BSR Insight Articles About Supply Chain
Giving Business a Role in Reducing Carbon Emissions
Julia Robinson, Communications Associate
Government pledges and roadmaps might reduce global greenhouse gas emissions by 3 to 6 gigatons, but a significant gap—around 6 to 9 gigatons—remains to keep global warming below 2°C by 2020, which is the accepted threshold to avoid high-risk climate change. Read more
Supply Chain Sustainability: Four Lessons From the Past and Four Ideas for the Future
Cody Sisco, Former Manager, Advisory Services
When I first joined BSR less than a decade ago, the companies investing in supply chain sustainability were primarily in the apparel, footwear, and toy sectors. Today, all industries prioritize supply chain sustainability, including the biggest brands in electronics, consumer goods, transportation, and other industries. The number of standards also has multiplied, reflecting a broader set of topics and participants. In the early 2000s, priorities were wages, working hours, and health and safety. Today, issues also include environmental performance and anti-corruption. Product certifications and labels have also exploded. An entire index exists just to catalogue the number of new eco-labels launched every year. But what progress have we made toward improving the lives of workers in supply chains and protecting the ecosystems that support industry and commerce as well as human survival on this planet? Although supply chain sustainability management practices have evolved significantly, we have an opportunity to re-examine traditional approaches and achieve measurable, dramatic improvements. Here, I suggest four lessons we can take from supply chain sustainability efforts to date, and four ideas we can apply to achieve greater impact going forward. Read more
Going from ‘What’ to ‘How’ in Sustainable Procurement
Celine Suarez, Manager, Advisory Services
Making sense of the increasingly dizzying array of product certifications, labels, data and other sustainability initiatives is a challenge, even for experts. While the best of these efforts provide comprehensive, accurate data on a product's many sustainability attributes, it can be exceptionally difficult to synthesize the data and judge the relative "sustainability" of different products. Procurement professionals face the additional challenge of integrating these criteria into purchasing decisions that must also account for traditional considerations like cost, quality, and delivery. Even initiatives such as the Sustainability Consortium, which takes a comprehensive, science-based approach to conveying the full lifecycle of products' sustainability impacts, will need to be applied to thousands of products that companies purchase before the system can realize its full impact. So how can companies start using the information from the Consortium and other initiatives to evaluate things like light bulbs, bath towels, or milk? How can companies begin to unpack and compare the lifecycle sustainability attributes of the products they procure? If a light bulb is Energy Star certified, is that the best indicator of its overall energy efficiency? If a bath towel was made with certified organic cotton, but that cotton was shipped from Uzbekistan to Saskatchewan, is it considered sustainable? If a gallon of milk is hormone-free but made on a factory farm, is it healthier for humans, or is that benefit outweighed by the fact that it's polluting the soil? A single product might be rated on as many as 20 to 30 sustainability metrics covering issues from natural resource extraction, material inputs, manufacturing, carbon footprint, waste, water use, packaging, and more. BSR's Center for Sustainable Procurement (CSP), an initiative funded by Hilton Worldwide, is examining how procurement professionals can more effectively and efficiently integrate sustainability considerations into their day-to-day purchasing decisions. Read more
New Tool Guides Companies on Supply Chain Sustainability
Cody Sisco, Former Manager, Advisory Services
Making progress on supply chain sustainability is a challenge that cuts across topics, organizations, and locations. BSR has launched an e-learning tool in collaboration with the UN Global Compact and Maplecroft to help companies take stock of and improve their approach to supply chain sustainability. The UN Global Compact Quick Self-Assessment and Learning Tool helps procurement, sourcing, and other managers quickly and anonymously gauge their company's supply chain sustainability strategy against a set of criteria, such as the existence of clear and established codes of conduct for the company and suppliers, internal roles and responsibilities, and sustainability goals. The tool will: Read more
Assessing Terminals’ Environmental Performance: New BSR Report and Tool
Laura Ediger, Associate Director, Advisory Services
Global shippers and carriers have increasingly adopted practices to improve their environmental performance. It is now important for terminal operators to align with these efforts. BSR's recently released report and assessment tool for terminal operators, developed with support from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, will allow terminals to benchmark their environmental performance based on a common standard and prepare for the increasing demand for supply chain sustainability data. BSR's 2011 terminal operations case study analyzed efforts related to improving port and terminal environmental performance and found that ocean-based terminals lack globally applicable environmental frameworks and standards for performance. Based on this information, BSR developed an assessment tool in Chinese and English for terminal operators to track and report on environmental performance, such as emissions management and impacts on air pollution and community health. This report shares the results and feedback of three terminal operators who used the pilot tool, as well as our recommendations for implementation. Read more
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