Browsing by Subject "Environmental sustainability"
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Item Open Access Product Sustainability at REI(2016-04-29) Brown, TatyanaMost of the merchandise sold at REI, a premier outdoor gear store, comes from non-private label brands. The Co-op owns four brands: REI, REI Co-op, evrgrn, and Novara. However, REI’s roughly 1,500 non-private brands present a tremendous opportunity to advance sustainability on the behalf of its over 6M members. With helpful context provided by REI, this project evaluated the opportunities for the Co-op to support the sustainability of these products by incorporating 3rd-party certifications, initiatives, and other standards into its merchandising criteria. It also looked at the opportunities for supporting the demand for these products by educating consumers. The project coupled publicly available information on sustainability standards and brands’ practices with interviews and a follow-up survey with sustainability leaders at REI’s wholesale brands (18 and 15, respectively). It also included conversations with other retailers and industry experts. The resulting analysis recommends a collaborative framework for implementing tiered merchandising criteria that address brands’ business needs and varied sustainability work. The project also evaluates how brands are using sustainability certifications; how they communicate product sustainability to consumers; and the extent of their knowledge about consumer attitudes and life cycle impacts. The recommendations include opportunities for REI to further engage consumers and take a leadership role on near-term and emerging issues like packaging and end-of-life systems. The project also suggests a framework of management practices for traceability and retailers’ surveys for brands, leading internal organizational change, and supporting suppliers.Item Open Access Strategy and Tools for Sustainable Textile Product Development(2014-04-25) Stuart, IanCorporate sustainability strategy, assessment, and reporting continue to become more sophisticated as organizations develop new implementation tools. However, the majority of environmental impacts are concentrated in large firms, as are the resources needed to address them. Consequently, many of these tools are not accessible to early-stage ventures interested in growing a sustainable business. Struck By Nature is a new company developing a line of interior textiles. Using qualitative analysis informed by primary industry research, existing sustainability tools and guidelines, and business case studies, a preliminary sustainability strategy was defined for the company. The strategy promotes an iterative approach to environmental assessment and reporting, and is based on life cycle assessment methodology and current sustainability best practices in the textile industry. Potential environmental impact areas—including water use, waste, and greenhouse gas emissions—are identified for distinct phases of the product value chain. The strategy employs a cradle-to-gate scope and prioritizes actions in the early stages of product development, with particular emphasis on proper materials sourcing and supplier facility assessment. The structure of the strategy and its recommendations, which include a supplier evaluation tool, is adaptable to other product-based small businesses. Future updates should address the social aspects of sustainability as well as environmental impacts in the downstream portion of Struck By Nature’s product value chain.Item Open Access THE GLOBAL REPORTING INITIATIVE: AN ANALYSIS OF STRATEGIC IMPLEMENTATION AND ENVIRONMENTAL PERFORMANCE INDICATORS(2007-05) Lee, Man YThe Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) arose in response to the idea that to attain sustainable development, a globally recognized indicator framework that describes organizations’ impact upon the triple bottom line was needed. GRI’s mission is to elevate sustainability reporting to equivalency with financial reporting by creating a commonly agreed framework. However, unlike financial reporting, which is targeted primarily at one key stakeholder, the shareholder, sustainability reporting has a large and diverse audience and issues range from as straightforward as number of vacation leave days per employee to as complex as quantifying indirect greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore, to address the need for guidance in creating a GRI based sustainability report, this paper is focused on creating a roadmap to reporting performance indicators by qualitatively analyzing the environmental dimension of GRI G3-based sustainability reports. The objective is to identify the indicators most commonly used and to identify a trend in indicators selection across all reports. The goal is to provide assistance and guidance to make the environmental sustainability aspect of the reporting process less daunting. This project recommends a framework that could serve to promote the improvement in quality of GRI based sustainability reporting.