Building Green Supplier Scorecards

Corporate environmental responsibility has come of age.

Companies want to reduce their carbon footprint and they want to see that their suppliers are doing the same.

We recently came across a consulting firm specializing in online sustainability training and sustainability professional certifications, greensupplychain.org and, for example a conference next month in San Francisco, the Sustainable Supply Chain Summit.

Consultants, supply chain heads, government agencies, academics and other informed stakeholders are promoting the need for companies to evaluate the performance of their own, and their suppliers' environmental programs.

This is a timely and obviously important idea and one which should be operationalized in supplier assessment scorecards.

It will be increasingly valuable, from a commercial perspective, to incorporate a set of green focussed assessment metrics into performance scorecards, based on key questions such as:

• Has the supplier implemented a formal green program?

• What is the quality of that program?

• Do we have an open and transparent corporate social responsibilty dialogue with them?

• Does the supplier publish an annual sustainability report?

• How did they perform on key green measures?

• Do they understand our environmental policies and priorities?

• Does the supplier maintain a chemical exclusion list to ensure that their processes are free from environmentally harmful chemicals?

• What is the quality of the suppliers reverse logistics program?

• What is their end-of-life reclamation strategy?

• Do they work with their suppliers to manage better environmental performance?

As environmental issues increasingly impact on the economic climate, I'm sure we'll see a significantly bigger effort placed on managing green supply chains.

And that will, of course require tools and methods which provide greater transparency and communincation between supply chain members.

Author: Derek Groom (Decideware)