Green Supply Chains and consumer pressure
20th September 2007 by Alex Briggs
Successful consumer led campaigns against companies using cheap labour may be the blueprint for upcoming campaigns aimed at brands not paying enough attention to the “greenness” of their global supply chain.
This Supply Chain Digest article once again shows that brands cannot afford to get their supply chain wrong.
It is no longer enough for a brand to know their end of the chain and make the other links responsible for their part. Consumers expect big brands to have a firm grasp of each part of a product’s life, from development to sale.
After labor issues, the environment is the new frontier,” the WSJ quotes Daryl Brown, vice president for ethics and compliance at Liz Claiborne Inc. as saying. “We certainly don’t want to be associated with a company that’s polluting the waters,” he added.
There is no “one size fits all” plan for global brands, increasing the need for a customised approach that analyses each part of the chain, both as a stand alone entity, as well as how it fits into the overall picture.
