Sustainability should be a supplier metric, Schramm says
By Purchasing Staff -- Purchasing, 5/5/2008 3:35:00 PM
Purchasing professionals should measure their suppliers on their sustainability efforts as well as criteria such as cost, quality and delivery.
That was the advice of Drew Schramm, senior vice president of global supply and quality at office furniture maker Herman Miller of Zeeland, Mich.
At the 93rd International Supply Management Conference in St. Louis, Schramm spoke to a large audience on his company’s Green efforts. He said that although most customers talk about the need to protect the environment, few seem willing to pay extra for Green products. “But we believe if we spend time with customers and explain the value, they’ll accept higher pricing,” he said.
Schramm said one key to Herman Miller’s efforts is its work with the firm McDonough Braungart, which has a program called Design Chemistry. Herman Miller has tied its Design for the Environment protocol into the firm’s evaluation process. “McDonough uses its systems to evaluate the carcinogenic quality or potential of our components, gives us a report on the chemical composition and certifies parts for us,” he said.
Herman Miller has been environmentally conscious since its beginnings, Schramm said. Now, the company has set a series of goals for its environmental efforts that it plans to meet by 2020. Those goals include:
1. Zero landfill
2. Zero hazardous waste generation
3. Zero air and water emissions from manufacturing
4. 100% Green energy
Accomplishing those goals requires purchasing to work closely with suppliers even to the point of getting proprietary information from them on the chemicals and other components of their products. Increasingly, he said, manufacturers will need to have documentation similar to material safety data sheets for their products, particularly as European regulations such as REACH get adopted.
Key, though, is to be financially sustainability. “For that reason, we used to only do Green for new products,” he said. “Today, we are looking back on old products too and starting to retire them.”
See also:
'Green' procurement goes into the black
For more coverage direct from the show floor at Institute for Supply Management meeting in St. Louis, go to the landing page for Purchasing.com’s coverage here.
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