Supply Chain Benchmarking

One of the most challenging aspects of corporate social responsibility (CSR) is quantifying the performance of the supply chain. Modern corporations source globally based on a combination of price, quality, service and delivery. Understanding whether your suppliers not only meet basic compliance requirements is challenging enough, but many CSR leaders want to source from vendors with the highest levels of social and environmental performance.

Pure Strategies assisted Timberland with its efforts to benchmark the environmental performance of the firm's leather tanneries located in the U.S., Caribbean, and Asia. Staff identified key performance measures and developed standards for "typical" tanneries as well as those employing "best available technologies." The performance measures were used by auditors to score the tanneries and rate them on a scale of zero to 50. Timberland in turn used the results of the performance assessment to communicate basic requirements for doing business with the company and to source leather from better performing suppliers.