In the future, will sustainability and supply chain transparency be a necessity for consumer goods – Svensk Handels says yes

Swedish lobbyist organization Svensk Handel recently released their latest consumer goods trend report (konsuMera – in Swedish only) and highest ranked among the trends were consumer expectations in sustainability/CSR related issues.

In an analysis by Svenska Dagbladet they go as far as to say that “in the future, it will be impossible for companies to ignore CSR-related issues”. The question is how this will work out in the future.

When looking through the latest reports on CSR/sustainability one can quickly become overwhelmed by the gap between the ambitions of the producers and their supply chains. There are many aspects of CSR that needs to be accounted for but take this snapshot as an example of the state of CSR in many supply chains.

Carbon reduction ambition
Only 38% of Suppliers currently have carbon reduction targets in place compared to 82% of the Members. The success of long-term global carbon reduction among Suppliers will now depend on two main factors.

This quote is from the Carbon Disclosure Project Supply Chain Report 2010 (authored by AT Kearney) and although it only focuses on one area of sustainability (by some of the leaders in the field) it shows the abyss between the ambitions and actions of the producers and the focus/motivation of their suppliers.

If the report from Svensk Handel speaks the truth about the future – consumer goods producers need not only get their suppliers on track, they will also need to educate the retailers about what they themselves are doing as well as how their suppliers are perform.

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This entry was posted on March 2, 2010 at 3:18 pm and is filed under Best Cost Country Sourcing, Business, Global trade, green procurement, Sourcing, Spend management. 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.

2 Responses to “In the future, will sustainability and supply chain transparency be a necessity for consumer goods – Svensk Handels says yes”

IFRS Says:
March 3, 2010 at 6:38 pm
Without question, your posts always makes for a good wakeup call. Thank you for giving the community with entertaining and informative insights.

Despite what other followers think, you have to believe that the underlying premise of unified standards has merit.

There is a definite need for further thought, though convergence in one manner or another would be awesome, especially for the M&A community.
Jenny Dahlerus Says:
April 13, 2010 at 1:22 pm
I’m glad you find the trend report from Svensk Handel interesting and I’m happy to let you know that there’s an English version aswell that you can order at our website.

Jenny Dahlerus
Communicator at Svensk Handel

Purchasing Transformation