Today?s retailers have so many initiatives on their plates that trying to focus on what at first does not seem to be their most important initiative (Going Green) can create a type of corporate gridlock that stops the organization from moving forward in a timely manner. The key is to not bite off more than you can chew and to set realistic goals and timeframes. There are so many external organizations trying to share their green initiatives today and set their own company standards so high that they hope to become the standard for everyone. As a result, volumes of data exist that would drive many organization crazy just trying to sort thorough it in order to come up with their own companies guideline.

So, where should a company begin? First of all, companies need to set guidelines for their company. In order to set guidelines, companies need to realize going in that guidelines are intended to be ‘living documents’, and will be updated on a regular basis going forward. In other words, by their nature they are not complete. Since we are talking about the environment, let?s make sure we don?t go down the path of health, safety and other areas even though they are related. Crossover with these areas will occur naturally as you focus on your guidelines for those specific areas later. Today we are here to talk about the environment. So what do we focus on? A starting point for the environment will always include the following. As you try to break this format down further, you will find that almost all areas fit into the following categories. As an example, contaminated land would fall into land management.

Energy Conservation
Water Conservation
Hazardous Materials Handling
Waste Management
Noise Pollution
Land Management
Wastewater Management

An important piecet of any corporate policy once outlined is to make sure that you share your guidelines with your trading partners and hold them accountable to doing the same thing in order to earn their business with you.

Once you begin to focus on tgoing green, it?s amazing how you will transfer it to your personal life. I know it?s personal for me.

I look forward to your comments.

Ron

Do you ever wonder why the entire hubbub when we talk about the environment or the ecology? What does it really mean when we ask companies are you green enough? Or, are you doing all you can to protect the environment. Do we even really care? What does it really mean?

Well, apparently we do care and companies that want to prosper should pay attention to the groundswell of consumers that are willing to pay more to get more in the way of safer products from companies that go beyond product safety to also manufacture in a way the protects the environment for our children and their children after we are gone.

A Wells Fargo/Gallop phone survey in 2007 of 600 small business owners surveyed on the environment asked the following questions.

1. Should additional standards on carbon dioxide, greenhouse gases be implemented? Forty three percent of respondents rated that a priority. Thirty seven percent rated it a top priority and nineteen percent said it was not a priority
2. On the question do you favor or oppose setting higher emissions and pollution standards for business and industry, seventy five percent favored it while twenty five percent opposed it.
3. When asked if they would be willing to pay more for good, and services if you new they were environmentally friendly, sixty six percent said yes and thirty percent said no.

During this political season any politician that received eighty percent, seventy five percent or sixty six percent of any vote would consider it a landslide and an affirmation of their political agenda.

In a closer vote, an Allianz Global investor survey of over one thousand adults of whom only seventeen percent had invested in a particular mutual fund because it was developing technologies or approaches to address environmental problems. When asked the question would you invest in such companies or mutual funds in the next year, forty nine percent said yes.

So, suppliers? are you green enough. Your constituents are watching and voting with their dollars. If you?re not you should look for ways to get there quicker and take advantage of tools that can help you do it.

I know I look more closely now at what my personal carbon footprint is and the impact it has on future generations,

I look forward to your comments.

Ron

1. Providing alert data on a daily basis as to product recalls and safety warnings.
2. Trace warnings back to the original source of supply automatically.
3. Require that suppliers meet required safety certifications to participate in their database.
4. Provide a regular purge of suppliers that do not comply.
5. Adhere to a strict RFI process for new suppliers being added to databases.
6. Rate suppliers that are offered to retailers as new sources of supply.
7. Monitor regulatory agencies for new standards and include them in the database.

1. Providing alert data on a daily basis as to product recalls and safety warnings.
2. Trace warnings back to the original source of supply automatically.
3. Require that suppliers meet required safety certifications to participate in their database.
4. Provide a regular purge of suppliers that do not comply.
5. Adhere to a strict RFI process for new suppliers being added to databases.
6. Rate suppliers that are offered to retailers as new sources of supply.
7. Monitor regulatory agencies for new standards and include them in the database.

1. The supplier can not divulge the original source of their product.
2. Products offered do not meet FDA dosage approvals or your specifications.
3. Supplier?s price book offers generic products that are not approved for use in the USA.
4. The brand name or product names are not spelled correctly
5. Payment terms requested are unusual.
6. Ask to see the wholesale license for the state you are located in.
7. Suppliers contact information is from outside of the USA.
8. Product samples look tampered with or are of poor quality in either packaging or printing.

1. Wash your hands face and body after playing.
2. Take off clothes worn, turn inside out and wash separately.
3. Field custodians should water the fields before and after use to reduce dust.

1. Ask where products these organizations buy come from.
2. Ask what components go into making these products
3. Ask what consumer safety standards were followed in the manufacture of these products.

I?m sure like me; many of you have been impacted by safety inconsistencies in our supply chain. Personally I have had issues like this impact me, members of my family and my pets.

We will drive best practice implementation of safe e-procurement events through the use of our low cost and in some cases free tools designed specifically for procurement professionals. These tools include:

A) A free Interactive Procurement Focused Website
B) The daily blog
C) Daily safety alerts from the FDA, USDA, and other safety and quality focused organizations
D) A Sourcing Wiki with 100?s of procurement terms that you can add to or comment on
E) Source Book – A first of its kind professional social network for procurement professionals where you can lead or participate in conversations with other procurement professionals.

In addition, we offer SafeSourceIt a North American Retail focused 95,000 supplier database. This database is not only the largest of its kind, but the only database to focus on safety certifications and the eco policies of it?s suppliers to ensure you are sourcing as safely as possible. Finally, we also offer the SafesourceIt next generation Reverse Auction tool that has speed to event and simplicity of use as its founding guidelines enabling you to source more products, more quickly at a relatively low price.

We hope you visit with us daily, as this site was created for you the procurement professional. Your interest, ideas and comments will help to drive our future offerings.

Ron Southard

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