Supply Chain Sustainability is Key to Strategic Growth

Ethical Corporation – the nine year old London-based business intelligence company for sustainability – notes in a new report that supply chain management’s role in sustainability is becoming more key to strategic growth for most global companies.

Furthermore, the organization predicts that 2015 is likely to be a crucial year for corporate sustainability, as new targets for poverty reduction, sustainable development and emissions-reduction are due to be set out by world leaders this year.

“Business will be called on to shoulder much of the burden in delivering the promises made by leaders at these events. The degree to which companies are in a position to respond to the call will to a great extent determine their future sustainability.”

Ethical Corporation’s State of Sustainability report revealed that 71 per cent of respondents to a survey said their organizational leader was convinced of the value of sustainability. And even where corporate leaders were not fully engaged, 87 per cent of respondents agreed that sustainability was becoming increasingly important for strategy.

The study was based on the responses of nearly 1,500 sustainability professionals worldwide, and looked at the significance of sustainability in different organizations, who takes responsibility, sustainability budgets and returns, and how sustainability will evolve.

Researchers came to the conclusion that there is still much work to do in moving from theory to practice, fully “operationalizing sustainability” and understanding the business case and the impact on revenues,.

“Grappling with these issues will be the key challenge in the year ahead,” the study adds.