Sustainable Procurement News

However, there is also a dark side to this story. Your mobile phone contains arsenic, lead and a host of other toxic materials that pose a threat to life when it is no longer (re)useable. If the phone is sent to landfill, these chemicals can leach into soil and groundwater. Under appropriate conditions, recycling is safe. But if the recycling is conducted by a child with no safety gear on a Ghanaian rubbish tip, the consequences can be brutal. Unfortunately, the latter is common. The biggest e-waste dump in the world is just outside Accra.

Selon des témoignages d'anciens employés, 60 % de la production de l’usine était destinée à l'entreprise Nygard, notamment pour la collection Bianca Nygard, le reste allant aux chaînes de vêtements britanniques Marks & Spencer et Bonmarché.

Les aéroports d’Amsterdam, Rotterdam-La Haye, Eindhoven et Lelystad seront d’ici 2020 alimentés en électricité produite uniquement par des parcs éoliens situés au Pays-Bas.

The Ministry of Environmental Protection and other government agencies have launched a campaign targeting irregularities in the recovery of waste materials including electronics, tires, plastics, clothes and home appliances.

“The migrant crisis has increased the risk of slavery incidents appearing in company supply chains across Europe,” said Sam Haynes, Senior Human Rights Analyst at Verisk Maplecroft. “It is no longer just the traditional sourcing hotspots in the emerging economies that businesses should pay attention to when risk assessing their suppliers and the commodities they source.”

Any proposed solution to eliminating modern slavery from supply chains ironically does not need to start with looking at the suppliers, but needs to begin with an interval review of a business’ procurement department or division. Change must come from within the business.

According to the EU, around 88 million tonnes of food are wasted annually in the EU, with associated costs estimated at 143 billion Euros. According to the UN, the food currently wasted in Europe could feed 200 million people. The food currently lost or wasted in Latin America could feed 300 million people. And the food currently lost in Africa could feed 300 million people. And globally, food losses and waste are enough to feed 3 billion people – in a world where every ninth child, woman and man are starving. Not to forget the fact that if food loss and waste were its own country, it would be the world’s third-largest greenhouse gas emitter.

Keeping a close eye on suppliers is a tall task for any supply chain management organization. Between sourcing, category, sustainability, and purchasing managers, there must be clear strategies in place to weed out disingenuous suppliers and provide stakeholders with sustainable products.

Bangladesh, the second largest garment producing country in the world, will digitally map its entire garment industry in the first such initiative to bring transparency in the supply chain in an effort to stop abuses.

Retail giant Target and the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS) have teamed up to accelerate sustainable cotton research. The partners have launched the ISS Cotton Sustainability Challenge, an innovation challenge aimed at improving the sustainability of cotton using the International Space Station (ISS) as a research and development testing platform.

After two years of heated campaigning and butting heads, Greenpeace and seafood giant Thai Union have reached a joint agreement on how to drive sustainable change in the company’s operations and the rest of the seafood industry.

The Dow Chemical Company (NYSE: DOW) announced today it has teamed up with national nonprofit, Keep America Beautiful, to award two $50,000 grants for organizations to establish Hefty® EnergyBag™ programs in their communities. The program is an innovative approach to diverting traditionally non-recycled plastics – like chip bags and juice pouches – from landfills and converting the materials into valuable energy sources.

En traduisant ses engagements responsables à travers sa marque emblématique Heineken®, HEINEKEN France poursuit sa démarche de progrès. À l’occasion de la publication de son rapport RSE 2016 et du lancement de son Edition limitée, Sandra Benjilani (Responsable Pôle communication Externe et RSE) revient sur la mobilisation de l’entreprise et le rôle de la marque Heineken®, dans l’illustration des engagements RSE du groupe.

Share Action précise ainsi que les 100 plus grandes entreprises américaines où il fait bon travailler surperforment depuis plus de trente. A l’inverse, le fait de manquer à certaines obligations - en matière de salaire minimum par exemple - peut entraîner des pertes boursières.

The provenance of a particular supplier (or product) could be verified by a blockchain. This would allow procurers to check, for example, that a supplier meets minimum requirements of financial standing and experience, or to validate references and prices – all electronically through the secure chain.

Dell is a leading member of the Billion Dollar Roundtable, which was founded in 2001 and recognizes corporations that achieved spending of at least $1 billion on minority and women-owned suppliers. In fact, Dell is one of just 22 Fortune 500 companies to be part of this organization. They’ve gone far beyond the minimum, having spent $4.9 billion with diverse suppliers and small businesses during the most recent fiscal year. Other notable members of the Billion Dollar Roundtable include Apple, AT&T, Bank of America, Boeing, CVS Health, Ford, Honda, Johnson & Johnson, Kroger, and Procter & Gamble.

That seems impossible for a company that depends on flying and driving for a good chunk of its business. There have to be some assumptions of some serious technological advances over the next 30 or so years in terms of zero-emissions fuels.

Given the complex nature of any supply chain used throughout a production process, there can be a number of risks to companies associated with human trafficking. Awareness of these risks and knowledge of the ways that traffickers may use a company’s workplaces or supply chain in connection with their trafficking activities can help companies avoid reputational damage, business interruptions, potential lawsuits, community conflicts, protests and a loss of consumer trust, all of which can impact on financial performance.

Singapore is among the world’s largest hubs for trade and travelers whilst commonly seen as the gateway to Asia from the west. Any implementation of blockchain technology for regional supply chain operations and trade finance will prove to be a significant endorsement of the decentralized innovation most prominently known as the core technology behind cryptocurrencies like bitcoin.

The digital transformation of the global supply chain has brought us mind-boggling innovations: complex big data storage, artificially intelligent beings, a connection of the physical and cloud, an emergence of predictive analytics, e-purchasing, e-sourcing, a transcendence of logistical efficiency and much more.

“Multinational firms are the architects of global supply chains. As such they must deal with the shifting economic, technological, political and social forces and pressures operating on their supply chains, employees, customers and regulators. It is not much of an exaggeration to say that their ability to navigate and respond will be one (perhaps the) decisive factor for the future of a reasonably integrated and sustainable global economy,” says Nobel Prize winning economist Michael Spence of the University of New York, in a note accompanying the report.

Last month, IKEA, which serves hot meals, take-home products and coffee to 650 million annual visitors at nearly 400 of its stores in 48 countries, publicized its goal of halving the food waste from those operations by August 2020. The "Food is Precious" initiative trains employees to use an electronic "smart scale" and data analysis tool to identify what is being wasted (and why) and to find creative solutions to reclaim the profit.

The standard is set to help those who fund life-changing climate and development projects around the world – including businesses, governments and investors – to measure, report and track the full range of benefits they have contributed to.

Campaigners say banks have traditionally lagged behind companies when it comes to supporting ethical palm oil practices. But Greenpeace says HSBC’s move is the first public evidence that the bank is taking its palm oil policy seriously. “After years of turning a blind eye, the financial sector is finally starting to take a tougher line on rogue palm oil companies,” said Jamie Woolley of Greenpeace UK.