Sustainability
The Sustainability Movement Today
Due to a confluence of factors, including legislative, corporate, and consumer, the sustainability movement is gaining momentum. As a result, the financial markets are beginning to take notice.
The Dow Jones Sustainable Index, launched in 1999, provides a financial quantification of member companies’ sustainability strategy and their management of sustainability opportunities, risks and costs. Because "What gets measured, gets done", they will be motivated to increase long-term shareholder value by integrating economic, environmental, and social factors in their business strategies.
Impact on the Supply Chain
Wal-Mart's Packaging Scorecard tool has helped put the concept of sustainable packaging in the forefront of many companies' and consumers' minds, and thus been a key driver in trying to understand what sustainability truly is.
Many companies are now trying to understand what sustainable packaging is, and how it fits into their own corporate initiatives.
Buyers and suppliers must become instant sustainability experts. Most are unsure what qualifies a package as sustainable. Many have perceptions of what is sustainable; often the perceptions do not comport with reality. Meanwhile, more and more companies are claiming their products are the answer to the sustainable packaging question. The key is to know how to separate fact from fiction.