How organizations are working to address the myriad social, environmental and operational issues that can arise in complex supply chains
This week, a comprehensive special report in The New York Times detailed the very bottom of a systemic epidemic of human rights violations in global supply chains.There are 35.8 million people enslaved worldwide in 2015. One in five is a child. Half ... View More
Today, the US Department of State released its 2015 Global Trafficking in Persons Report, which places countries onto one of three tiers based on the extent of their efforts to comply with “minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking.” T... View More
If you’re a small-scale designer or apparel brand, managing your supply chain efficiently and sustainably can be a challenge. MadeRight, a startup that recently launched out of Y Combinator, wants to change that.MadeRight is helping designers simp... View More
Farmers have tilled the soil - turning it as preparation for planting - for millennia. But that legacy is under scrutiny today as “soil health” has entered the vernacular – at least amongst people aware of prevailing agri-trends such as those r... View More
Tradeshift, the fastest-growing supplier collaboration platform, today announced its partnership with EcoVadis, creators of the first collaborative platform providing Supplier Sustainability Ratings for global supply chains. The partnership will give... View More
General Mills announced a major move toward cage-free eggs this week as part of an updated animal welfare policy that now extends throughout its global supply chain.The Minnesota-based food giant committed itself to 100 percent cage-free eggs for its... View More
The recent announcement by McDonald's, which outlines its approach to combatting deforestation across its main commodity supply chains, is perhaps the most comprehensive environmental commitment of any major restaurant group. It sets an example for a... View More
Earlier this month, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Department of Transportation proposed new fuel-efficiency and greenhouse gas standards for medium- and heavy-duty trucks.I spoke with Jason Mathers of the Environmental D... View More
Today, Rainforest Action Network (RAN) released a new progress report, titled Testing Commitments to Cut Conflict Palm Oil, ranking the relative strength of palm oil commitments made since the launch of its Snack Food 20 campaign two years ago. The 2... View More
For one of the last breakout sessions of the week, Tom Smith, Acting General Manager at Sedex; Vincent Kneefel, Manager of the United Nations Global Compact; and Christina Gossmann, Marketing Manager at Digital Divide Data (DDD) sat down to discuss t... View More
This afternoon panel on Wednesday, day three of SB '15 San Diego, offered a unique opportunity to hear from a diverse group of companies, both large and small, national and global, spanning several industries, and with different degrees of complexity... View More
As I settled in to the back right corner of the Mission Bay room for a Tuesday afternoon breakout session on Supply Chain Performance, I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect. All of my previous panels at SB ‘15 San Diego had focused on consumer or ... View More
Meeting your sustainability goals requires partners whose own policies and practices support you in hitting your targets. Printers are the gatekeepers to the eco-qualities of your paper products — be it your annual report or latest marketing materi... View More
On Monday, Bangladeshi police charged 41 people, including the owner of the Rana Plaza complex, with murder over the 2013 factory collapse that killed more than 1,100 people. ... View More
Today, institutional investors representing more than $4 trillion in assets are joining Mars, PepsiCo, Kellogg Company and a dozen other giants from the food/beverage and personal care industries to call on the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSP... View More
The Conflict-Free Sourcing Initiative (CFSI) today announced it is available to help companies navigate compliance with the pending conflict minerals legislation recently voted on by the European Parliament.In addition, the CFSI says it is adopting a... View More
Despite recent commitments to deforestation-free palm oil by several well-known brands and producers, many companies are delaying implementation of these commitments. Commitments are just the first step; the implementation stage is where companies ca... View More
Starbucks has become the latest corporation to move its water bottling operations out of California: Last Thursday, the company announced that it would move sourcing and manufacturing of its Ethos Water out of state due to the serious drought conditi... View More
Companies face a harder time today satisfying their customers. They expect their purchases to deliver as promised and, increasingly, they want to ensure the manufacturing process didn’t cause social or environmental damage along the value chain. ... View More
Hershey achieved 30 percent use of certified cocoa in 2014, putting the company ahead of schedule to hit its 2015 goal of 50 percent, according to Hershey’s 2014 Sustainability Report.The company has pledged to use 100 percent certified and sustain... View More