Sustainability: business, life, environment

With Wal-Mart leading the headlines with the Sustainability Index, many businesses are evaluating the criteria  that will move their organization up the business sustainability scale.  Like the retail giant, leading organizations are focusing on their supply chain and integrating sustainability concepts directly into their purchasing processes.  For many, the goal is to not only improve supply chain performance but to establish forward-looking metrics.

Business sustainability has become a top priority for business leaders and they are looking to their business partners to follow their lead.   At Taiga Company, we view these business sustainability supplier performance measures as a new wave of supply chain management. 

By focusing on the supply chain and directly managing supplier relationships, businesses are realizing additional value from their business relationships.  Leading businesses are developing supply chain business sustainability strategies with indicators of future success.  Several forward-looking questions posed by GreenBiz to suppliers include:

•    Do you have a business continuity plan that is linked both to your operational risk management program and your sustainability effort?

•    Do you have an active engagement program that you use to determine the interests of your key stakeholders?

•    Do you use an integrated management system to make sustainability a key component in how you operate your business rather than having it work as a peripheral activity?

•    Are you quantifying the continual improvement made within your sustainability program with a single score?

•    Are all three responsibilities (i.e., environmental stewardship, social equity and well being and financial prosperity) integrated in your sustainability program?

In our professional consulting, we encourage clients to recognize that the pursuit of business sustainability is a continuous long-term commitment.  Whether a company is just becoming familiar with the concept of business sustainability or is a sustainability leader in the industry, there are sustainable supply chain improvements that can increase eco awareness and drive sustainable change.   Determining the criteria that will move an organization on the business sustainability scale has become the focus of many leading supply chain actions in the business world.