Changing Business from the Inside Out

6Supplier responsibility:Part 1Establishing the program

This chapter sets the context for “supplier responsibility” and covers the steps to establish your program.

All is connected … no one thing can change by itself (Paul Hawken).

There are probably more jobs and more job growth for corporate tree-huggers working on supply-chain issues than in any other area of the company. Because of the rapid growth in this area, unlike the previous chapter on environmental sustainability, this chapter will delve into the details of how to set up and run a “supplier responsibility” program. For this area, the word “treehugger” may not be the most appropriate because, as you will see, most of the priority issues in this space tend to be social (i.e., labor ...