This article is supported by The Sustainability Consortium.
Sustainability impacts are everywhere. Yet one person is rarely responsible for a sustainability problem or for solving it. Science tells us that consumer food and goods are essential. They are responsible for 60 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, two-thirds of tropical deforestation, 80 percent of global water use and three-quarters of forced labor and child labor. This means that creating a sustainable future is all about creating a global revolution in sustainable spending.
People with “sustainability” in their title are working hard on sustainable strategies. But there is a very important role in the supply chain that will not necessarily work in sustainability: the buyer, the person who makes decisions about what ends up on store shelves (regardless of that is, a corporate or online outlet).
Why are buyers so important? Is it about shaping consumer buying? Yes, but that’s not the whole story. I believe that people should not have to choose between products that can afford them and products that are good for them, their families, their communities and the planet.
We know that more and more customers are voting with their credit cards by endorsing brands that share their values. And new initiatives such as Amazon’s Climate Friendly Pledge program are making it easier for consumers to prioritize products that have key sustainability certifications such as GreenSeal and the Carbon Trust’s CO2 Reduction label.
But still, for most consumers and for many product segments, that change will not come soon enough. We need “built-in” sustainability for everything customers buy.
So who is responsible for delivering that?
The fact is that it is up to everyone who works in these value chains. From consumer brands to manufacturers to traders, farmers, miners and beyond. We all need to take steps to understand their impacts, set science-consistent targets, and put their companies and supply chains in place to achieve them. It is a huge effort, involving a large chunk of the entire global economy.
That can feel a little awful – like turning an oil tanker with a kayak paddle. So how do we make things move faster, and how do we shift the balance of incentives so that the overall value chain gets bigger?
At the Consortium for Sustainability (TSC), we have gathered the best sustainability science to develop maps of all value chains in consumer food and goods, and then identified the most important social and environmental sites , wherever they are. The complexity, and the diversity, is enormous. From apples to laptops, from T-shirts to shampoo, from car batteries to potato chips.
And yet, all detailed maps have the same basic shape – hourglass. There is great diversity and breadth in production, as evidenced by the great diversity in product use as well. But the map always gets narrower in the middle. And here is the most important person in sustainability. They don’t work in sustainability, and some of them don’t even see this as part of their career yet. But they have the single greatest potential to lead anyone’s sustainability. I’m, of course, talking about the retail buyer.
These people, working in retail supply, do more than anyone else to shape how products are made and bought. They decide which results will get the most shelf space, are actively promoted and get listed for next season. Both historically and today, these people are driven by a handful of key metrics: sales volume; margin; stocking rates; returning. But what about adding sustainability to that mix?
The most advanced retailers – think Walmart, Target, Kroger, Walgreens – are already arming their customers with data and insights into the sustainability performance of their products and suppliers. Some retailers are even trying out new incentives for these buyers to get more sustainable products on a shelf. At TSC, our THESIS Index program gives retail customers a consistent view they need to make informed choices about the suppliers they work with and the products they produce. lorg. It has grown rapidly; it is used by more than 1,500 of the largest food and consumer goods companies covering products worth approximately $ 1 trillion in annual sales. More importantly, we are seeing a 5-10 percent improvement in sustainability performance year on year.
So what do buyers need to be successful? Three things:
They are a managed database: They need to implement relevant and capable sustainability and vision data. They don’t buy whole companies, they buy goods. Therefore, they need data about the products they buy that covers the total value chain and the total product life cycle. And that data needs to provide easy insights into how things compare, what results have improved and what providers need help or nudge to get going.
We all believe that sustainability is really crucial. But if “important” is synonymous with “individual,” sustainability is defined as being perpetuated, where it is not part of everyday business. Sustainability data and insights need to sit alongside the other business metrics that buyers manage, so they need to be built into the software and tools that these professionals use each day.
Lastly, and most importantly, commercial buyers need help. They can’t do it alone. They need a senior management team that puts sustainability at the heart of corporate strategy. They need a management structure that recognizes them for the progress they are making. And they need partners in product planning, marketing, work and, of course, sustainability to make things happen.
So, the next time you meet a buyer, try to say “thank you” for everything they do today, and what they can do to turn them into a stable product and a stable purchase. ‘we must see.