A recent post over on the Kenco Blog on Best Practices for Greening the Supply Chain contained five precepts for making your supply chain greener that should be shared far and wide. They are:

• Realize the Contribution of Efficiency
  Part of green is being lean. Lean minimizes waste. Waste costs money. So when you are efficient, you minimize costs, which, all other things being equal, maximizes profit. As SI has said many times before, green not only makes you sustainable, but it increases the green you have in the bank.
• Assess the Life Cycle Impact of Products
  When evaluating the sustainability of a product, you have to look beyond the raw materials (and their creation/extraction) and production, evaluate (intended) use, and think about disposal. As SI has noted before, the product should be designed for recycling (and raw material recovery) and at the very least minimize, if not eliminate, waste and landfill requirements.
• Recognize Green Products & Services
  When presented with multiple product and service alternatives, the ability to recognize those that are naturally sustainable is key to embedding sustainability in your organization.
• Minimize Resource & Energy Use and Carbon Impact
  Pay careful attention to the amount of resources required, the amount of energy required, and the amount of carbon produced. A truly green process utilizes renewable resources, renewable energy, and is carbon neutral. That may not always be possible, but that is the end goal.
• Give Back to Society
  While it can be argued that a company can be sustainable without being charitable, the goal of sustainability is to sustain both the company and the society that the company is trying to sell its products and services to. Thus, as the article suggests, a company should at least make some effort to display corporate leadership and engage the community and, preferably, give time and resources to sustainable causes in the community.

Great advice for sustainable companies to live by.