Archive for December 3rd, 2012

Credit: Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, CC BY-ND 2.0

More companies are aggressively pursuing sustainability in their supply chains, according to Bruce Tompkins, the executive director of the Supply Chain Consortium. Part of their motivation is to get out in front of regulatory requirements. “Companies want to shape the future of sustainability,” Tompkins said recently in a podcast on the topic, “and it’s easier to stay ahead of the game than trying to catch up to regulations.”

In the podcast “Risk, Economics and the Environment – Defining Sustainability and Best Practices for Businesses,” Tompkins tells interviewer Cheyanne Ritz that many sustainability concerns are found in the supply chain. In fact, he says, “about 50 percent of a company’s carbon emissions typically come from [its] supply chain.”

The private sector, he says, is moving forward on issues like climate change in spite of government efforts. In the U.S., the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is now requiring sustainability and carbon emissions reporting, so in fact regulatory requirements are putting pressure on companies to take action. But Tompkins also believes that companies are adopting policies and practices around sustainability to stay ahead of the curve.

“They don’t want to be dictated to, and they want to make and set policy,” Tompkins says. “A lot of the future is in helping to shape where sustainability. I see that as being an important thing.” Read the rest of this entry »