Scalable Consumption + Supply Chain + Circular Economy = Hope for Sustainable Economies

Consumers have unprecedented opportunity to be active shapers of the products and services they buy and use, rather than passive receivers, taking whatever companies provide.  Apples most recent litmus test on corporate social responsibility with its key Chinese supply chain manufacturing partner, Foxconn, and resulting consumer outcry is but just one example of the power that consumers have to sway products manufacturers to alter their business patterns.

At the recent World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Aron Cramer (CEO and President of Business for Social Responsibility or BSR) observed at one workshop the “fast-changing relationship between businesses and consumers. The question on the minds of many of the business executives in the room was “is this good or bad for business”. The answer to this particular either/or question is undoubtedly both. Companies that stay ahead of this curve by involving consumers in product design; providing transparent information about the social and environmental content of these products, and looking at new models to provide value in new ways will prosper. Those that don’t will find growth hard to come by.”

Scaling Consumption in a Smart and Sustainable Way

The WEF has devoted a great deal of attention to the issue of scaling consumption sustainably as the world economy shifts both demographically and economically. WEF examines these issues in a report entitled: More with Less: Scaling Sustainable Consumption and Resource Efficiency. The study properly takes a “systems view” of sustainable consumption.  In other words, rather than focusing just on the demand side, WEF looks at the challenges and possible solutions through a value-chain centric lens of what they describe as:

• consumer engagement (demand)
• value chains and upstream action (supply)
• policies and an enabling environment to accelerate change (rules of the game).

“Making your business sustainable in today’s world is an absolute imperative. The business case for sustainable growth is clearer than ever and the urgency of the issues we face means that business leaders have no choice but to act. ” Paul Polman. Chief Executive Officer, Unilever

As WEF explains, “The main outcome is the identification of key focus areas for business leadership through concrete goals and collaboration across industries”.  For this report, WEF engaged with chief executive officers, business leaders and experts worldwide, seeking answers and thoughts centered six key questions:

1. What are the key trends in sustainable consumption?
2. What is the size of the opportunity for countries, companies and consumers?
3. What are the barriers to scaling existing models of sustainable consumption?
4. What does getting to scale look like?
5. What new solutions are needed to get to scale in sustainable consumption?
6. How can we achieve scale by working collectively and creating action on new fronts?

 Barriers, Mind Sets and Complexities- Oh My!

To no surprise, the report identified a number of internal and external barriers to staving and influencing scalable and sustainable consumption, notably (according to the report):

• Consumers lack incentives for sustainable consumption and are confused by mixed messages. The study noted that one survey of British consumers indicated that 70% were uncertain about the environmental performance of the products they buy.  I have seen similar surveys here in the United States that compare with the British results
• Supply chains are complex, opaque and interconnected. Deep supply chains, like Apples or the textile industry, create many complexities that place  limits to in certainties sustainable sourcing
• Technology remains costly and inadequately deployed.   The study notes that “Fewer than 20 facilities in the world are certified to melt down and recycle the cathode ray tubes of old television sets, and all are in Asia. E-waste, which at present largely originates in the US and Europe will travel across multiple countries and continents for recycling – putting the environmental benefits into question and causing additional social concerns”.  That being said, more collaborative enterprises across industries and economies can replace the linear economies that characterize western industrial nations, and create more opportunities to expand technologies further and wider.
• Policy incentives remain weak. The report notes that “trade systems and tariffs rarely differentiate between unsustainable and more sustainable alternatives, preventing a potential increase of 7–13% in the traded volumes of sustainable products
• Short-termism dominates the landscape, and traction in fast-growing markets remains low. Typical of capitalism and free enterprise, most companies growth targets rarely look out father than a few years, and seek short term gains to keep shareholders happy.  The WEF report noted that “55% of FTSE 100 company sustainability targets were to be achieved within 1–2 year timeframes, while only 18% looked out to 2018–2020”.

The graphic below suggests some strategies in the report to overcome these barriers along the three key value-chain points as described above.

Solutions for Scaling Economies (Source, WEF, 2012)

Moving Toward a Circular Economy

Something else also happened “on the way to the Forum” (well actually at the Forum) that may offer some insights and solutions that are discussed in the WEF report.  At Davos, Ellen MacArthur, head of the non-profit Ellen MacArthur Foundation, suggested that while” rapid technological evolution across all major industry sectors,{was taking place] … very little change within the economic model itself {has been occurring]. The economy is still based on a linear “take, make and dispose” model.”  A new report Towards the Circular Economy, analyzes the international business case behind the idea of shifting from a linear to a more circular economy.

“The essence of the circular economy lies in designing goods using technical materials to facilitate disassembly and re-use, and structuring business models so manufacturers can reap rewards from collecting and refurbishing, remanufacturing, or redistributing products they make. In this model all things are made to be made again, ultimately using energy from renewable sources[and in a less toxic manner]. Companies shift to focusing on selling performance in the place of product, and consumers now become users.” – Ellen MacArthur

Make sense?  Well if Ms. MacArthurs numbers are correct, “embracing the circular economy model could lead to an annual economic opportunity of up to $630bn a year towards 2025.”  Where do I sign up!!??  Still interested?  Read more about the circular economy, ways to leverage the entire supply chain and build sustainable, scalable consumption here and view a fascinating video here. .

As Aron Cramer mentioned in a GreenBiz article in January, the time for sustainable consumption is now.  “The need to develop new consumption patterns is the mother of all innovation challenges. The race to dematerialize is on. Some of this will come from the digital revolution, as newspapers can now be delivered wirelessly to e-readers instead of plopping dead trees on the doorstep. But some of the innovation will come from redesigning business models.”  Perhaps Mr. Cramer and Ms. MacArthur are onto something.

Are you, as consumer, as manufacturer, product designer or corporate executive, or even as fellow Planet-eer, ready to help make that change?  We can change the rules of the game together, for a stronger, more circular economy. As Captain Planet says, “The Power is Yours”.

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’.

Nothing Says “Green Supply Chain’ Like Innovative, Sustainable Packaging

Courtesy Tiny Banquet Committee under CC License

The pea pod is possibly the greatest sustainable packaging design nature can provide.  It packs a lot in a small space, efficiently uses the minimum amount of resources…and best of all its compostable…well sort of unless I eat it!

And like the simple pea pod, few sustainability attributes in a supply chain come together across the value chain than packaging.  Packaging and repackaging is ubiquitous along every step of the chain, from product design, prototyping, procurement production, distribution, consumer end use and post consumer end-of-life management.  And the more parts that are in use in making of a product, and steps along the way to deliver the parts, the greater the packaging (and hence environmental footprint) involved along that chain.  And for every packaged part that comes from someplace else to make a product, a similar carbon, energy and resource use can be measured.

That’s why sustainable practices in packaging are so important in driving supply chain efficiency…and why innovation in the ‘green’ packaging sector has been “white hot” the past several years. A study by Accenture found that retailers can realize a 3 percent to 5 percent supply chain cost savings via green packaging initiatives. So if you extrapolate that type of savings out across multiple tiers of supply chain activity, where packaging is the common denominator, the efficiencies and savings can rack up quickly.

A new report from research organization Visiongain finds that because of a variety of drivers such as carbon emissions, extended producer responsibility and waste reduction targets plus advanced packaging technologies, the sustainable and green packaging market’s worth is expected to reach $107.7 billion in 2011. Their report shows varying degrees of growth from developed to developing nations; however what’s striking is that the growth trend is weathering the slumping global economy and higher production costs.

Sustainable Packaging 101

Sustainable packaging solutions deliver around two colors according to the Accenture report: black (deliver reduced costs) and green (reduce environmental impacts). Sustainable packaging relies on best engineering, energy management, materials science and life cycle thinking to minimize the environmental impact of a product through its lifecycle.  Given the past decade or so of science and engineering work around sustainable packaging, there are some discovered and tested attributes, such as:

1. Reducing packaging and maximizing the use of renewable or reusable materials
2. Using lighter weight, less toxic or other materials which reduce negative end-of-life impacts
3. Demonstrating compliance with regulations regarding hazardous chemicals and packaging and waste legislation ( such as the European Directive 94/62/EC  on Packaging and Packaging Waste)
4. Optimizing material usage including product-to-package ratios
5. Using materials which are from certified, responsibly managed forests
6. Meeting criteria for performance and cost (e.g., minimize product damage during transit)
7. Reducing the flow of solid waste to landfill
8. Reducing the costs associated with packaging (i.e., logistics, storage, disposal, etc.)
9. Reducing CO2 emissions through reduced shipping loads

Best in Class Examples

I have seen companies stress the importance of the 6 R’s of sustainable packaging (refill, reduce, recycle, repurpose, renew, reuse;  Walmarts 7 R’s of Sustainable Packaging (Remove Packaging, Reduce Packaging, Reuse Packaging , Renew(able), Recycle(able), Revenue (economic benefits), and  Read (education);  and even the 10 R’s eco-strategy (Replenish, Reduce, Re-explore, Replace, Reconsider, Review, Recall, Redeem, Register and Reinforce).

Associations are stepping up to the plate as well as manufacturers in a variety of consumer product markets.  In March of this year, the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA) announced the results of survey research by McKinsey that indicated elimination of more than 1.5 billion pounds (800 million pounds of plastic and more than 500 million pounds of paper) since 2005, and another 2.5 billion pounds are expected to be avoided by 2020.  Over 180 packaging initiatives were identified and evaluated.  The GMA estimated that the reduction would be equal to a 19 percent reduction of reporting companies’ total average U.S. packaging weight.

In the fast moving consumer goods category Coca Cola’s packaging efficiency efforts just in 2009 avoided the use of approximately 85,000 metric tons of primary packaging, resulting in an estimated cost savings of more than $100 million.  The company rolled out of short-height bottle closures, reducing material use, implemented traditional packaging material light weighting; and used more recycled materials in packaging production.  At the end consumer point, the company has also supported the direct recovery of 36% of the bottles and cans placed into the market by the Coca-Cola system and continues to work with distributors on increasing recovery efforts.

In the electronics space, Dell Computer committed in 2008 to reduce cost by $8 million and quantity by 20 million pounds of packaging by 2012 centered around three themes (cube, content, curb):

• Shrinking packaging volume by 10 percent (cube)
• Increasing to 40 percent, the amount of recycled content in packaging (content)
• Increasing to 75 percent, the amount of material in packaging to be curbside recyclable (curb).

As an example, Dell wanted to find a greener, more cost efficient way to package its computers by eliminating foams, corrugated and molded paper pulp.  The solution was sustainably sourced bamboo packaging certified by the Forest Stewardship Council.  So far, Dells efforts have resulted in eliminating over 8.7 million pounds of packaging, and they have nearly met their recycled content goal.

Perhaps most significantly, WalMart took a huge step in 2007 to seek supplier conformance around packaging.  Since then, despite the initial uproar, there has been an uptick in design and innovative product activity by thousands of key suppliers in response to the mega-retailers challenge.  By reducing packaging in the Wal-Mart supply chain by just five (5) percent by 2013, that would 1) prevent 660,000 tons of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere, keeping 200,000 trucks off the road every year (that’s a green attribute) and save the company more than $3.4 billion (a black attribute).  Walmarts bottom line was to put more products on its shelves in the same space, and also recognized the sustainability attributes that change would make.  They also knew that most consumers (me included) just despise excess packaging.  Here are two examples of Walmart supplier efforts from a small and large supplier:

Alpha Packaging: the company has a new bottle design for Gumout Fuel Injection Cleaner.  The company concentrated the product and switched from PVC bottles (which are not recyclable) to much smaller bottles made from PET (which is recyclable and has 30% post-consumer recycled content).  This led to 1) reduced product weight by up to 51% and 2) capability to transport a truck filled with new 6 oz products (formerly 12 oz) equating to 153,600 bottles as opposed to 61,000 originally.

General Mills: the company took a novel approach and they looked at the product first.  They straightened its Hamburger Helper noodles, meaning the product could lie flatter in the box. This, in turn, allowed General Mills to reduce the size of those boxes.   According to the company, that effort saved nearly 900,000 pounds of paper fiber annually.  The company effort also managed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 11 percent, took 500 trucks off the road and increased the amount of product Wal-Mart shelves by 20 percent.

Win-Win-Win.  For the environment, for manufacturers and suppliers, and for consumers.

Full Circle Collaboration is Vital to Drive Sustainable Packaging

What makes sustainable packaging compelling is that it’s one of the key elements of a product that consumers can see, touch and feel.  Over packaging or improper packaging can produce high reaction levels, right? (remember last year’s noisy Sun Chips compostable bag dust up?)  But in an interesting post last year in Packaging Digest by Katherine O’Dea of the Sustainable Packaging Coalition, she mentioned the critical importance of collaboration between brand owners and retailers. What was a scary statistic is that “brand owners and retailers may have direct control over as little as 5 percent of the environmental impacts of packaging and only indirect control over the other 95 percent.”  On the other hand another study conducted by the market research firm Datamonitor showed of U.S. consumers surveyed, 49% felt that packaging design has a medium or high level of influence over their choice of food and drink products.

Just as there are challenges to drive consumer acceptance of more sustainable types of package designs (especially aesthetics), there are equally challenging design factors (such as package strength, permeability, and other physical factors that may compromise product integrity during shipment.

Opportunities to Leverage the Supply Chain from Design to Post Consumer Package management

High performing manufacturing companies are clearly using sustainable packaging design and manufacturing as a way to lever efficiencies through the product value chain.  Companies are finding that using less complex packaging helps cut sourcing, energy production and distribution and fuel costs across the supply chain.  The glory days of corrugated packaging as the one stop solution are being replaced with reusable packaging options.  Also, reducing the consumption of raw materials, carbon emissions and waste generation reduces manufacturing costs.

Since disposal by consumers is one of the largest waste streams in the supply chain, using less packaging of direct-to-consumer shipments also offers great opportunities for supply chain optimization.  The previously mentioned Accenture report recommends that through route planning and sourcing software, “collaboration across the companies in the supply chain is necessary to maximize freight utilization. In particular, retailers need to proactively encourage vendors to provide pallet or “trailer feet” specifications for collecting shipments… retailer’s planners can determine the optimum transportation mode and look for multi-stop opportunities.”

Optimized Supply Chain (Accenture)

As shown in the accompanying diagram, Accenture suggests there are opportunities to reduce the packaging/un-packaging cycle by addressing the product life-cycle and optimized material use.   Through ongoing recycling and the use of alternative materials throughout the product value chain, opportunities are created to reduce the volume of packaging waste. Also, take back programs create a two-way transportation flow, with reusable packaging materials being sent back up the supply chain rather than to a landfill.

Remember too that there are several key association and initiatives that can be tapped into, including:

1. Sustainable Packaging Coalition: http://www.sustainablepackaging.org/default.aspx
2. Greener Package: http://www.greenerpackage.com/
3. Sustainable Packaging Alliance: http://www.sustainablepack.org/default.aspx
4. Sustainable Biomaterials Collaborative http://www.sustainablebiomaterials.org
5. Reusable Packaging Association: http://reusables.org/

Some final pointers to consider when designing packaging and using the supply chain to drive sustainability:

• Source alternative sustainable packaging materials- the innovative options are plentiful.
• Evaluate product life-cycle impacts as a way to discover design options that could lead to less packaging.
• Anticipate the total energy and resource use over an entire products package life
• Evaluate materials disposal and post consumer end-of-product life opportunities
• Design products for efficient transport
• Schedule and optimize transportation networks
• Collaborate, Collaborate, Collaborate!

A Systems Perspective on Sustainability, Supply Chain Management- The Intelligent Choice

As we approach the mid-point in 2011, the tea leaves of the economic recovery have ‘sustainability’ in supply chain planning and management firming up as a key “rebuilding” block in company activities.  Two recent studies from two different continents bear that notion out.  First, consultancy BearingPoint Ireland has released a report which says two-thirds of companies surveyed in Europe believe that a green supply chain is a strategic priority. The report, entitled Green Supply Chain: from awareness to action, is the fourth of a series of “supply chain monitors” from the private consultancy.  The study was conducted among about 600 European decision-makers by Novamétrie between 2010 and 2011, with a position within Supply Chain, Sustainable Development or Industrial Divisions.   Key industries captured includes: consumer goods, transportation, construction, automotive, industrial goods, retail, energy and utilities, chemicals, IT/electronics and pharmaceuticals, among others.

The goal of the report, according to the authors was to summarize “the evolution over the past two years in terms of mindset, maturity and actions efficiency [and] explores the green Supply Chain practices in Europe, in order to identify the significant improvements in the most representative industries. The results clearly underline a growing interest of executive managements in developing products with a low environmental impact. What was seen as a constraint is now considered as an opportunity.”

Executive Management Mandates, Reputational Risk Management Are Key Drivers

A notable “inflexion” occurred between this survey round and prior surveys.  For instance, in 2008, findings suggested that supply chain ‘greening’ was primarily being driven by important environmental and regulatory developments (such as REACH, WEE, RoHS or the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme).  Now, with compliance programs associated with these initiatives firmly entrenched or in initial development, the drivers appear to be shifting toward meeting internal executive management commitments and addressing reputation management and/or consumer demands.  In other words, according to the report, “Environmental actions presently address new constraints and motives, which are more mature and integrated to companies’ decision processes.” Key findings from BearingPoint’s report include:

• 70% of surveyed companies declare that green Supply Chain is a true economical lever.
• For 47% of the companies, the return on investment of a green Supply Chain is reached within 3 years.
• More than half of European companies now use environmental criteria to assess their Supply Chain performance: share of recycled packaging material, CO2 emissions.
• Two-thirds of companies adopted or plan to adopt a green policy for their purchases.
• Manufacturers must be able to measure and reduce their carbon footprint if they are to succeed on export markets
• Over half of the respondents in the survey said they did not renew contracts with suppliers who did not respect their green charter.
• Buyers are preferably choosing suppliers with certified processes such as ISO 14001.

According to Bearing Points recent press release, Irish Exporters Association chief executive, John Whelan, said: “There is no question that Irish businesses which produce transparently environmentally positive products, delivered by carbon neutral logistics services will succeed on international markets.”

Sustainability Drivers Both Inside and Out the ‘Four Walls’

In yet another study, Prime Advantage, a buying consortium for midsized manufacturers, unveiled its seventh (2011) Prime Advantage Group Outlook (GO) Survey.  This survey queried small and midsized North American manufacturers, and found that more than 80 percent of North American companies surveyed indicated that they developing more sustainable or energy-efficient products largely driven by customer requirements and compliance regulations.  According to the study, “the biggest driving factors behind these changes are customer requirements (80 percent), followed by compliance regulations (53 percent) and shareholder directives (12 percent). In addition, 57 percent of respondents have also started buying more sustainable indirect products for internal consumption.”

A Systems Perspective Breeds Competitive Intelligence

The Bearing Point study made a statement that caught my eye and for which I wholeheartedly agree.  Identifying with a systems-based mindset that recognizes the intrinsic and realized value sustainability-focused business management is a critical fulcrum for green supply chain practices. I noted in a post last fall that The Fifth Discipline and The Necessary Revolution author Peter Senge argued (in the October Harvard Business Review) that to make progress on environmental issues, organizations must understand that they’re part of a larger system. Senge also makes a great point that companies will be in a better competitive position if they understand the larger system that they operate within and to work with people you haven’t worked with before.

I’ve cited companies like Hewlett-Packard and Danisco as supply chain innovators in their product sectors.  These companies, among other innovators like Intel, P&G, IBM, GE and others, who’ve viewed supply chain in a systematic or holistic manner, organizations successfully have been applying that “big-picture thinking” needed to be truly innovative. Doing so can create leverage points that companies never realized they had before with their suppliers.

Clearly, the environmental (and often the social) footprint of a product extends beyond the four walls of the company who “brands” the product.  This footprint extends upstream and downstream, and must capture, control or influence inputs and outputs all along the way.  Some of the largest footprints (like energy and carbon) lie upstream or in the final hands of the consumers.  This is why leading companies are rethinking the global extents of their supply chains, exploring local sourcing options and implementing other operational efficiencies.

The results of the recent surveys indicate that companies in a wide number of sectors are waking up to the fact that sustainability is more than business innovation- it’s business intelligence.

Manufacturing, Suppliers & Retailers- Partnering for Better Chemical Data in the Supply Chain

(Photo Courtesy of Milosz1 under the Creative Commons license)

“WARNING: This area contains a chemical known to the State of California to cause cancer, birth defects or other reproductive harm.”

Now that I have your attention, have you ever seen one of these warnings posted outside your local convenience store or place of business?  Well, this is one of the many ways that consumers and workers are informed of the presence of chemicals in our everyday lives and the responsibilities that companies have to notify the public and workers of potentially hazardous substances.

This past week, GreenBiz editor Jonathan Bardeline highlighted a cross-sectoral effort by a unique assemblage of manufacturers and retailers, focused on meeting consumers demand for less toxic products. “Meeting Customers’ Needs for Chemical Data,” is a tool with information from major companies such as Johnson & Johnson, Walmart and Hewlett-Packard, SC Johnson, Nike and Seagate, detailing how they interact with chemical suppliers.  The scope of the document focuses on assisting suppliers to product fabricators and formulators[1] , and steps they can take to collaborate to bring safer products to the consumer.

The guidance document was prepared by the Green Chemistry in Commerce Council (GC3)[2], which promotes itself as a “business-to-business network which provides an open forum for participants to discuss and share information and experiences related to advancing green chemistry, design for environment, and sustainable supply chain management.  The projects focus is to “provide the opportunity for cross-sectoral collaboration on enhancing chemical data sharing along supply chains”.   The guidance provides clear signals to suppliers on the needs that fabricators and formulators have for chemical data and the consequences of not providing such data.

Chemical Data 101

To begin to understand what we are really talking about, let’s start at the beginning.  The document lays a great foundation by describing what types of chemical data exist.  Basically, chemical data includes, but is not limited to, the following types of information:

1. Chemical name, trade name, and CAS number of all chemical ingredients in an article or chemical mixture, including known impurities.

2. Function of a chemical ingredient in an article or chemical mixture (e.g. catalyst, plasticizer, monomer, etc.).

3. Human health and ecotoxicological characteristics of chemical ingredients and chemicals used in making that ingredient, as well as their physical safety properties such as flammability.

4. Potential for human or environmental exposure to chemical ingredients in an article or chemical mixture.

Much of the chemical data that exists for products is typically captured in Materials Safety Data Sheets (MSDS) or Safety Data Sheets (SDS).  A great deal of the chemical data must be made available to employees coming into contact with these materials in the workplace through Hazard Communication rules or (in the case of California, Proposition 65).  Other chemical disclosure requirements like TSCA, REACH, RoHS, WEEE[3] are in place to assure proper notification to customers of the potential of toxic constituents and to meet country or sector specific restricted materials rules.

(Photo Courtesy of Nebarnix under Creative Commons license)

Generally, this information is not necessarily required to be made available to the public unless that are product safety related issues i.e. lead or BPA free products.  The SC3 guide correctly notes that “MSDSs are often a company’s only resource for chemical ingredient, hazard, and toxicity information. While they could be more useful, they are better than having no information at all. Unfortunately, MSDSs fall short of providing enough information to satisfy the chemical data needs of many fabricators and formulators.”  This is primarily due to the fact that many MSDS’s do not contain all product constituents, different MSDS’s exist for a similar chemical constituent offered by different manufacturers, and MSDS’s do they apply  to specific products or intermediate products.

Ways Leading Companies are Engaging Suppliers

There are already many efforts already underway within various product sector supply chains to actively share relevant chemical information between fabricators, formulators, and their suppliers, and this report has no shortage of fantastic examples.  When engaging suppliers, the report suggests a few basic steps that every company depending on a deep supplier base must consider taking:

• Written guidance detailing chemical information needed
• Supplier questionnaires with specific questions addressing chemical ingredients, concentrations, toxicity information on chemical ingredients, etc.
• Web portals for chemical data entry.
• Training suppliers on chemical data reporting requirements

For example, the report cites Hewlett-Packard and how they developed a web portal that suppliers use to enter chemical data (the company uses the SAP/Environmental Health and Safety module to process the information.  SC Johnson provides training to suppliers on its internal Greenlist™ raw material rating system. The company focuses particularly on obtaining toxicity data from its suppliers for scoring chemicals and materials.

Managing Confidential and Proprietary Information

Notwithstanding suppliers efforts to obtain data, there are natural concerns that many suppliers may have in releasing confidential and/or proprietary information.  The GC3 guide offers some valuable advice and examples that companies can use to protect the often proprietary nature of their products.  As I have reported before, high-end office furniture manufacturer Herman Miller executed hundreds of Non-Disclosure agreements with its Tier 1 -4 suppliers in its effort to attain zero-landfill waste status and reduce its overall product life-cycle footprint. Method uses a third-party reviewer to evaluate all chemical ingredients for safety prior to their selection for a product formulation.  And SC Johnson uses three layers of confidentiality protection depending on the public availability, types, quantities and specialty formulations of the materials.

On the regulatory front, the U.S.  Environmental Protection Agency last year that it is taking steps to increase the public’s access to chemical information of consumer products, by restricting efforts chemical manufactures to keep chemical information confidential, except under narrower circumstances.  This only underscores the increased emphasis on product transparency, pushing the envelope on placing proprietary information in the public domain, and the possible negative consequences on a company’s business competitiveness.  Or maybe such openness can have a positive business outcome too!

Chemical Industry and the Consumer …Two Green Peas in a Pod

This development gels nicely with the issues recently brought up at the European Petrochemical Association Interactive Supply Chain Workshop that I attended. During my keynote speech on sustainability efforts by the chemical industry, I noted that a number of key indicators were coming to light, particularly in the chemical industry. I noted growing customer concern, public-driven mandates, product preferences, and growing demand for supply chain transparency. I noted too that customers and consumers want to know what’s in that product, it’s environmental footprint, what chemicals it contains, the carbon emissions generated in manufacture.

For many year the internationally accepted Responsible Care Initiative has been a hallmark effort within the chemical industry in safeguarding materials transport and driving innovation in manufacturing, and making safer products. Along with Responsible Care, there has been increased emphasis on environmental and “greener” specification in logistics, and the expansion of communications relating to toxic and hazardous materials. Now, the industry is seeing the growth of environmental indexing, environmental footprints and benchmarking, and less toxic) products in response to the demands of consumer-facing customers such as WalMart and other major retailers.

There is, as the GC3 document states “ a need for communication to be a two-way street to enhance the ability of suppliers and fabricators, formulators, and retailers to work more effectively together in advancing transparency, product safety, and sustainability.”

Get Your Green Chemistry Hat On

Demands for chemical data are likely to increase as government agencies, customers and consumers ask for detailed information on life-cycle impacts of chemicals, materials, and products.  Therefore, its advantageous for suppliers to jump ahead of coming trends, work with their customers to identify data gaps and work collaboratively to fill them.

Photo: © Sebastian Kaulitzki - Fotolia.com

So if you are a supplier just starting to collect chemical data for your customers; or if you are currently responding to customers’ requests for chemical information and additional information that to fulfill your customers ‘requirements; or are a chemical user that needs to communicate with your suppliers about their chemical data; it’s time to begin gathering this value-added data.

The GC3 Guidance provides some great advice, offers solid tools and case studies to drive the business case, and tools to effectively engage both upstream suppliers and downstream customers to green up the supply chain, support product stewardship,  and make consumer products safer.

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[1] The document defines “fabricator” as a manufacturer (or a company that directs suppliers to fabricate) of an “article”. The document defines an” article” as a “finished product, component of a product (such as a circuit board), or source material (such as a textile or leather) sold to other organizations or directly to consumers.  The document also describes a “formulator” as a manufacturer of a chemical preparation or a mixture of substances, such as paint, liquid cleaning products, adhesives or a surfactant package”.

[2] a project of the Lowell Center for Sustainable Production at the University of Massachusetts Lowell (http://www.greenchemistryandcommerce.org)

[3] Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH), Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) Directive, Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive (WEEE)

Studies Prove Business $en$e From Proactive Environmental Management Initiatives & Certifications

I always find it rewarding when a study comes out that underscores the business value of sustainability, especially when backed up with statistics and hard dollars.  Such is the case with a 2008 study by researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology (GIT).  The research study, entitled An Empirical Investigation of Environmental Performance and the Market Value of the Firm, was authored by Brian W. Jacobs, Vinod R. Singhal, and Ravi Subramanian.  The study analyzed the shareholder value effects of environmental performance by measuring the stock market reaction associated with announcements of environmental performance.

The study focused on how markets react to Corporate Environmental Initiatives (CEI) and Environmental Awards and Certifications (EAC).  The results of the study provided compelling data that suggested that “announcements of philanthropic gifts to environmental causes are associated with significant positive market reaction, voluntary emission reductions are associated with significant negative market reaction, and ISO 14001 certifications are associated with significant positive market reaction”.  For me this report validates my devotion over the past 15 years working with small to large manufacturers and public agencies in designing, implementing and maintaining ISO 14001 certifications and in making the argument that “proactive environmental management makes business sense”.  I’m not some crazed environmentalist after all (although my passion occasionally borders on the “evangelical” side)!

The research study focused on reviewing the “market value impacts of specific events (such as use environmental announcements) as a “proxy for the difficult-to-measure construct of environmental performance”.   The study found a statistically significant market reaction to the hundreds of environmental performance announcements evaluated, suggesting a causal link between environmental performance and financial performance.   Specific to ISO 14001 announcements, the market was seen as reacting positively (on a statistical basis) to announcements of ISO 14001 certifications. Years of literature and case studies have offered volumes of data that support the positive impact of environmental management systems in general as well as direct evidence that ISO 14001 certification improves company performance over long periods of time. The authors of the GIT believe that they are the “first to provide empirical evidence of the impact of ISO 14001 certification on market value”.

Body of Evidence

Forays into proactive environmental management and attainment of internationally recognized certifications like ISO 14001, RC 14001 or LEED are not always “window dressing’ to demonstrate commitment to sustainability, as some may believe.  These efforts are more often than not the real deal when it comes to demonstrating value-added savings and long-term return on investment and access to new market.  While the skeptics continue to throw cold water on CEI’s and EAC’s the evidence continues to stack up in favor of long-term benefits.

The results were based on analysis of 811 announcements (430 CEI announcements and 381 EAC announcements) that appeared in the daily business press during the period 2004-2006.  Now, you may pause and say “well that was a long time ago…what about post recession?” A recent article by Phil Covington in Triple Pundit asked that same question. Covington cites a recent Fast Company’s recent article concerning Bloomberg’s business of measuring companies “Environmental, Social and Governance” (ESG) performance, which found that “the number of investors accessing ESG data is up by 29% comparing the first half of 2010 with the second. Investors use it to identify smart practices – for example, companies who operate in a socially responsible manner may be viewed as forward thinking and well-managed.” While this report suggests that there is increased attention being paid to companies that “do good” or that implement proactive ESG practices, the results are still not statistically treated like the GIT study.  But either way, as Covington concludes “This surely portends that markets will inevitably respond favorably to sustainability efforts, especially when the data shows improved governance and profits result directly, and in the long run, from sustainability”.

Since the 2006 study period cited in the GIT study, there have been more studies that provide compelling proof of the market value of environmental initiatives or certification.  Here are a couple of stand-out examples.  First, a study entitled Which Competitive Advantages can Firms Really Obtain from ISO 14001 Certification? demonstrate statistically that there is a significant difference between firms with ISO 14001 certification and firms without ISO14001 certification.  Internal efficiency benefits are considered significantly higher for firms with ISO 14001 certification.  Therefore managers’ expectations of improving internal efficiency might be the real reason that encourages firms to make the voluntary decision of investing in ISO 14001 certification.

Another study, by the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies entitled Comparative Advantage: The Impact of ISO 14001 Environmental Certification on Exports, suggested that EMS certification appears to imply a supplier who is managing its business well and is showing ethical responsibility. The fact that a supplier was awarded the ISO 14001 or EMAS certification by an independent entity enhances perceived reliability. Importers evaluated felt more confident engaging a new supplier, saving time and effort associated with clarification and research prior to placing a purchase order.  The survey results, as well as other available literature, corroborate the view that ISO 14001 accreditation confers economic benefits and greater “market value”. These include a standard of worldwide recognition, organizational efficiency, better waste management resulting in costs reduction, marketing advantages, and competitiveness by reducing risk and exposure to costly litigation.

What Are You Waiting For?

As of 2008, when the GIT study was published, more than 188,000 organizations worldwide had become ISO 14001 certified in 155 countries and economies. Worldwide, ISO 14001 certifications grew by more than 77,000 from 2004 to 2008 – a 70% increase.  These companies must be onto something. As I had written about previously, throughout a variety of industries, there are leaders and there are laggards.  Innovators who lead and can establish “first mover” status have the most market share to gain from proactive environmental management and attaining certifications like ISO 14001.

The GIT studies and the many others that have been produced over the past five years or so are healthy indicators of how proactive approaches to sustainability can positively influence behavior up and down the supply chain, and can add total market value in a recovering economy.

Collaborative Competition + Sustainability = The 21st Century Supply Chain Solution

Last week, I was honored to be the dinner keynote speaker at the European Petrochemical Associations 2nd Interactive Supply/Demand Chain Workshop in Brussels, Belgium.  What a beautiful place, where cobblestones meet bullet trains- two completely differing eras of transportation systems still working (collaborating?) after all these years.  This years’ workshop theme was “21st Century Supply Chains for the Chemical Industry”.  2011 has also been declared by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) as the International Year of Chemistry (see the EPCA’s cool new video, “Chemistry- It’s All About You” here).

Throughout the highly interactive, roll up your sleeves workshop, the dialogue centered on innovative tools and value-added approaches to drive supply chain sustainability. Discussion focused on how the chemical industry and its supply chain can support an evolution from the old linear, materials economy mindset to a more circular, systems based sustainability minded economy, as Annie Leonard describes in the Story of Stuff.  As a matter of fact, that short film was the lead-in to my speech on supply chain sustainability and the nexus with consumerism, and the important role of chemical industry and its supply chain.

As I noted in last week’s post, consumer demand appears to be contributing (at least in part) to some of the gains in eco-friendly and sustainability focused design and manufacturing progress that’s being made in the global marketplace. In addition, shipping and logistics partners are showing leadership in embedding sustainability in the “source, make, deliver and return” product value chain as well.

The (Re) Emergence of “Co-opetiton”

The 21^st Century Supply Chain is a rapidly evolving business landscape.  Prior to around 2005,   the supply chain landscape centered on vertical collaboration between subsequent actors in the same supply chain, or between suppliers, manufacturers and customers.  Since the mid 2000’s, collaboration has refocused along the horizontal axis.   What appears to be happening is more evidence of collaborative exchanges between companies in the same market, or alliances, partnerships, clusters, and networked organizations.  This represents a real paradigm shift” that collaboration between producers, service providers and their customers.

Another older term coined in the mid 1990’s, “co-opetition” (or cooperative competition), may now find its place in the 21^st century supply chain lexicon.  Co-opetition occurs when companies work together for parts of their business where they do not believe they have competitive advantage and where they believe they can share common costs.   The basic premise of co-opetition strategy relies on leveraging alliances, partnering with other shippers (even competitors!) to control logistics  and transportation costs.   In  “games theory, this would be called a “plus-sum” scenario, in which the sum of what is gained by all players is greater than the combined sum of what the players entered the scenario with.  For instance, co-warehousing or load consolidation in transportation and warehousing are straightforward examples where collaborative competition has enormous financial and environmental benefits.  Co-opetition can in effect lead to expansion of the market and the formation of new business relationships, perhaps even the creation of new forms of enterprise.

Co-opetition partners typically include:

1. Producers, Customers, Consumers who drive producer demand and determine product eco-footprint
2. Shippers and Terminal Operators: who generate the freight flows and provide the critical infrastructure for product flow
3. Logistic Service Partners (3PLs): who can design and implement optimized solutions and move the freight
4. Fourth Party Providers: who can facilitate partnerships, referee blockages, find common ground; and
5. Governments who can assure that legal and regulatory arrangements are in place to support seamless collaboration

At the same time, though for co-opetition to be truly sustainable, there must also be  a cultural fit, strategic fit,  economic and operational fit,  and, trust and resources.

Source: Adapted from GEMI, Forging New Links

Co-opetition implies that cooperation and competition merge together to form a new kind of strategic interdependence between firms, giving rise to a co-opetitive system of reciprocal value creation. This new era of globalization has opened the door to co-opetition for small to midsized businesses that lack the scalable resources that larger companies have.  So this makes me think that if competition is a key driver behind innovation, and collaboration is a key 21^st Century supply chain success factor, then collaborative competition (co-opetiton) may be a new solution to drive supply chain sustainability. I posed this theory to a warm response by the 65-plus chemical industry logistics professionals in Brussels. Yes, it’s a bit of a heretical idea, but one that has shown in some industries to work.  Take Proctor & Gamble’s Connect + Develop or Nikes Considered Design and the Environment open innovation models.  Both offer opportunities to collaborate and drive innovative solutions that can benefit consumers, and open business channels to entrepreneurs lacking resources to bring new (possibly more sustainable) products or processes to market.

Summary: Forging New Links in the Chain

Co-opetition offers opportunities for manufacturers and their upstream suppliers and customers to strengthen each other’s performance, enhance differentiation and foster end-consumer brand loyalty in the following ways:

1. By tapping into to customer and consumer preferences, industry can adapt its processes, products and services to enhance competitiveness
2. By collaborating, customer-supplier teams can address Triple Bottom Line (3BL)-related technical challenges that affect the profitability and performance of the overall supply chain.
3. Reciprocal value creation through vertical and horizontal “co-opetition” means recognizing and quantifying each other’s value contributions
4. By sharing intelligence and know-how about 3BL issues & emerging technologies.
5. By incorporating 3BL advantages into their products and services, e.g., reduced cost of ownership.

What ideas do you have to forge new links in the sustainable supply chain?  Let’s start the collaboration now, shall we?

Surveys Lift the Lid on Innovation & Sustainable Supply Chain Management, Uncovering Value & Leadership Traits

This is a tale of two surveys…one innovation focused, the other supply chain focused.  What both have in common is how the reports focused on define the traits and qualities of those who lead and those who follow in their respective business spaces.  Those who innovate tend to lead while those who follow…well, often play catch up.  That’s not too efficient and can lead to wasteful use of resources.  Trust me-as I learned last fall (see photo), it’s better to be the lead horse rider in a dusty trail ride.

The Leaders vs. Laggards Survey

In 2010, as part of its Innovation Survey Series, Cap Gemini Consulting performed a “Leader versus Laggard” study.  The goal of the study was understand the “current state of affairs regarding innovation, and … to identify what drives the success of companies that view themselves as successful”.  Over 375 companies responded to the survey.  Those reporting ‘over 75%’ of innovation efforts having a positive material impact on the company’s business results were considered “leaders” (slightly more than 11%). The ‘less than 25%’ category represents the innovation “laggard” group (nearly 25% of the respondents).  The remaining 65% percent were somewhere in the middle, innovation-wise. The primary drivers of innovation were: evolving customer needs, technological advances and changes, executive direction/internal demands, macroeconomic/external factors, globalization, and changing supplier capabilities. Innovation efforts were generally wrapped into the following five categories: customer focused innovation, new product development, incremental product improvement, business process innovation, and, business model innovation.

Innovation was considered a top-three strategic priority by more than 76 percent of the respondents to the Capgemini survey. Further, over half of the respondents indicated they have developed relationships with third parties to support their innovation efforts on an ongoing basis. The key study takeaways were:

1. Innovation leaders have advanced beyond other innovators by having an accountable innovation executive or other form of formal innovation governance structure that deals with this kind of decision-making.
2. Laggard companies hadn’t mastered collaborating effectively with external partners to improve their innovation results. Leaders however had been able to successfully leverage suppliers, customers and other third parties in the innovation process, including filling in missing capabilities or resources – such as technology and talent.
3. Business model innovation will be the next big differentiator for companies aspiring to innovation leadership. Innovation leaders are allocating increasingly more resources to business model innovation.

Why is this study valuable in terms of supply chain sustainability?  Read on.

The Sustainable Supply Chain Survey

A revealing and promising study was released by the Aberdeen Research Group a couple of months ago.  The Sustainable Supply Chain surveyed 360 companies and found that sustainable supply chain management and supply chain risk management are among the top three areas for improvement in their organization for one third of the respondents.  While that isn’t a stellar number there are some positive trends.  For instance, the survey showed that 76% of the overall survey respondents have incorporated sustainability criteria into some or all of their supply chain management processes. The results provide further proof that in 2010 more companies viewed sustainable supply chain and greening as a foundational aspect of their business operations.

This survey fared compared well with another survey conducted by eyefortransport (EFT) that I reported on in a prior post).  In the EFT survey, well over 60 percent of those companies surveyed had implemented or were initiating sustainability focused efforts in 2010- ranking around 10th out of nearly 40 supply chain management project categories.   In the logistics survey, most respondents noted a far higher level of positive environmental performance in 2010 compared with 2009.

The Aberdeen survey found that two primary drivers for sustainability revolved around achieving “competitive advantage” and assurance that companies were compliant “with current and future regulations”.   Additional drivers noted by about a third of the respondents included interest in positive impacts to bottom line financials and responding to consumer demands for ‘eco friendly’ products.  These drivers, according to the reports highlighted perspectives of five different stakeholders along the end-to-end supply network: customers, suppliers, regulators, competitors and shareholders.

What makes the Aberdeen survey unique was how it distinguished business pattern between “leaders” and “laggards” (like the Capgemini report).  Two key take-aways were:

1) Best-in-Class companies were twice as likely to incorporate sustainability principles throughout all supply chain management (SCM) processes and

2) a principal characteristic of “laggards” was their lack of focus on incorporating sustainability into their SCM processes.

For example, the Aberdeen study identified a 29% spread between leaders who’ve achieved 12% emission reductions versus laggards corresponding 17% increase in emissions.  Similar polar opposite movement was found in areas related to energy consumption and operating margin containment.  And like the Capgemini study, best in class (leaders) companies were 70% more likely to establish corporate governance teams, making technology investment to collect and report metrics, and engaging their suppliers.  Think of the potential savings that leaders have realized compared to their laggard counterparts.

Logistics Providers Leading the Way

As one example, two logistics giants, FedEx and UPS have done deep dives in their business practices and implemented industry leading solutions to bake supply chain sustainability into their operations and supplier networks. UPS has deployed “package-flow” software to map out its most efficient delivery routes. Besides limiting left-hand turns, UPS estimates it shaved nearly 30 million miles off its delivery routes, saved 3 million gallons of gas and reduced CO2 emissions by 32,000 metric tons.  FedEx has deployed cleaner vehicles, sourced alternative power sources for its facilities and engaged its supply chain to promote recycling, product reuse and greener packaging to support FedEx’s operations. The company reports that they’ve improved total fleet miles per gallon within the U.S. by 14.1 percent since 2005, saving over 53 million gallons of fuel or approximately 472,700 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions, with a goal of improving by 20 percent by 2020.  And like UPS, FedEx  is (according to its web site) redesigning its “physical distribution models to maximize the density of … ground and air shipments. This reduces the amount of fuel it takes to ship each package….”

The Aberdeen study also mentioned how the UK based non-profit Supplier Ethical Data Exchange (Sedex) has developed a secure online platform for companies to share and monitor sustainability data across supply chain.  Sedex’s mission is “connecting businesses and their global suppliers to share ethical data and enabling continuous improvement in ethical performance”.  Currently used in over 160 countries, the membership driven initiative focuses on metrics capture across four “key pillars”: Labor standards, health and safety, business integrity and environment.  Being on Sedex does not mean that a company has met any ethical standards or is in compliance with any code but it does mean that suppliers have made a commitment to continuous improvement.  Suppliers to major retailers and brand owners continue to own the data and manage its use, and keep it updated on a semiannual basis.  Suppliers’ customers then have the option to run a “risk profile” which can allow them in turn to prioritize suppliers for additional collaboration to manage the sustainability footprint of their products or practices.

The Work’s Not Done

The Aberdeen study did uncover several challenges that companies face, especially those with wide supply chain networks.   The study found that about 40% of companies outsourcing at least some of their manufacturing struggle to establish operational capabilities that yield measurable results (less than 10% efficiency).  This underscores the difficulties that many manufacturers have in effectively controlling or influencing supply chain behavior.  And while sustainability initiatives focused on improved energy use efficiency and practices to reduce environmental footprints are highly relevant in improving operations efficiencies, execution still remains challenging.

“The focus on sustainability has changed from being a philanthropic, ‘nice to have’ initiative, to the one that is core to the success of organization…Consistently adhering to the sustainability mandates established by clients as well as establishing mandates for your suppliers is an important strategy to gain incremental business value in the current environment” – Nari Viswanathan, Vice President and Principal Analyst of Supply Chain Management at Aberdeen.

Pushing the Supply Chain Envelop Requires Innovation and Leadership

Many of my prior posts have suggested that “supply chain successes are driven by those who lead through innovation and don’t procrastinate.  These organizations have vision– for the short term and long-term”.  The Aberdeen and Capgemini surveys are proof that ‘first mover’ companies are changing the way business gets done, sometimes in marked, ‘greener’ ways.

I believe that innovative companies are those who consider business operations through a “sustainability lens” by 1) developing key performance goals and metrics to make supply chain sustainability initiatives thoughtful, effective and believable; 2) implementing sustainability initiatives that create environmental and social benefit and that are aligned with the company’s financial strategies and business vision; and 3) identifying and developing value-added transparency and proactive collaboration throughout the supply chain.

Who is up to pushing the supply chain envelope, be a sustainability leader and reap the benefits?