Supply Chain Sustainability: Stonyfield Farm Organic Processing
by Tim Greiner
07 April 2009
It’s not easy to align your supply chain with your company's sustainability goals. There are several first steps we recommend to based on our work with Stonyfield Farm as outlined in the attached article. Success starts with communicating your company’s commitment and vision to your suppliers and then moving on to substantive issue ares. Its important to involve your CEO and the CEO or other senior VPs at the start of this process. Lastly, what gets measured gets managed — so develop supplier metrics integrate them into your business processes. Look at the Stonyfield Farm experience. We prepared their first cradle-to-gate chain carbon footprint in 1999. Based on those results, Stonyfield began reaching out to its famers, packaging vendors, and its logistics providers. Ten years later, with many hard fought gains under its belt, the company has its eye on an even greater array of opportunities.
Six lessons stand out: Stonyfield's Farm's Supply-Chain Sustainability Lessons Learned
- Partnership — approach suppliers as partners, engage but don't mandate.
- Educate — appeal to common sense, everyone wants to be a good environmental steward. Ecomonics — being environmentally friendly has a positive economic return.
- Focus on the data — collect lots of data and base decisions on facts. Do your homework — leverage supplier resources and knowledge.
- 'Just Ask' — Our suppliers told us “No one every asked us before.”
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Written by Tim Greiner
Tim Greiner, a Pure Strategies Co-founder and Managing Director, has pioneered approaches to building environmental and social integrity into products, brands, and businesses. His experience spans the spectrum from developing sustainability strategy, drafting sustainability goals, designing product sustainability programs, creating approaches to transform sustainable supply chains and fostering collaborative mechanisms to lift the sustainability performance of entire industries. He is currently working with several progressive businesses on developing science-based targets and comprehensive climate strategies. He is a co-founder of the Chemical Footprint Project and has guided sustainable chemicals management strategies for companies across diverse industries. He has also led regenerative agriculture projects with food brands and retailers. Current and former clients include Annie’s, Walmart, Seventh Generation, Ben & Jerry’s, The North Face, Stonyfield Farm, MilliporeSigma and U.S. EPA.
Tim holds Masters’ degrees in Environmental Policy and Business from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Bachelor's degree in Materials Science Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He is a founding member of the Massachusetts Toxics Use Reduction Planners Association and a former Board member and President. He is also founder of the Cape Ann Climate Change Network and is a Research Associate at the Lowell Center for Sustainable Production. Tim has experience in industry as a Process Engineer for Fairchild Semiconductor. He also worked for the Massachusetts Office of Technical Assistance as Project Director and Chief Engineer.
