What Will Be Your Defining Moment in Sustainability?

Speaking with prospective clients and peers, I often ask: What were the defining moments in your company’s history? You can probably boil them down to a select few. You may recall a mountain of work leading up to and a stream of action that achieved the desired result; but the point of significance most likely came down to that simple decision to do something different.

As a sustainability consultant, I am engaged in a quite a bit of discussion and debate about what sustainability in business is, how it can be applied, and why businesses may or may not be ready. These conversations usually turn into an exploration of specific examples, most often implementation challenges related to a prospective client’s particular business or industry. While execution is a critical piece of any overall process, the conversations and decisions that lead up to the point of business sustainability action are often viewed later to be the defining moments.

In a recent forum of discussion on the topic of sustainable procurement and supply chain management, the debate centered on defining the external characteristics of what this function looks like in action. Redirecting the discussion slightly, I approach the conversation from a different perspective asking: What would be the defining moments in the evolution of an ideal sustainable supply chain?

•    The definition of corporate sustainable values.
•    The alignment of corporate sustainable values with business financial drivers.
•    The alignment of internal business practices with corporate values.
•    The alignment of product offerings with consumer expectations and corporate values.
•    The alignment of supply relationships with product quality and corporate values.

The defining moment when sustainable supply chain management really begins is the moment when an organization decides to include defined corporate sustainability values in its traditional process. The product changes, material changes, and supply changes that result are all specific and unique to that organization and will be an ongoing process.

As a Herman Miller representative recently stated in a green design presentation: our sustainable supply chain pursuit began the day we decided to build a 100% recyclable chair.

By leading the business sustainability conversation and facilitating alignment with business partners, an organization is setting itself up for business sustainability success. At Taiga Company, our professional consulting encourages business leaders to take an internal approach to sustainability. We help build focused business sustainability programs that define internal sustainability values in conjunction with key business stakeholder interests.