How leading companies, NGOs and solution providers are working to address the myriad issues that can arise in any supply chain.
Global supply chain sustainability site Ecodesk has launched a monitoring tool for businesses to track conflict mineral use in supply chains.The company says the aim of the monitor is to help businesses track the materials using a standard EICC declaration form and the Ecodesk digital supply chain dashboard.As each supplier completes a declaration on their Ecodesk sustainability profile, data is automatically connected to a customer dashboard, which enables businesses to analyze in one simple view, conflict mineral use by geography, industry and by individual smelters.
Cross-Posted from Behavior Change. Marks and Spencer (M&S) recently piloted training toolkits for its supplier factories in the UK and Sri Lanka, as part of its Plan A commitment to being a Fair Partner. These toolkits were a result of a collaborative design process between M&S and its factories, led by A Very Good Company (AVGC). The process of co-creation has helped to engage suppliers with M&S’s sustainability agenda, leading to the creation of a product that connects with the needs of M&S, its factory managers and their employees. This collaborative approach to creating behaviour change within a factory environment has transferable learning for brands as they seek to engage consumers with new, more sustainable propositions.
Cross-Posted from Marketing and Comms. Spanish multinational clothing company Inditex says that in 2012 it conducted nearly 1.5 million tests on its clothing worldwide to ensure health and safety standards, as well as carrying out more than 3,500 audits on suppliers under its Code of Conduct.Inditex chairman Pablo Isla made the announcements this week at the company’s Annual General Meeting at its headquarters in Arteixo, La Coruña, Spain.
A recent independent study by the Colombian organization CRECE, which assessed the social, environmental and economic impacts among 1,000 farmers has found that farmers in the Nespresso AAA Sustainable Quality Program have a net income 87.4 percent higher than those not involved with the program.The AAA program, which was co-developed over the last ten years by the Rainforest Alliance and Nespresso, encourages farmers to adopt best practices such as protecting water sources and preventing soil erosion from their land.
An alliance of 17 North American brands led by Walmart, Gap and Target has unveiled the details of its independent Bangladesh Worker Safety Initiative — a five-year pact that aims to improve conditions at Bangladesh garment factories and establish more viable worker communications.
Unilever has launched a new rail service in Italy called Green Express, as part of a wider eco-efficiency programme within its supply chain to support the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan.The service delivers Unilever’s Algida brand ice cream from its factory near Naples, 700km to the logistics hub in Parma.The direct connection, linking three lines, means that 3,500 trucks will be taken off the road each year, saving 40 million mega-joules of energy per year.
Jeffrey Hollender, co-founder of Seventh Generation, and his daughter Meika are extending the ethos and ethics of the pioneering sustainable care products brand to the world’s first sustainable condom, carrying the slogan, "Do what's natural." Toxin-free, fair trade Sustain condoms are made in India and are set to be in stores by January 2014 — the first product from the father-daughter team behind Hollender Sustainable Brands.
Paper giant Asia Pacific Resources International Limited (APRIL) has withdrawn from the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), which Greenpeace, the Rainforest Action Network (RAN) and WWF claim is an attempt to dodge an independent inquiry into the paper company’s deforestation practices in Indonesia.Prior to APRIL’s withdrawal, the three environmental organizations lodged a complaint that the company was in violation of FSC’s Policy for Association through its continued large-scale conversion of natural forests in Indonesia to plantations, including the destruction of high conservation value (HCV) forests. The organizations also claim the company has persistent social conflicts in its operations.
Global food and beverage giant Mondelez International has unveiled a new training facility for coffee farmers to promote sustainability and entrepreneurship in Vietnam. The company says this is a major step toward implementing its "Coffee Made Happy" sustainability program, which commits to investing at least $200 million to help one million coffee farming entrepreneurs by 2020.
Adidas recently released its 2012 sustainability report, which outlines the many successes, as well as the challenges and shortcomings, the athletic wear manufacturer has experienced in the past year. The company has improved transparency within its supply chain, introduced more sustainable manufacturing processes — such as its waterless DryDye t-shirt line — and improved energy efficiency in many of its stores.
As part of its commitment to helping design a better, more sustainable future, Nike this week launched a new app called MAKING, to help designers and product creators make informed decisions about the environmental impacts of the materials they choose.
Cross-Posted from Marketing and Comms. Behaviour change starts with listening. Here in New Zealand, a major global brand may have started listening for the first time in recent weeks: Dole have both made a U-turn and reached out to critics in an apparent desire to understand where they went wrong in this market and how they might set things right.
Coca-Cola and Britvic, along with half of the United Kingdom’s foremost soft drink producers and suppliers, have joined the Soft Drinks Sustainability Roadmap, a supply chain study designed to reduce the environmental footprint of soft drink products.The roadmap claims to be the first to outline the £1.3 billion (nearly $2 billion) UK soft drinks sector’s effect on the environment and offer recommendations on how the impact can be reduced. The report offers infographics that summarize this information across the entire soft drinks supply chain, from raw material production to end of life.
Manufacturers that invest in working conditions can improve their profit margins and increase their competitive advantage, according to recent research by KPMG.Business Case Analysis for Responsible Electronics Manufacturing was commissioned as part of the IDH Electronics program, which focuses on establishing worker-management dialogue as a means to improving working conditions and facilitating operational efficiency.
True to his name, Oscar-nominated actor Woody Harrelson, best known for his time on the TV show Cheers and movies such as Zombieland and No Country for Old Men, also likes chipping away at environmental issues.With a history of lobbying the government to restrict logging, Harrelson is now turning his attention to more efficient ways of producing paper. “Ever since I was pulled into the environmental world, protecting trees and stopping deforestation has really been a calling for me,” Harrelson stated in an interview with TIME. “The thing to do is change the supply. We need to change the way that paper is made.”
On Thursday, the Obama Administration announced that it would be suspending trade privileges extended to Bangladesh as a result of the country's neglect of workers' rights. "I have determined that it is appropriate to suspend Bangladesh's designation … because it is not taking steps to afford internationally recognized worker rights to workers in the country," President Obama wrote in a message to Congress. The decision, regarded widely as a stern warning to the nation, will effectively end special tax breaks on exports to the US that are meant to help developing economies.
A group of leaders from government, industry, academia, standards organizations and NGOs are joining forces to solve the biggest obstacle to sustainable institutional purchasing: a lack of standardization in how sustainable purchasing is defined, guided, measured and rewarded.The Sustainable Purchasing Leadership Council will launch with a free, live webcast from Washington, DC on July 23 at 1pm EST.
Cross-Posted from Behavior Change. In the past two months, the garment factory collapse in Bangladesh, the second-floor failure of the shoe factory in Cambodia, and most recently, the fire in the Chinese poultry plant have resulted in the deaths of some 1,500 workers in the developing world.In China alone, more than 100,000 people die annually in factories. These numbers are raising difficult questions among European and American consumers who have become accustomed to goods being manufactured abroad.
Asia Pulp and Paper (APP), which ended natural forest clearance in its supply chain after pressure from nearly 100 of its customers earlier this year, has released the latest update in its "Vision 2020" plan that provides further insight into its new Forest Conservation Policy (FCP). Through the new policy, natural forest will be identified through High Conservation Value (HCV) and High Carbon Stock (HCS) assessments currently underway across all APP land concessions in Indonesia.
Sadly, for the second time in months, the world has turned its attention to one of the biggest low-cost producing countries for apparel, Bangladesh. In November, a raging fire in a garment factory in Bangladesh claimed more than 100 people’s lives and led to a countless number of injuries. And the collapse of the eight-story Rana Plaza factory in April, in which 1,127 people died, is the country's worst industrial accident to date.