Is your Supply Management organization ready?

The Triple Bottom Line — which balances economic, environmental, and social performance in order to make a corporation more sustainable — is gaining more support by the day. As per this recent article over on Chief Executive on the Shareholder Push for the “Triple Bottom Line”, the percentage of social and environmental shareholder resolutions that garnered at least 30% shareholder support, rose from a mere 3% in 2005 to 26.6% in 2010. At the current rate that support is increasing, it’s just a few years before the majority of social and environmental shareholder resolutions exceed the 30% threshold and not many more years before the majority of well-formed social and environmental resolutions pass.

So, is your Supply Management organization ready?

Unless it is a true CSR leader, probably not. So where should it start? Near the end of 2008, CAPS published a Critical Issues Report that addressed the Triple Bottom Line (TBL) framework offered some suggestions for an organization that wanted to get started on the TBL path. Specifically, the report recommended that an organization:

• Smart small (but do something).
• Insure proposed strategies are aligned with overall corporate strategies and goals.
• Incorporate green into your purchasing and sourcing processes.
• Be proactive.
• Make sure you’re not just greenwashing.
• Form a cross-functional team to scale your efforts company wide.