Transparency and sustainability are issues capturing the attention of many partners along the supply chain. On the supply-side, many small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) find that the inclusion in a global supply chain is a reason to begin to engage in sustainability. Whilst for multinational enterprises (MNE’s), being transparent about their supply chains helps demonstrate commitment to sustainable development and can secure stronger market leadership, especially from consumers for whom ethical sourcing is an important purchasing decision.

GRI’s latest briefing paper highlights the evolution of sustainability and transparency in the supply chain. Laying out the current state of play of sustainable supply chain management, the paper is a strong, concise foundation for understanding the emergence of supply chain transparency, and its likely future course.

An extract from the paper reads:

“Maintaining a credible sustainable supply chain management system is challenging: globe-stretching chains are ever shifting and much of the value adding process in a chain takes place outside the immediate field of vision, let alone control, of many companies. Often checking up on one’s immediate, first tier, suppliers is easy. However, a supply chain is not really a chain as much as a pyramid, with suppliers having many suppliers of their own, making the number of entities requiring disclosure increase almost exponentially throughout the chain. Nevertheless, MNEs’ brand value forces them to be seen to be accountable for almost all parts of the chain. End-users do not have the power to check the entire chain, but they do have the power to make MNEs do it.”

Sustainability and Transparency in the Supply Chain is free to download.

Visit the Supply Chain Project for more information on sustainability and transparency in the supply chain.