Sustainability Questions to Ask Your Supply Chain Leaders

1. How can we better measure sustainability?
Organizations that lack measurement tools have difficulty assessing the performance of sustainability initiatives. That’s why tools like CSRware’s Sustainability Supply Chain package are necessary for providing decision makers with actionable information.

2. How can we instill sustainability into our suppliers?
Oftentimes, suppliers need encouragement from buyers to become more sustainable. Maintaining scorecards--and explaining to suppliers their importance--is one way to motivate suppliers. Proctor and Gamble’s Supplier Scorecard (http://www.pgsupplier.com/en/index.shtml) is an example of how one company is motivating suppliers to become more sustainable. Another way to have suppliers become more sustainable is by asking what it would take for them to make their process more “green”--sometimes just asking, “How can we work together to increase sustainability?” is all it takes.

3. How can we design more sustainable products?
While improving logistics processes and reducing energy-expenditure is often a great way to become more green, improving product design is sometimes the most efficient way to reduce reliance on natural resources and help the environment. Detergent companies have found a way to do this by developing concentrated-formula detergents--less water in the formula has little impact on the product’s effectiveness, and it greatly reduces a company’s transportation needs.

4. How can we avoid socially-negligent suppliers?
Dealing with socially-negligent suppliers (either intentionally or not) can be extremely risky for businesses. Two prime examples are Mattel and Nike. Mattel spend $110 million in product recalls in 2007 after it was discovered that its Tier 2 Suppliers were using lead paint in its toys; Nike had a PR disaster when it was found that its products were being manufactured with the aid of child labor in the late 90s. Companies have to go beyond public transparency--and make it clear to suppliers that they won’t work with them if they aren’t respecting basic human rights. Apple has attempted to do this by opening its own supply chain to the Fair Labor Association for external auditing.

5. Who can we trust to drive sustainability?
Corporations can invest copious amounts of resources and money into best-in-class technology, but it still needs people to manage its supply chain. Likewise, leaders have to assign its best people to sustainability initiatives if they have any hope to make great strides. And those within the supply chain have to be willing to spearhead sustainability initiatives and take charge--shifting the goal of a “sustainable supply chain” from being an initiative to a descriptor of a powerful corporation.

Michael Koploy, ERP Analyst at Software Advice -- a free onlineresource that provides reviews and comparisons of transportation management system software -- continues the discussion at 5 Questions to Start the Sustainable Supply Chain Conversation.

CSRware is currently highlighted in recent reports released by top analysts looking at the Sustainability and Energy Management software space.

Sustainable Business Solutions, October 2010

Gartner research provides insights into emerging sustainable business systems and related software solutions.

Overhauling the Economic System: The Context for Sustainability as a Corporate Priority

A precocious correlation has existed between energy demand and economic growth for more than a century, so it's no surprise economic transformations on this scale are infrequent and linked to shifts in the predominant "energy source of the day." Although the energy transformations from wood and animal fuels to coal, and then coal to a petroleum-dominated system, were remarkable in their respective impacts, the low-carbon transformation is different for the following reasons:

• It involves the internalization of the environmental costs and consequences of energy use. Yes, the tragedy of the commons is finally being put to the regulatory sword, at least when it comes to energy and emissions. Sure, there have been previous "environmental internalizations," such as regulations relating to sulfate and chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) emissions, but regulating direct and indirect greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is closely connected to core activities and operational costs for many sectors. In fact, it's a cost-on-core business for many.
• The current transformation isn't simply about a switch to renewable, low-carbon energy sources. It's about decoupling the link between economic growth and energy. This new world demands closed-loop thinking, new levels of resource and energy efficiency and a chain of operational custody and visibility that spans throughout full product and service life cycles.
• This is the first major energy-economic transformation to occur during the information age. This is a highly important factor because sustainability introduces new classes of assets, liabilities, responsibilities, risks and an associated system of records. Measurement, management, mitigation and reporting company performance, in relation to the new sustainability-related challenges, must be supported by information systems and services.
• There are specific risk and regulatory implications. In a world where, in some geographies, criminal and civil penalties already exist for misreporting emissions, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) encourages increased levels of climatic disclosure in public disclosures and stakeholders across the business and investor landscape now demand sustainable performance as a new set of organizational key performance indicators (KPIs), sustainability-related information management must be considered a critical, enterprisewide activity.

For more information on this report and how CSRware fits into the overall assessment, please contact Gartner for a full view of the report.

Green Quadrant Carbon & Energy Management Software (Nov, 2010)

The global market for carbon and energy software is intensely competitive - buyers choose from over 100 suppliers. To help buyers save time, save money and reduce risk in their selection process this Verdantix Green Quadrant report compares the 28 software applications that pre-qualify as a potential fit for $1 billion revenue firms.

For more information on this report and how CSRware fits into the overall assessment, please contact Verdantix for a full view of the report.

IT Solutions for Improved Corporate Sustainability: Managing Energy, (Sept, 2010)

Example of discussion:

Eric Wesoff (Greentech Media): Karen, could you give a summary of what you can give in terms of ROI and tell us if you are trying to replace something?

DIFFERENTIATION AND RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
Karen Alonardo (CSRware): The idea in 2007 we did not have carbon Chief Sustainability Officers and we really did not focus on carbon, we focused in IT, because that is where my background is. We focused a lot on high tech and figuring out who has a budget, who has real problems and who was dealing with energy issues then. Coming from a data center operations environment, we focused a lot on IT. We still do and we have a lot of metrics and algorithms in our system that will go into a data center/ IT environment and actually help people measure the performance of their equipment against the power that they are pulling into their facility.
We try to take that information and make sense of it and build a financial model around it to help the IT guy, or anybody else in these organizations that have been managing infrastructure, and figure out how to make them more strategic with better tools. This allows them to start talking about ROIs and justifying business cases so that they can initiate and implement energy efficient solutions. At this point in time, we focus a lot on the sustainability team. It is merging a little bit with IT, environmental health and safety, and sustainability and it is a whole slew of departments that are getting involved. We like to think of CSRware as the aggregate intelligence that helps you in resource management. We are really about sustainability and resource management and we continue to do that.

CARBON: THE NEW CURRENCY Eric Wesoff (Greentech Media): Where are you in terms of carbon?
Karen Alonardo (CSRware): I want to add that what CSRware is doing today is creating the assets. So we are creating an accounting system that is creating the assets that, if over time there is some cap-n-trade or some regulatory environment, our customers are well prepared to drive revenue from those assets.