Supply chain sustainability (SCS) is an holistic view of supply chain processes, logistics and technologies that addresses the environmental, social, economic and legal aspects of a supply chain's components.
Senior Strategic-Level Accountability
Driven by legislation and increasing environmental awareness, sustainability has become an important issue among companies, research institutions and policy-makers at national and international levels. Within organisations, sustainability issues sit with strategic level decision-making on corporate social responsibility (CSR) and carry serious implications for purchasing and supply chain management.
According to the Chartered Institute of Procurement & Supply sustainability in supply chain management generally refers to continuous accountability for risk and negative impact caused by a range of actions along the supply chain.
Sustainability efforts are also aimed at enhancing fairness and positive benefits for suppliers, workers, customers, end-users and any other stakeholders. Sustainability presents companies with an opportunity to forge new commercial relationships and build stronger core competencies. In addition, sustainable procurement practices can maximise business security by ensuring that robustness of supply chains regarding sudden changes in price, availability and quality.
Significantly Increasing Overall Sustainability
Sustainable supply chains have become a cornerstone to any company that seeks to achieve sustainable goals. A company's image is no longer related to the old paradigm of being sustainable in its own activities, but instead is associated with a strong collaboration between all supply chain stakeholders, towards a sustainable activity. Considering supply chains are responsible for up to four times the greenhouse gas emissions of a company’s direct operations and many suppliers operate in water-stressed areas of the globe, this makes sense from an environmental savings standpoint.
Climate-related regulations, the cost and availability of materials and human resources are all supply chain risks. Working with suppliers to improve sustainability can help mitigate these, as well as reputational risks.
As transparency and accountability become increasingly important to investors, consumers and other shareholders, sustainable supply chain shortcomings can also be a blow to a corporation’s sustainability credibility.
United Nations Global Compact Model
According to the UN Global Compact Management Model, which is a flexible framework for continuous improvement regarding the mainstreaming of the UNGC into strategies and operations, the process of building a sustainable supply chain is not linear. The steps represent complementary actions that companies should follow, always keeping in mind that governance, transparency and engagement are essential for every step.
Recommended steps to achieve supply chain sustainability (source UNGC)
ASL's Approach to Supply Chain Sustainability
Over the past four months ASL Global has launched its latest CSR initiative One World. Part of this initiative is enhancing the transparency and sustainability of our supply chain. Our suppliers help to ensure that we provide inspiring and innovative solutions for our customers by delivering quality products. We depend on them to adhere to the highest standards for quality, safety and sustainability. At ASL, we manage our entire QA / QC / Compliance process through an industry-leading in-house designed Total Quality Management (TQM) program that defines a systematic and structured approach to:
- Vendor Compliance Management
- Product Quality Management
- Production Quality Management
- Customer Quality Management
- Quality Improvement Management
All ASL suppliers and factories are subjected to our robust Factory Audit Program which covers a detailed Technical Audit (based on ISO9001 framework) and Social Compliance Audit (based on SA8000 standard). One of the ASL’s One World targets is to build an environmentally friendly & socially responsible supply chain through the development of related checklists that will categorize our existing vendor list, help with the on-boarding of new suppliers and proactively encourage more sustainable suppliers on board.
At ASL Global, we are committed to creating a more sustainable business, through a variety of proactive activities.
Discover more about our ONE WORLD initiative
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