Principles of Sustainability and Social Responsibility With a Guide to Adoption and Implementation

ISM firmly believes the supply management profession is a strategic contributor in the development and implementation of sustainability and social responsibility programs and behavior.

Supply professionals are in a unique, critical position to impact the global supply chain and therefore should supplement their organization’s work in sustainability and social responsibility by promoting sustainability and social responsibility through leadership and participation on appropriate committees, boards and panels of governmental and nongovernmental organizations.

Creating principles across social, industry, public and private, profit and nonprofit, political and country boundaries is both a challenge and an opportunity.

This diversity presents a particular challenge in the area of sustainability and social responsibility, which does not have a lengthy history resulting in the development of well-known and universally acceptable best practices.

Laws, regulations, trade agreements, customs and practices pertinent to sustainability and social responsibility must also be considered in the development and implementation of business strategies, policies and procedures.

In addition, the advent of new technologies that enable a “virtual” world influence the evolution of sustainability and social responsibility in a supply chain context.