Brand Introduction to Green Supply Chain Management
Why green supply chains?
In recent decades, the globalization of manufacturing has accelerated. There is a growing consensus among business communities regarding the central importance of supply chains to a company’s environmental footprint. Brands must therefore take an active role in reducing the environmental impact of their suppliers in order to significantly reduce their own pollution and emissions.
IPE calls on brands to incorporate environmental compliance into their sourcing standards and to use procurement incentives to encourage remediation and green manufacturing. Rewarding good environmental performance with greater business is the single best point of leverage for changing the culture of tolerating pollution and reducing one’s overall corporate footprint.
Green Supply Chain CITI Evaluation
The CITI scoring system provides a step-by-step roadmap for the private sector to reduce its impacts by incorporating environmental performance into their supplier sourcing standards.
With IPE’s Blue Map Database, Blue Eco-Chain and PRTR reporting platform, dozens of domestic and multinational corporations more efficiently and effectively oversee the environmental performance of their suppliers in China.
Search the CITI Rankings for our leading partners or read the CITI Evaluation Methodology in details.
- CITI Evaluation Criteria
- Responsiveness & Transparency
- Performance Disclosure
- Compliance & Corrective Action
- Energy Conservation & Emissions Reduction
- Extended Green Supply Chain Practices
How to achieve green supply chains?
Where are the environmental risks in my supply chain?
The first step to supply chain management is to know who your suppliers are. You can do this by mapping your suppliers by region and industry. IPE recommends that brands map beyond their direct suppliers to include Tier 2 and 3 manufacturers, which often have much higher environmental impacts and GHG emissions.
How do I determine if my suppliers in China are in compliance?
Brand can search their suppliers in IPE’s Blue Map database, which contains more than 2.17 million corporate violation records and real-time emissions monitoring data for over 18,000 high impact factories.
What do I do if I find suppliers with violations?
Brands should contact the supplier and request or require that they submit a public explanation detailing the cause of the violation and their rectification plans. Many leading brands now require their suppliers to track their own environmental performance using the Blue EcoChain, and more proactively disclose response public explanations once new violations or excessive emissions arise. Non-compliance records may be removed via GCA audits. Click to read more.
Public Explanations and Record RemovalHow do I move up my supply chain to reach the highest environmental impacts?
To reach high impact suppliers, IPE recommends partnering with direct suppliers to map out raw material and chemical suppliers, as well as wastewater and hazardous waste treatment facilities. Brands can either conduct screening themselves or ask their direct suppliers to screen their own supply chains, thereby extending sustainable management practices upstream and downstream. By extending environmental management, brands protect themselves against potential supply chain disruptions when factories are forced to close due to outstanding pollution issues.
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Raw Materials
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Processing
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Manufacturing & Assembly
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Direct Suppliers
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Waste Treatment
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Packaging
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Retail & Distribution
How do I reduce my supply chain energy, water and chemical use, pollution discharge and GHG emissions?
Brands are strongly encouraged to go beyond basic regulatory compliance by monitoring and steadily reducing the energy, water, and chemical use, as well as GHG emissions and pollution discharge of their suppliers. As in the first section, brands are encouraged to focus first on the suppliers most heavily contributing to their environmental impact, and they can do this by requesting that their suppliers disclose their pollutant emissions and energy data via IPE’s PRTR reporting platform.
Pollutant Release and Transfer Registry (PRTR) is an environmental database or inventory of both hazardous chemical substances and conventional pollutants released into the air, water and soil and transferred off-site for treatment and disposal collected on an annual basis. PRTR reporting systems are commonly used in the U.S., the E.U., Japan and other regions around the world.
For more information, please see the report: Establishing a PRTR Disclosure System in China
How can I share my best practices with the consumers and other stakeholders?
Brands can proactively disclose their supply chain performance in their own publications, including social media or on IPE website, which will help guide the public to understand the positive impacts a more sustainable way of consumption can have on the environment.
Brands can demonstrate true leadership in their commitment to supply chain responsibility by transparently disclosing their supplier list on IPE’s green supply chain map, which provides easy access to the real time environmental data for each supplier from the Blue Map database.
Foxconn Supply Chain Carbon Neutral Initiative
Nike Switches to Reusable Cartons to Reduce Waste, Carbon & Water Impacts
Nike's Sustainable Manufacturing and Sourcing Energy & Carbon Program
Global Business Accountability Map
Visualize corporate climate and environmental commitments, assist stakeholders in tracking the actual actions taken by companies to fulfill their commitments in the global production and sourcing process, and build a global corporate accountability mechanism.
Since 2006, over 20,000 factories have responded to their environmental records and publicly disclose their environmental information. Join leading enterprises in environmental responsibility and sustainability today.
