Green Supply Chain Management

The Chinese government has been increasing its environmental enforcement over the last several years, it’s common to read headline news about government shutting down companies due to their environmental violations.  Local and international environmental NGOs have also been very active in China, publicizing allegations for environmental violations within multinational companies’ supplier chains.  These allegations often catch the attention of the local authorities and lead to more inspections at these facilities.  The allegations also cause serious name brand reputation damage and erode pubic trust leading to significant business lost.  Many multinational companies have increased their effort in the recent years not only in improving their supply chain EHS management but also developing sustainability initiatives (energy and water conservation, waste reduction and reuse, safer chemical management, etc).

The SIET green supply chain service team is working with several multinational companies on their supply chain EHS and sustainability programs.  Several senior managers on the team had worked in large multinational companies managing supply chain EHS and sustainability initiatives, bringing in valuable in-depth working knowledge and experience.  Our team help companies in designing, executing and managing these large and complex supply chain sustainability programs.  Some of our current sustainability work include safer chemical management, zero-waste program, water and energy conservation initiatives.  The safer chemical program identifies highly toxic chemicals used in the supply chain, work with suppliers to find viable opportunities to replace them with safer chemicals, lowing the impact to the workers and the environment.   The zero-waste initiative evaluates supply chain waste generation and develop strategies to reduce waste to landfills by applying the 3R Principle (reduction/reuse/recycling).   The water and energy conservation programs help supply chain better understand their freshwater and energy uses and adopt innovative and newer technologies to reduce water use and increase energy efficiency.   We have successfully helped our clients executing their supply chain sustainability, improving their brand name reputation, and reducing business operation risks.  We also foster and facilitate dialogues between regulatory agencies and businesses to improve communication and understanding between the regulators and regulated business.

The senior auditors on our team are accredited by the Institute of Public & Environmental Affairs (IPE), a highly influential environmental NGO in China, and by the Sustainable Apparel Coalition (SAC), a global leading alliance for sustainable production in the apparel, footwear, and textile industry.  IPE publishes its database tracking enterprises environmental non-compliance incidents in China.  Many multinational companies, including Apple, Microsoft, Dell, Adidas, H&M and ZARA use IPE’s database to monitor their supply chain environmental compliance record and push for corrective actions.  Our green supply chain team provides audits and technical assistance to help companies’ suppliers to become fully compliant and thus removing their name from the IPE database.