the surface.

Risk Control Lacking

Just after the spill occurred, I wrote a piece on the lack of risk management protocols  and oversight that matched the nature of the work and how it was inevitable that this type of event would occur.

“I have no doubt that there has been a central breakdown in process risk management, commonly used by organizations to establish procedures to safely manage the greatest of uncertainties of its daily operations.  This means that if a company is going to drill a mile under the Gulf of Mexico, they should FIRST make certain that all possible failure scenarios are identified, evaluated, tested and implemented, before that first barrel of oil is extracted…While it’s vital that 24 hour protocols be applied to day-to-day activities that may be a threat to environmental well-being, unforeseeable events involving human error or equipment failure must be managed too… inadequate steps have been put in place to 1) evaluate “worst case” impacts associated with catastrophic failures of equipment or systems; 2) establish policies and program to mitigate short and long-term environmental risk factors and 3) assure that there are financial cushions (cleanup and reclamation bonds, for instance) that continue to hold those liable before they can run or hide.”

Spring turned to summer and finally on July 15, 2010 the leak was stopped after it had released about 4,900,000 barrels of crude oil, the well was capped.  But the troubles were far from over and as I reported shortly before the well was finally capped, recovery takes time. When writing about the possibilities of a rebounding gulf coast (both ecologically and economically), I spoke of resiliency, the “structural issues” that appeared in the oil exploration, approval and development process, and the steps needed to nurture a full recovery.

The current, devastating Deepwater Horizon oil spill and ecological crisis in the Gulf of Mexico presents a great set of uncertainties and human-induced risks not realized before in terms of scope and magnitude…Ecosystems are dynamic and ever-changing.  This changing dynamic flow continues its natural cycles and fluctuations at the same time that it continues to recovery from impacts of spilled oil.  As time passes, separating natural changes from oil spill related impacts becomes harder to distinguish.  So time will tell, and after the well is finally plugged (and it will be plugged) and the last drop of oil spills, the long term ecological “rebound” will begin.

Then the fingers started pointing, lawyers got involved, congressional testimony began and yielded few results.  Few companies claimed immediate responsibility nor were they held accountable.  BP said that they would pay “all legitimate claims”.  But that promise seemed hollow to those immediately affected, and the restitution payments flowed like the oil drifting on the surface of the gulf waters.  The status of claims paid can be found in this interview with U.S. Claims Administrator Ken Feinberg, but in a nutshell roughly 25% of the $20 billion set aside by BP has been paid out.

Government Call for Better Risk Management

On January 5, 2011, White House National Commission convened to review the oil spill released a final report detailing faults by the companies that led to the spill.  The report noted that “Better management of decision-making processes” within BP, Halliburton and Transocean (the three key players in this ordeal), “better communication within and between BP and its contractors” and “effective training of key engineering and rig personnel” would have prevented the blowout.  The panel also noted a key breakdown in communicating with government agencies, which did not have “sufficient knowledge or authority to notice these cost-cutting decisions”.

The record shows that without effective government oversight, the offshore oil and gas industry will not adequately reduce the risk of accidents, nor prepare effectively to respond in emergencies. However, government oversight, alone, cannot reduce those risks to the full extent possible. Government oversight … must be accompanied by the oil and gas industry’s internal reinvention: sweeping reforms that accomplish no less than a fundamental transformation of its safety culture. Only through such a demonstrated transformation will industry—in the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon disaster—truly earn the privilege of access to the nation’s energy resources located on federal properties.

Economy and Ecology- Rebounding…Slowly

Flashing forward to this last week, on the economic side, only seven of the 34 deep water rigs operating at the time of the explosion are in operation (due to the moratorium that was put in place by the Obama Administration last year).  Following the sunset of that moratorium last fall, it’s been reported that off shore production may ramp up to about 15 or 20 by the end of the year, meaning the addition of the thousands of oil industry and related service jobs that have been lost since the spill.  A Wall Street Journal article last week highlighted the struggles that small businesses (small marinas, seafood restaurants, commercial fish operations etc) have had in the past year.

A BBC report last week noted that “scientists have warned that it is too soon to attempt to offer a considered assessment on what impact the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the largest of its kind, has had on the Gulf of Mexico’s wildlife.   In short, they said, nature did not work in such a way that the full picture will present itself within just one year.  It’s clear that given the rate of recovery from the Exxon Valdez spill over 20 years ago that more data will be needed in the years ahead to assess the full extent of the ecological damage done.

But Dr. Jane Lubchenco (Administrator at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric) believed that reports of systems recovery suggest that the health of the Gulf is “much better than people feared”, but the jury was out about what the end result would be.  According to some reports, signs 60 pounds of tar balls still wash ashore daily along the 33-mile stretch of beach that runs near the Interstate 65 corridor near Orange Beach, Ala..  Meantime, one thing I can tell you is that Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal was plugging gulf coast seafood big time last week on National Public Radio and elsewhere.

Not Out of the Woods, More Work Needed

Progress toward requiring safer drilling, protecting natural resources and compensating victims has been uneven at best.  As reported in an Op-Ed last week, “Without the reforms fully in place, the administration is plunging ahead despite the well-documented inability of industry and government to prevent accidents in deep water. For starters, the federal government needs a better understanding of how operating rigs under the intense pressure of deep water can cause blowout preventers — the so-called last lines of defense — and other critical equipment to fail…. There also should be a more complete picture of whether rig operators have the assets — people, vessels, know-how, and money— to respond to a spill.”

The Op-ed also stated “The Federal government needs a better sense of the risks of offshore drilling and a better process for sharing that analysis with other agencies — the Coast Guard, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency — that play a key role in any emergency response.”  For instance,  the newly created Bureau of Ocean Energy Management has added only 4 new inspectors (now at 60) to cover more than 3,500 drill rigs and platforms in the Gulf.  New monies allocated by Congress may alleviate that serious oversight deficiency, but it will take time, training and education to get new inspectors up to speed.  Meanwhile, inspection and oversight is spread too thin and the oil industry appears to be in no rush to help fund additional inspectors (especially at the same pace they are lobbying at to get more drill rigs operating again in the Gulf).

Photo by alancleaver_2000. (via Creative Commons license)

In the second post on risk that I published last year after the gulf spill, I noted that a continuous risk management process helps organizations understand, manage, and communicate risk and avoid potential catastrophic conditions that can lead to loss of life, property and the environment.  I laid out a typical six-step process to achieve effective risk management and failure mode control.  I also noted ”What will be … fascinating will be the lessons learned and if businesses truly embrace risk management planning and implementation as a central function of business, take it seriously and hold themselves accountable.”

Last week, Bob Dudley the Chief Executive of BP, wrote an opinion letter in the Wall Street Journal.  In the piece, Mr. Dudley indicated that the company was “creating a central safety and operational-risk organization reporting directly to me. This organization has the mandate and resources to drive safe, reliable operations that comply with regulations, and it has the authority to intervene in our operations anywhere in the world. We are also linking the management of employees’ performance and reward directly to safety and to compliance with BP’s standards….We will not use rigs on our projects that do not conform to our standards. We have either turned away rigs or are negotiating for modifications to particular rigs that will bring them up to our standards.”  Dudley also noted that “… around 7% of the world’s oil supplies are coming from the deep water, a total we expect will rise to nearly 10% by the end of this decade. That means we must have better safety technology, more effective equipment and the capability to deal with a blowout in the deep water.”

Summary

The National Commission on the spill and members of industry, academia and Congress have made solid “suggestions” for beefing up the regulatory framework for oil exploration and drilling, including: tougher inspections; higher fees from industry to self-fund more policing programs; greater financial liability for companies that spill into waterways as a means to encourage responsible behavior and to cover accident cleanup and recovery costs.

It appears, looking back, that industry and government have moved in the right direction to address the systemic problems that emerged from the Deepwater Horizon spill and follow-up investigations.  But as the current status clearly shows, I’ve grave concerns about on-going performance and genuine progress in adopting genuine, effective risk management tools, oversight and governance. Until there is 100% assurance that such a system is fully in place, fully staffed, fully operational and with full oversight assurance, I am fearful of a repeat…whether it’s in deep water or in other harsh environments, such as the Arctic.

Meanwhile it’s vital that the U.S. continue expanding the search for alternative forms of land-based fuel and energy and support the funding of alternative, cleaner fuels and greener technologies.

Navigating Sustainable Supply Chain Management in China Takes a Keen Eye & Business Sense

2010 marked a watershed moment in supply chain sourcing among worldwide manufacturers and retailers. Sustainability observers and practitioners read nearly weekly announcements of yet another major manufacturer or retailer setting the bar for greener supply chain management.  With a much greater focus on monitoring, measurement and verification, retailers and manufacturers Wal-Mart, Marks and Spencer, IBM, Proctor and Gamble, Kaiser Permanente, Puma, Ford, Intel, Pepsi, Kimberly-Clark, Unilever, Johnson & Johnson, Herman Miller among many others made major announcements concerning efforts to engage, collaborate and track supplier/vendor sustainability efforts, especially those involving overseas operations.  Central to each of these organizations is how suppliers and vendors impact the large companies’ carbon footprint, in addition to other major value chain concerns such as material and water resource use, waste management and labor/human rights issues.Meanwhile, efforts from China’s manufacturing sector regarding sustainable sourcing and procurement, was at best, mixed with regard to proactive sustainability.  From my perspective as a U.S. based sustainability practitioner (with a passion in supply chain management), the challenges that foreign businesses with manufacturing relationships in China can be daunting.  Recent events concerning Apple Computers alleged lax supplier oversight and reported supplier human rights and environmental violations only shows a microcosm of the depth of the challenges that suppliers face in managing or influencing these issues on the ground.  Apple recently did the right thing by transparently releasing its Apple Supplier Responsibility 2011 Progress Report, which underscored just how challenging and difficult multi-tiered supply chain management can be.  But all is certainly not lost and many companies have in recent years begun to navigate the green supply chain waters in China. 

According to a World Resources Institute White Paper issued in the fall of 2010, China faces a number of supply chain challenges.  First, the recent spate of reports alleging employee labor and environmental violations can place manufacturing partnerships with global corporations at risk.  According to the report, Chinese suppliers that are unable to meet the environmental performance standards of green supply chain companies may not be able to continue to do business with such firms. Wal-Mart has already gone on record, announcing that it will no longer purchase from Chinese suppliers with poor environmental performance records. In order to be a supplier to Wal-Mart, Chinese companies must now provide certification of their compliance with China’s environmental laws and regulations.

Photo Courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/scobleizer/ under Creative Commons license

Wal-Mart, like many other IT and apparel manufacturers also conducts audits on a factory’s performance against specific environmental and sustainability performance criteria, such as air emissions, water discharge, management of toxic substances and hazardous waste disposal. These actions are extremely significant as Wal-Mart procures from over 10,000 Chinese suppliers.  This increased scrutiny on environmental and corporate social responsibility through supplier scoring and sustainability indexing, says the WRI report may trump price, quality, and delivery time as a decisive factor in a supplier’s success in winning a purchasing contract.

Chinese Government Stepping Up Enforcement

Finally, what good news I hear about the depth of environmental regulations on the books in China is buffered by the apparent lax enforcement of the rules and regulations.  That is however appearing to change.  The WRI report indicated that the Chinese State Council is directing key government agencies, including the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Finance, and the Ministry of Environmental Protection to prohibit tax incentives, restrict exports and raise fees for energy intensive and polluting industries, such as steel, cement, and minerals extraction.   Also, it’s been reported in the past years that the People’s Bank of China and the Ministry of Environmental Protection are also working with local Chinese banks to implement the ‘Green Credit’ program, which prevents loans to Chinese firms with poor environmental performance records. In addition, the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Finance have issued a notice to all Chinese central and local governments to purchase goods from suppliers that are ‘energy efficient’. Finally, on a local level, governments have developed preferred supplier lists for companies producing environmental-friendly products for their purchasing needs.

Supplier Challenges Are Not Just Environmental

A China Supply Chain Council survey conducted in 2009 identified a huge gap in knowledge between (1) clear understanding of which environmental issues posed the greatest risk (2) what to do to manage significant environmental risks.  Also, nearly 40% of the company’s surveyed thought sustainability to be cost prohibitive, too complicated or where particular expertise was lacking don’t have the expertise (on the other hand 60% did!).  Two- thirds of respondents did consider sustainability to be a supply chain priority, although many were not confident of the return on investment.  However, more than half of the respondents reported that they had begun collaborating with their larger supply chain partners.    In fact, according to the World Resources Institute White Paper, despite increasing pressures to improve their environmental performance, Chinese suppliers face many financial challenges to operating in a more sustainable manner

World Resources Institute White paper notes increasing  non-environmental pressures, including: “Extended green investment “payback”: While improving resource consumption, such as energy and water, provides long-term cost savings, the payback for making such environmental investments may be as long as three years, which is financially impossible  for many Chinese suppliers. Lack of financial incentives from green supply chain buyers: Multinational buyers are often unwilling to change purchasing commitments and long-term     purchasing contracts to Chinese suppliers that make the investments to improve their environmental performance. Rising operational costs: Chinese suppliers face  rising resource and labor costs. For example, factory wages have increased  at an average annual rate of 25 percent during 2007 to 2010. Rising costs dissuade suppliers from making environmental investments which may raise  operating costs. Limited access to finance: The majority of Chinese suppliers are small and medium-scale enterprises (SMEs) with limited access to formal financing channels such as bank loans.  Chinese SMEs account for less than 10 percent of all bank lending in China,  and as a result, Chinese suppliers frequently do not have the capital to     make the necessary environmental investments. Intense domestic and global competition: Chinese suppliers face intense competition from thousands of firms, both  domestic and international, within their industries. This intense competition puts constant pressure on suppliers to cut costs, which can  include environmental protections, in an effort to stay in business.

Leveraging the Supply Chain to Gain “Reciprocal Value”

Leading edge, sustainability –minded and innovative companies have found “reciprocal value” through enhanced product differentiation, reputation management and customer loyalty.  I recently highlighted the model efforts that GE has implemented with its China based suppliers to implant responsible and environmentally proactive manufacturing into their operations.  GE’s comprehensive supplier assessment program evaluates suppliers in China and other developing economies for environment, health and safety, labor, security and human rights issues. GE has leaned on its thousands of suppliers to obtain the appropriate environmental and labor permits, improve their environmental compliance and overall performance.   In addition, GE and other multi-national companies (including Wal-Mart, Honeywell, Citibank and SABIC Innovative Plastics) have partnered to create the EHS Academy in Guangdong province.  The objective of this no-profit venture is to create a more well-trained and capable workforce of environmental, health and safety professionals.

Summary

Many of my prior posts have highlighted the critical needs for increased supply chain collaboration among the world’s largest manufacturers in order to effectively operationalize sustainability in Chinese manufacturing plants. This is especially evident for large worldwide manufacturers operating subcontractor arrangements in developing nations and “tiger economies”, such as India, Mexico and China (and the rest of Southeast Asia). Global manufacturer efforts underscore how successful greening efforts in supply chains can be based on value creation through the sharing of intelligence and know-how about environmental and emerging regulatory issues and emerging technologies.

Suppliers and customers stand so much to gain from collaboratively strengthening each other’s performance and sharing cost of ownership and social license to operate.  But as I have stated before, supply chain sustainability and corporate governance must first be driven by the originating product designers and manufacturers that rely on deep tiers of suppliers and vendors in far-away places for their products.

Note: This piece is adapted from a recent article that I wrote, “Navigating China’s Green Road” that appears in China Sourcing Magazine