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Press Release: PUMA expands its project in cooperation with The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) and the Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ) in GRI’s GANTSCh program which supports supplier factories to report on their social and environmental initiatives and agreed with 20 key suppliers in South East Asia and other major sourcing regions to issue their own sustainability reports from 2011 on. Through this project, PUMA endeavours to enhance transparency as well as social and working conditions in its supply chain by advising factory management regarding weak points in their operations and enabling them to make improvements independently.

Twenty strategic PUMA suppliers based in China, Vietnam, Cambodia and other countries  – which produce together more than two thirds of all PUMA products consumed – will receive GRI certified training on transparent measurement and reporting on their sustainability performance using the GRI G3 Guidelines – the world’s most widely-used framework for sustainability reporting. The training within the Global Action Network for Transparency in the Supply Chain program (GANTSCh) will be conducted by GRI Certified Training Partners. During the reporting process, scheduled to start in 2010, the suppliers will be supported by regional sustainability consultants and the first sustainability reports are expected to be released in 2011/2012.

“Supply chain sustainability reporting is a key part of PUMA’s overall sustainability strategy,” said Dr. Reiner Hengstmann, Global Director of puma.safe supply chain. “Without sustainable suppliers, we will not be able to produce sustainable products or credibly report about PUMA’s own sustainability initiatives. The GANTSCh project helps to ensure that our suppliers fully embrace the concept of sustainability and introduce respective programs in their companies.”

Read the entire press releaseon PUMA’s Website HERE

 Similar to P&G,  IBM has also announced new management system requirements to advance sustainability across the company’s global network of suppliers.  IBM’s “first-tier” suppliers – those firms with which IBM holds a direct commercial relationship – will now be required to establish and follow a management system to address their corporate and environmental responsibilities. 

This is the latest move in IBM’s decades-long commitment to working with suppliers around corporate responsibility initiatives. The company runs one of the largest, most complex supply chains in the world, spanning 28,000 first-tier suppliers in 90 countries. 

IBM’s suppliers are now required to: 

• define, deploy, and sustain a management system that addresses corporate responsibility, including supplier conduct and environmental protection;
• measure performance and establish voluntary, quantifiable environmental goals;
• publicly disclose results associated with these voluntary environmental goals and other environmental aspects of their management systems.

In detail, IBM asks its suppliers to: 

1. Define, deploy, and sustain a corporate responsibility and environmental management system that identifies significant aspects of the supplier’s intersections with these matters, including those articulated in IBM’s Supplier Conduct Principles and the Electronic Industry Citizenship Coalition Code of Conduct
2. Establish programs (within the management system) to control operations that intersect with these matters and confirm compliance with applicable law, regulation and any particular contractual requirements
3. Measure performance associated with supplier’s significant environmental aspects where applicable and include at a minimum each of the following aspects common to virtually all businesses:
   • energy conservation
   • scope 1 and scope 2 greenhouse gas emissions
   • waste management and recycling
4. Set voluntary environmental goals to achieve positive results associated with significant aspects where applicable and include at a minimum one in each of the three aspects cited in item 3 above
5. Publicly disclose results associated with these voluntary environmental goals and other environmental aspects from the management system, including any regulatory fines or penalties that may have occurred
6. Train employees who are responsible for performing this work
7. Conduct self-assessments and audits as well as management reviews
8. Cascade this set of requirements to the supplier’s suppliers who perform work that is material to the products, parts and/or services being supplied to IBM

The orginal IBM Press release can be found HERE 

IBM Global Procurement Requirements can be found HERE

P&G announced the launch of the Supplier Environmental Sustainability Scorecard and rating process on May 12, 2010. Rick Hughes, P&Gs global purchasing officer, talks about how the new scorecard represents the next step in P&Gs commitment to environmental sustainability and reflects the Company’s holistic, end-to-end supply chain strategy.

The supplier sustainability scorecard and training materials can be found here:

http://www.pgsupplier.com/environmental-sustainability-scorecard

This week a short, but highly content rich conference will be held in Arlington, Virginia.  The International Symposium on Sustainable Systems & Technology conference sponsored by the IEEE Computer Society features the latest in design, manufacturing,research, marketing, recycling practice, and policy making from worldleaders in industry, academia, and public policy areas.

For more details, visit the conference website here: http://www.ieee-issst.org/index.php/conference-program

The Carbon Disclosure Project just released their 2010 supply chain report.  They report favorable news as CDP Members are eager to collaborate with their Suppliers, and are taking steps to move forward and overcome obstacles: 89% already have a strategy in place to engage with Suppliers on GHG emissions and climate change. Within the next 12 months, the use of supplier relationship management processes will increase significantly, and the importance of carbon versus classic procurement targets is expected to triple during the next five years.    

In the future, it will become common for Members to adjust their supply base according to lowcarbon criteria: 56% of Members state that in the future they expect to deselect Suppliers for failing to meet formal carbon management criteria, compared to just 6% today. It is clear that Suppliers are going to need to start to perform detailed assessments about their current capabilities in terms of climate change and carbon emissions management. They will also need to set ambitious targets for reducing their emissions in order to remain competitive.  Details of the supply chain report can be found on the CDP website here: https://www.cdproject.net/en-US/Programmes/Pages/CDP-Supply-Chain.aspx

LCA SUSTAINABLE SUPPLY CHAIN SUMMIT USA

‘Benchmarking Experiences on Developing Models, Principles & Standards for Measuring and Addressing Environmental & Social Impacts Throughout The Entire Life Cycle & Supply Chain’

April 28-29, 2010, Chicago Marriott Midway

The 7th Sustainable Supply Chain Summit, the ‘LCA Sustainable Supply Chain’ (‘Addressing Environmental & Social Impacts Throughout The Entire Life Cycle & Supply Chain’), provides an unprecedented opportunity to find out how the world’s leading multinationals are accounting for and reducing the impacts of their products, across the entire life cycle. The summit will feature many new corporate case studies, including BT Americas, Alcatel, Texas Instruments, Verizon and Motorola, who will share their experiences with the audience on how they have reduced their social and environmental impacts.

For a copy of the full program and speaker list, visit http://www.lca-sustainable-supply-chain-usa.com or call (1) 800 721 3915 or email info@american-business-conferences.com