EDF unveils crowdsourced platform to accelerate corporate sustainability

A new crowdsourced web platform launched today aims to help sustainability professionals meet increasing demands to reduce corporate climate and chemical footprints and showcase results. The platform will fill a vital gap in sustainability departments’ capacity to stay informed on the latest resources to address environmental impacts across global supply chains.

While nearly half of Fortune 500 companies – 48 percent – have at least one climate or clean energy target, today’s sustainability professionals are tasked with reducing the impacts across their entire value chains.

The Supply Chain Solutions Center, developed by Environmental Defense Fund in collaboration with over 10 organizations, will guide sustainability professionals in their efforts to mitigate the environmental impacts of supply chains. Globally, consumer packaged goods supply chains are responsible for over 60 percent of greenhouse gas emissions and two-thirds of tropical deforestation.

“Our goal is to make finding sustainability solutions as easy as finding a movie on Netflix or a song on Spotify,” said Elizabeth Sturcken, managing director of EDF+Business. “Global supply chains can be massive and opaque, but when every node of the chain has a lighter footprint, the economic and environmental rewards are huge.”

The Supply Chain Solutions Center features hundreds of sustainability resources on an easily searchable interface. The website’s tools, which include case studies, templates for building sustainability plans and opportunities for connecting with NGO experts, cover six areas: agriculture, energy, chemicals, waste, forests and freight. The resources, which will be updated on a regular basis, include:

• Beginner, intermediate and advanced guides for understanding the six sustainability areas, creating a sustainability plan and achieving corporate sustainability goals.
• Case studies from companies such as Smithfield Foods, IKEA and Panera Bread Company that detail how the companies have accomplished environmental goals.
• Model corporate chemical policies for retailers, grocers or brands to show a public commitment to safer chemicals, improve supply chain transparency, cultivate informed consumers and embed safer product design

“I commend EDF for creating a resource that provides access to meaningful information for companies to learn more about best practices and initiatives that can aid them as they seek to advance their sustainability efforts,” said Laura Phillips, senior vice president for global sustainability at Walmart, Inc. “Integrating sustainable practices into our operations and supply chain has enabled Walmart to lower costs, spur innovation, inspire customer loyalty and help reduce impact on the environment.” 

Users can also take an assessment to evaluate their sustainability efforts to date in order to find the most appropriate resources and they can create tailored profiles that will suggest relevant content from verified contributors. These contributors include Conservation International, CDP, BSR, the Sustainable Packaging Coalition, The Sustainability Consortium, ReFED, Field to Market: The Alliance for Sustainable Agriculture, Sustainable Purchasing Leadership Council, Further with Food, Shelton Group and GreenBiz.

“TSC’s research and implementation services help suppliers measure and improve their sustainability progress. We see that many of these companies are trying to accomplish sustainability goals alone, and therefore struggle with making progress”, said Euan Murray, chief executive, The Sustainability Consortium. “The Supply Chain Solutions Center gives companies a coordinated way to collaborate with non-profits like TSC, while also accessing resources from across the industry.”

Shelton Group, a communications firm that frequently polls Americans to understand the drivers and obstacles to adopting sustainable products and behaviors worked with EDF to create the Supply Chain Solutions Center.

“We’re honored to continue our longstanding partnership with EDF, helping them make complex topics simple and overwhelming amounts of information digestible. That’s what we’ve accomplished together with the Supply Chain Solutions Center,” said Suzanne Shelton, president & CEO, Shelton Group. “Sustainability professionals now have an intuitive, easy-to-use resource where they can quickly filter and find rich content and tools related to the aspects of supply chains that they’re working on. We believe the Supply Chain Solutions Center will be an important building block in mainstreaming sustainability inside companies large and small, and we’re thrilled to have created this with EDF.”