Many big companies are now pushing triple bottom line and corporate social responsibility requirements deep down into their supply chains. This means that the small suppliers at the bottom of the chain need to start taking notice.

In fact what the leading big companies around the world are talking about is sustainable procurement which is more than just “green” procurement. This means their suppliers must tick all the boxes on environmental issues – reduced packaging, less pollutants, energy efficiency, water conservation and the like and also they need to treat their workers fairly, offer a safe workplace and purchase their own inputs in a sustainable fashion.

One example of a corporate doing this is Hewlett-Packard, who adopted the Electronics Industry Code of Conduct in 2004, and has now signed up 557 of its biggest suppliers. This code covers a wide range of issues, including the environment, ethics, how workers are treated and safe working conditions.

There’s been a lot of green hype in the media, but it’s not necessarily translated into behavioural change yet. There are both product certifications and also ISO 14001 which is about management practices or behaviour and I believe this is the way to go. ISO 14001 not only greens your business but it increases your efficiency and your profits.

Technorati Tags: green procurement, corporate social responsibility requirements, social responsibility, environmental issues, ISO 14001, Electronics Industry Code of Conduct

This entry was posted on Monday, June 30th, 2008 at 7:16 am and is filed under Sustainable Business, water resources & pollution. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.