Sustainability Practices That Work

Introduction
Deloitte Consulting, the Corporate Responsibility Officer Association (CROA), the Institute for Supply Management™ (ISM), and the American Society for Quality (ASQ) jointly conducted a research project into management practices that create success in sustainable value chain efforts.

We strove to conduct research that was unique for two reasons: Its focus on success and its extension beyond the supply chain to the value chain.

Given that a large and growing number of organizations are interested in making their value chains more sustainable, we strove to provide actionable information that would help them succeed.

We did not want to duplicate existing work, but rather to build on it and ask new and different questions.

As a result, we examined sustainable supply chain studies from the last five years (there were no sustainable value chain ones) and did not ask any questions that these previous efforts had answered.

This prevented the research from repeating the (valuable) work others had already done, and freed it up to address new areas, such as the many aspects of success and the expansion to the full value chain.

In comparison to previous research, this effort:

1. Focuses on the value chain versus the supply chain.
2. Focuses on identifying what works — that is, determining what are the most effective practices an organization can adopt.

To construct the survey instrument used in this research, we began by developing hypotheses through interviews, case studies, and secondary research, and then creating questions based on those hypotheses.

Nearly 1,000 value chain leaders put in the time and effort necessary to answer those questions, giving us insight into their practices and performance and enabling us to identify those practices that stood out for their effectiveness.