P&G recently announced that it would be making its environmental sustainability scorecard analysis tool freely available for use by any company. An Excel-based tool, this supplier scorecard was developed to allow companies to measure and interpret key environmental sustainability metrics across their supply chains and identify progress as well as opportunities for improvement.
As reported in a recent article on the subject, The Scorecard Analysis Tool is the latest publicly available component of P&G’s Supply Chain Environmental Sustainability Scorecard, which was designed to improve the environmental footprint of P&G’s supply chain, fuel innovation, and encourage suppliers to make environmental improvements in their own supply chains. The scorecard measures absolute or intensity improvements in nine key metrics including energy use, water use, waste disposal and greenhouse gas emissions on a year-to-year basis. It also assesses P&G’s external business partners’ sustainability innovation ideas and promotes collaboration, according to the company.
For those organizations that are interested in exploring ways to cut costs, drive innovation and reduce environmental footprint, the tool is worth taking a look at. After all, it’s free and if P&G’s results are any indication, the sustainability efforts that it helps to promote could lead to significant cost savings and other benefits.
In particular, P&G reports realizing nearly $1B in bottom-line savings in 2011 as a result of sustainability efforts supported across the supply chain. The company also reported that its 2011 supplier scorecard enabled the first year-on-year data analysis and identified the following trends:
- The greatest improvements in the Company’s environmental footprint came with its logistics and chemicals suppliers.
- Suppliers from developing markets such as China, India and Brazil tended to show the most improvement with US suppliers not far behind.
- Nearly half of the companies earning the highest rating came from Europe.
- The two measurable areas with the greatest improvement across the board were Hazardous waste and Water Usage (Output / Discharge). Direct Greenhouse Gas Emissions (Scope 1) and Fuel Energy were tied for third.
- Overall, when combining all suppliers and categories, there was an improvement in 55% of the measurable categories
The bottom line is that sustainability efforts at P&G, both within the company and across its supply chain, are paying off. And that’s a story that we expect to be hearing from more and more organizations moving forward, as they begin to put key sustainability metrics in place.
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