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’.

Survey: Leading Organizations ‘Embrace’ Sustainability, Create “Cultures of Innovation”

On the heels of my most recent post (Surveys Lift the Lid on Innovation & Sustainable Supply Chain Management, Uncovering Value & Leadership Traits http://bit.ly/h941Jb) comes another survey by the MIT Sloan Management Review and the Boston Consulting Group.  Like the Aberdeen and Capgemini studies, Sustainability: The ‘Embracers’ Seize Advantage uncovered two distinct camps of companies: “embracers” — those who place sustainability high on their agenda — and “cautious adopters,” who have yet to focus on more than energy cost savings, material efficiency, and risk mitigation.

According to the MIT/BCG study , the survey indicated that many companies view sustainability as eventually becoming “core,”; however the more advanced “embracers” were already acting on the belief that the sustainability ‘business case” was already a functional, core element of its organizational risk management and efficiency strategy. Embracers were also seeing the “payoff of sustainability-driven management largely in intangible advantages, process improvements, the ability to innovate and, critically, and in the opportunity to grow.”  Plus, and this is no surprise, embracers were found to be the highest performing businesses queried in the study.

Key MIT/BCG Findings

Several interesting findings emerged that synced up well with the Aberdeen and Capgemini studies, from an innovation and leader/laggard perspective:

1. Embracer companies are implementing sustainability-driven strategies widely in their organizations and have largely succeeded in making robust business cases for their investments.
2. All companies — both embracers and cautious adopters — see the benefits of strategies such as improved resource efficiency and waste management.
3. Embracer companies are assigning value to intangible factors (employee engagement, stakeholder concerns) when forming strategies and making decisions.
4. Embracers are more aggressive in their sustainability spending, but the cautious adopters are catching up and increasing their commitments at a faster rate than the embracers.
5. The sustainability-driven management approaches of embracer companies — which claim to be gaining competitive advantage via sustainability — exhibit seven shared traits that together suggest how sustainability may alter management practice for all successful companies in the future.

From a supply chain perspective the study found that embracers appear to be able to make a more compelling business case for sustainability, developing and integrating sustainability strategies in “everything from procurement and supply chain management to marketing and brand building.”

The MIT/BCG study discovered seven practices or characteristics that “embracers share. They are:

1. Move early — even if information is incomplete. Embracers tend to be bold and see the importance of being a “first mover” from a competitive perspective. What the study found most compelling was that embracers generally accepted that they need to act before they necessarily have all the answers.

“Embracers are not paralyzed by ambiguity, and instead see action as a way to generate data, uncover new options and develop evidence iteratively that makes decision-making increasingly effective. Movement diminishes uncertainty”.

2. Balance broad, long-term vision with projects offering concrete, near-term “wins.” Leading companies find a way to balance corporate visions with concrete, action oriented projects that will produce short-term successes.

“Smart embracers balance those aims with narrowly defined projects in, say, supply chain management, which allow them to produce early, positive bottom-line results. They exhibit relentless practicality”.

3. Drive sustainability top-down and bottom-up. Embracers find ways to engage its organization vertically and horizontally early and creating champions that can collectively ensure the 360-degree perspective that’s vital to sustainability.

4. Aggressively de-silo sustainability — integrating it throughout company operations. Embracers openly encourage cross-functional problem identification and problem solving and seek ways for more open innovation, group-think and collaborative action.

5. Measure everything (and if ways of measuring something don’t exist, start inventing them). I am not certain that I would measure EVERYTHING, but rather look for key performance metrics that matter to the core vision of sustainability that organizations seek to satisfy.  Measure what matters, don’t just measure just for measurements sake.

6. Value intangible benefits seriously. Embracers are clearly distinguished from cautious adopters in their readiness to value intangibles as meaningful competitive benefits of a sustainability strategy. However, embracers accept that it takes time to develop their ability to measure — or even to understand fully — intangible advantages, and they need to make their investment decisions on the basis of a combination of tangible benefits, intangibles and risk management scenarios.

7. Try to be authentic and transparent — internally and externally. Finally, companies leading the charge on sustainability are fundamentally realistic. They do not overstate motives or set unrealistic expectations, and they communicate their challenges as well as their successes.

The Evolution of a Sustainability Mindset- From Laggard to Innovator

The results of all three studies compare well with Peter Senges and Bob Willards remarks in several of their books, mirroring the development phases in organizations toward a sustainability culture, governance and business strategy. Willards model shows how as companies progress toward being sustainable enterprises, they can be roughly nested into a five-stage sustainability continuum. They evolve from an unsustainable model of business in Stages 1, 2 and 3, to a sustainable business framework in Stages 4 or 5. Willard explains that “executive mindsets also evolve from thinking of “green,” “environmental,” and “sustainable” initiatives as expensive and bureaucratic threats in the early stages, to recognizing them as catalysts for strategic growth in the later stages.”

Source: Bob Willard- Fives Stages of Sustainability

As leading organizations implement more efficient, creative, less resource intensive and wasteful practices, they quickly can realize direct and indirect financial and brand benefits. Truly innovative, agile and resilient companies with a leaning toward change management tend to ‘embrace’ this new paradigm as part of organizational ‘core values’ as successes rack up…it’s like a snowball effect.   The more that is achieved in the name of sustainability, the greater and larger the positive benefit.  Sustainability can become positively addicting!  At the same time, the chasm between the leaders and followers tends to widen, and the followers have to spend much more time, energy and resources to play catch up…if they catch up at all.

With the MIT/BCG and other two studies,  one common thread that is clear to me (and hopefully you) is that organizational dynamics have a lot to do with how well companies adapt to change, especially when it involves issues surrounding the three legs of sustainability.  The MIT study hit the nail on the head when it stated that “Where companies struggle when it comes to making sustainability an integral part of the business is often not so much with the technical side of things but with the human dimension of managing it.” In fact it was Peter Senge (in The Fifth Discipline), who states that a learning organization is one in which “people continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free, and where people are continually learning to see the whole together.”

Seeing business from a  “whole systems”  perspective is truly what characterizes innovative, leading organizations from the competition.  Embracing organizations typically are more agile, adaptive, and (ultimately) more productive.  As businesses seek stronger competitive positions and reach outside their four walls to integrate innovations across supply chains, one critical, intangible element will still remain- the “human dynamic”.

Upcoming posts  will dive into management and organizational culture, its effects on driving the sustainability business case, and approaches to drive “cultures of innovation” and leadership beyong “the four wall” and throughout the value chain.

A Roadmap to Perform Supply Chain-Focused Materiality Assessments

Note:  this is the final part of three-part series exploring “materiality” and  the intersection of supply chain management, sustainability and  corporate social responsibility.

Part One of this three-part series explored materiality as the “nexus” point that linked sustainability, corporate social responsibility (CSR) and supply chain management.  Conflict minerals were explored in detail and highlighted the key role that developing nations and commodity goods are playing in driving supply chain management and CSR.   The second post in this series highlighted the roots of materiality analysis in the sustainability space, case studies and highlights of interviews conducted with two key sustainability and corporate responsibility thought leaders, @Jefferyhogue and @ElaineCohen.

From a corporate social responsibility reporting point of view, a materiality analysis is an ordered, rigorous evaluation of the sustainability (environmental, social, financial) issues significant to the company and its stakeholders.  This type of analysis can provide an organization with critical, informed insight that can drive strategic direction as well as tactical change management.

Typical elements of the materiality analysis process include:

1. Identification of a universe of relevant economic, social, environmental, and policy/governance issues for consideration,
2. Evaluation and ranking of the level of internal and external stakeholder concerns regarding each issue,
3. Evaluation and ranking of the potential impact on the company of each issue
4. Development of a matrix-based prioritization of the issues, and
5. Execution of a structured, collaborative strategy planning, implementation and reporting process.

Materiality Assessment Templates

The CERES 21^st Century Roadmap for Sustainability 2010 provides a high level overview of materiality analysis.  The first step is to identify which stakeholders there are that interact with an organization. In this first phase, CERES recommends that organizations “engage with stakeholders to obtain feedback on the relevance of existing and proposed policies and to identify gaps. These policies should guide the company’s activities across its operations, the supply chain, logistics, the design and delivery of products and the management of its employees.

When engaging stakeholders, organizations should identify key business and operational issues of concern to the company and share this analysis with external stakeholders. CERES recommends that “stakeholder dialogue can be to identify additional issues, prioritize efforts, and recognize emerging risks that could become increasingly important to the business over the long-term. The company should then explore the links between identified material issues [that are considered significant to stakeholders] and the leadership team’s vision and strategy…and provide an explicit response to that feedback”.

AA1100 Assurance standard creator and international institute AccountAbility has established what they refer to as a “Five-Part Materiality Test” .  Like the CERES approach, this robust test is designed to help organizations 1) identify what issues are most material, or relevant, to their business and its stakeholders and 2) what information should be disclosed or reported in corporate social responsibility reports. The five different materiality tests (shown in the graphic below) are:

Test 1: Direct short-term financial impacts: Evaluate short-term financial impacts resulting from aspects of social and environmental performance

Test 2: Policy-based performance: Consider policies that are core to a business rather than add-ons

Test 3: Business peer-based norms: Issues that company peers deem to be important

Test 4: Stakeholder behavior and concerns: Identify issues relevance to stakeholders in terms of reasonable evidence of likely impact on their own decisions and behavior; and

Test 5: Societal norms:  Considerations taken from both a regulatory and non-regulatory point of view.

The issues of most significant concern would be vetted with stakeholders and validated by an external party and set the framework for ongoing action and demonstrated continual improvement.

8-Phase Supply Chain Focused Materiality Assessment

Taking a cue from CERES, AccountAbility, the ISO 14001 based environmental aspects and impacts process, and basic principles of risk management, I offer my eight point plan to effectively engage internal and external stakeholders in querying, assessing and prioritizing supply chain materiality.

1. ID Key Supply Chain Products re: Environmental Loading Characteristics and Operational Practices
2. Identify Governance, Operational and Regulatory Constraints versus Supply Chain Practices/Policies
3. Risk Management Evaluation-Screen internal  & external supply chain issues against current  business objectives & strategy, policies, current processes  & programs
4. Materiality Risk Ranking Matrix and Determination of Threshold Action Levels (Internal and External Stakeholder Specific & Aggregated)
5. Development of Materiality Mitigation Action Plans- Prioritize, Assign Resources, Timeframes & Measurement Metrics
6. Stakeholder Engagement and Issues Identification (against major supply chain variables)
7. Management Review including Strategy Performance and Reporting, and
8. Internal/ External Stakeholder Alignment; CSR Reporting

As a general rule when evaluating the ‘materiality’ of any issue (supply chain driven or not) , significance must consider a company’s short and long-term business objectives and strategy, policies, risks, and current processes and programs. Also, in order to factor into account resource management variables, it’s advised that companies consider the levels of control or influence they have over an existing or future issue to determine its significance, and ultimately management strategies and tactics.

Likely outcomes of using a structured continual improvement approach in addressing and documenting supply chain materiality are:

• Targeting and prioritizing the most significant supply chain issues to manage in the short-term, at a scale that matches existing labor, financial and capital resources
• Proactive planning to budget future resource allocations to address capital or resource intensive activities for long-term management
• Acknowledging and integrating a wide variety of interested party concerns and perspectives into strategic business planning at an early stage
• Providing a foundation for continual improvement through structure risk assessment, action planning, communication and reporting.

Materiality Assessments- The Sustainable Value Proposition

Materiality analysis can help organizations to clarify issues driving long-term business value; identify, prioritize and address risks; and capture new market opportunities.  Through structured efforts to align sustainability and business strategies with supply chain management, materiality assessments that account for financial and non-financial issues will not only strengthen business relationships with suppliers but forge collaborative bonds with external stakeholders.  This targeted focus on collaborative innovation, adaptive management, performance measurement and reporting has the potential to drive stronger brand reputation and competitive advantage over time.

Five Reasons that Sustainability and Supply Chain “Greening” Will Stick in 2011.

Hello, 2011.  Ten days in and already the supply chain chatter is in full force.  In a recent post, I noted how 2010 saw an incredibly marked increase in attention to supply chain ‘greening’ and sustainability (two different things I might add).  2011 looks to carry this trend to greater heights.  Why will there be increased traction in supply chain greening and sustainability?  For the following key reasons:

Economics- Contrary to popular belief, making the business case for making sustainability ‘operational” within an organizational supply chain is becoming easier, not harder.  With the availability of more data from ‘first movers’, procurement managers, environmental directors, design engineers, marketing/communications staff and operations managers (among others) are able now to make strong business cases in favor of looking at operations through a green lens. In addition, barriers to global trade brought on by increasing environmental regulations, more stringent restrictions on hazardous substances, greater emphasis on lean manufacturing, and increased supplier auditing and verification are creating the critical mass toward a new norm in supply chain management and expectations.  Seeking efficiencies in supply chain management and producing products while reducing waste continue to be a vital imperative in a recovering economy.  Those who neglect to critical evaluate their operations from a sustainability point of view this year will be cast to the side.

Climate Action- Supply chain sustainability is affecting shareholder value, company valuations and even due diligence during proposed mergers and acquisitions, the report said. It added that shareholder actions on sustainability performance and transparency were up 40% in 2009.  An article in the Environmental Leader last month described how climate change was playing an integral role in corporate supply chain decisions.  A very insightful report by Ernst and Young note that “As carbon pricing becomes established in various jurisdictions, organizations will face risks from compliance obligations.  This will impact cash management and liquidity, and carbon-intensive sectors may see an increase in the cost of capital.”  Still much work still remains to infuse green thinking in the C-Suite.   Little more than a third of those executives surveyed indicated that they were working directly with suppliers to reduce their carbon footprint, or have just started discussing climate change initiatives with their suppliers.  And now, the World Resources Institute is completing authoritative new supply chain and product lifecycle greenhouse gas protocols that will frame what’s expected to be a burgeoning wave of value chain sustainability accounting and reporting.   Stay tuned!

Disclosure and Accountability- As I’ve previously noted, supply chain management became widely recognized in 2010 as a key factor in measuring the true “sustainability” of an organizations practices and processes, and ultimately its product or service.   Increased attention will be paid this year on conflict minerals (because of the recent passage of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010), fair labor and other social aspects of sustainability, ongoing management of hazardous substances in toys and other consumer products, and looking at the supply chain to manage risks and liabilities from product recalls and other environmental impacts of products and services.  The concept of “materiality” in corporate social responsibility and product disclosure (FTC Green Guidelines) and SEC financial reporting is taking on new meaning from a supply chain perspective. ‘Materiality’ in terms of supply chain or network management will require more rigorous implementation and oversight of ethical business practices and practicing proactive environmental stewardship through-out a products value chain.  Suppliers play a key external role in managing the environmental, social or financial issues within the product value chain. I will treat the issue of sustainable supply chain management and materiality in an upcoming series. Watch for increased supplier requirements, third party verification (like ISO 14001, GS-GC1 and ULE 880) and more upstream accountability.

Innovation and Collaboration– the emergence of collaborative opportunities among larger manufacturers creates entry points in the market for smaller, intermediate products manufacturers as well.  Larger companies are identifying the critical supply chain partners that have the greatest product impact and begin seeking ways to collaboratively address the environmental and social footprint of their products through the value chain.   A new report even suggests that consumers will play a leading role behind greater supply chain collaboration.  The report, by CapGemini suggests that while suppliers are independently seeking more open, collaborative ways to move goods, consumers may be “… the trigger for an optimized collaborative supply chain flow: this next level of supply chain optimization is based on transparency and collaboration.”  More specifically, “Consumer awareness about sustainability demands a more CO2-friendly supply of products and services”, the report notes.

Life Cycle Design and End-of-Life Product Management– There are increased challenges that the waste management industry is facing, wider attention paid to greener packaging and increased emphasis on financial accountability is being felt in world markets.   Establishing a reverse logistics network that supports life cycle design, Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR), and “demanufacturing” processes will take on higher meaning in 2011.   According to a recent white paper issued by sustainability expert and colleague Gil Friend, EPR is a market-based approach that effectively assigns end-of-life responsibility and product stewardship to producers, requiring them to meet specific targets for material recycling and recovery, relative to the total amount of packaging that they have put into the marketplace. EPR helps to shift the responsibility for collecting packaging and end of life products from financially tapped out local government to producers.  But upstream of the manufacturing process, EPR success can be achieved through incentives for companies to take a closer look at how they design products for better end-of-life management (life cycle design).  Producers are not alone in addressing the social and ecological impacts of their products. Manufacturers must engage their supply networks to help drive EPR upstream; however, downstream customers play a role too. So producers and consumers should strive in 2011 to continue a dialogue about what to do to improve the profile of consumer products in a way that’s a win-win for all affected stakeholders.

So there it is from my view of the world. Five sustainability and supply chain challenges that were framed out in 2010 and look to stick in 2011.

Did I miss any?  Please chime in and share your thoughts.

A Green Supply Chain Takes Innovation, Systems Thinking, Collaborative Approach–And Patience

As I have been involved with organizations through the years on environmental issues, I have discovered many things about supply chain management:

• Contractors and suppliers often create environmental impacts, sometimes related to the nature of their product or work, sometimes by accident
• Most organizations for some reason feel “powerless” to control their suppliers products
• Many companies are constrained by cost factors (purchase from the lowest cost vendor or bidder)

So when considering how to effectively manage and influence contractors and suppliers, raise expectations and take control of your supply chain, it may be valuable to take a “systems thinking” approach. Those that do realize that doing so may unlock significant revenue and cost savings potential.

Consider Starbucks. In mid 2009, Starbucks announced a legitimate attempt to address some very vocal stakeholder issues to clean up its supply chain by staring efforts to ensure that single-use cups are recyclable by 2012. So they convened a “cup summit” with representatives from every part of the paper and plastic cup supply chain, including raw material suppliers, cup manufacturers, retail and beverage partners, local municipal governments, Starbucks employees, and environmental NGOs. They brought in systems thinking guru Peter Senge. This effort is no small task given the internal (vendors and suppliers) and external (end use customer) variables necessary to make this program a success. They modified their goal to 2015. Starbucks reconvened this past spring and they are continuing down this open, transparent path to a sustainable supply chain. They are taking on this approach one city, one franchisee at a time. They are working with customers and cities to develop more proactive, use friendly recycling solutions.

To date, in its approximately 2,200 company-owned stores in North America that control their own waste collection, recycled items are made from one or more materials. While the company has continued to encourage recycling in cities where it’s “marketable,” a great deal remains to be down on the customer side (see Triple Pundit 8/20/10 article http://bit.ly/9SOJig). The company is also reaching deep and is offering farmers incentives to prevent deforestation, with pilot programs currently underway in Sumatra, Indonesia, and Chiapas, Mexico. This represents both an upstream and a downstream approach to green supply chain management. Sustainability is built into the company’s business vision, all performance metrics and product development decisions.  Starbucks has a long way to go to meet its goals but heretical goals like theirs may be takes time, coordination, patience, and above all, will.

Like Starbucks, Hewlett-Packard, the obvious Walmart makeover and others, forward-thinking companies are making efforts to consider how parts or components of a system are interconnected and examines the linkages between them. In the manufacturing and delivery of a product, a systems approach recognizes the interconnectedness between product components and delivery systems. So changing the way one component is manufactured, delivered, used and reused can effectively change behaviors and operations along the “value chain.” And along with this product systems thinking approach, sustainability data and metrics will flow with it, demonstrating the benefits to all those in the value chain.

So by standing back and viewing the supply chain in a systematic or holistic manner, organizations can apply 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. So how does a company like Starbucks, or HP, or Walmart tackle such a beast, with literally tens of thousands of suppliers in their supply chain? Well nothing comes easy and overnight. Get yourselves into that mindset first before you proceed. But there are some relatively simple ways you can proceed and make the progress you have set out to achieve:

Develop macro and micro-scale process maps of the critical stages of the supply chain, with an emphasis on key sustainability inputs (energy, materials use, waste generation, carbon footprint), to fully understand where supplier processes and products connect. Identify those processes that you do not even have direct control over–this is vital because you may gain a better appreciation of you supply chain partners’ priorities as well

Identify the critical supply chain partners that have the greatest product impact and begin evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of the current relationship. If need be, can you effectively influence or control what they do and how it’s done?

Create a sustainable sourcing plan (with a two- to five-year window) where you develop a relationship with partners at those critical phases in your supply chain, from Tier to Tier. Develop a long-term engagement plan (as shown on the figure below), that incorporates your supply chain one tier at a time. Also make sure that the approach is collaborative and transparent (as I recently noted) in order to manage your suppliers expectations–and your own.

The upsides of collaborative, systems-based thinking is that suppliers feel ownership of the process, feel more invested in its outcomes and better positioned for a value-added business relationship. This is the essence of a green supply or “value chain.” All parts really are pulling together–this is the new wave of business in the 21st Century.

This post was originally published on my New Green Supply Chain Blog, which can be found at https://community.kinaxis.com/people/DRMeyer/blog