2Sustain

On Monday, Marks & Spencer (M&S), one of Britain’s largest retailers, announced a program to expand the green initiatives it launched in 2007 in hopes of becoming the world’s most sustainable retailer by 2015.

M&S first launched its ethical and eco plan, called Plan A, in January 2007. Its overall goals included making M&S carbon neutral, sending no waste from its operations to landfill, extending sustainable sourcing, setting new standards in ethical trading and helping customers and employees live a healthier lifestyle.

With this week’s announcement, the company has made a commitment to 80 ambitious new initiatives, many of which are going to major impacts on the M&S supplier network. For example, M&S is planning to: Continue Reading »

Safeway Inc. is now the first U.S.-based retail grocery chain and manufacturer of private label merchandise to join The Sustainability Consortium, an independent organization of diverse global participants that work collaboratively to build a scientific foundation that drives innovation aimed at improving consumer product sustainability.

Specifically, Safeway is drawn to the Consortium’s product life cycle assessment (LCA) mission.  The company wants to aggregate data from throughout its supply chain –from primary sectors such as agriculture, dairy, packaging and fishery through industrial food processing to retail delivery –and then use this data to create a corporate-wide supply chain policy that encourages sustainable purchasing and manufacturing practices for the organization’s direct and indirect buying. Continue Reading »

Industries today are continuing to re-think and re-design products and processes for human health, environmental health and recyclability, according to MBDC (McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry, LLC), a global consultancy helping clients create a positive footprint on the planet by implementing the Cradle to Cradle® framework.

The consultancy reached this conclusion after compiling a series of its recent milestones, such as: Continue Reading »

Yesterday, Walmart announced a goal to eliminate 20 million metric tons of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from its global supply chain by the end of 2015.

The footprint of Walmart’s global supply chain is many times larger than its operational footprint, and so it represents a much more significant opportunity to reduce emissions. In fact, the ambitious goal announced yesterday represents one and a half times the company’s estimated global carbon footprint growth over the next five years and is the equivalent of taking more than 3.8 million cars off the road for a year.

Walmart collaborated with Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) to develop this innovative approach which looks at the supply chain on a global scale. After all, as the EDF website says:

Walmart’s supply chain is where the action is. It’s the biggest possible lever that Walmart could bring to the table. Walmart will work with suppliers to reduce their emissions – which they otherwise might not do – resulting in positive ripple effects around the globe.

This new program to reduce GHGs has three main components: Continue Reading »

More than half (54 percent) of companies responding to a recent survey by Tompkins Supply Chain Consortium say they are pursuing or have pursued green certification for their business facilities. Most (46 percent) think green certification will lead to lower maintenance requirements. Others cite reasons such as increasing credibility (38 percent), maximizing return on investment (33 percent), using guidance and advice from rating companies (21 percent), and coordinating management practices (13 percent).

These results are included in Tompkins Supply Chain Consortium’s recently released “Facility Sustainability Survey Report,” which concludes that companies are growing increasingly focused on green initiatives at their facility locations.

For instance, data from the report shows that: Continue Reading »