Corporate Champions
How can you help your suppliers reduce waste and operate more efficiently? Become a Corporate Champion and let us help your suppliers achieve the Lean and Green Advantage.
Corporate Champions are large manufacturers that are committed to improving the health of their supply chain and helping small and medium-sized manufacturers remain competitive and environmentally sound.
Why Join?
- Strengthen your supply chain. Highly trained experts from the U.S. Department of Commerce's Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) and state environmental programs will provide your suppliers with customized, onsite technical reviews that identify strategies for improving product and process lines and using materials more efficiently. These reviews will help your suppliers strengthen their ability to meet your needs and improve the overall quality, delivery, and cost of their products. A strong, efficient supply chain improves your bottom line. Although not directly involved in onsite technical assistance, EPA provides program support, funding, and access to environmental information and tools. Your suppliers can request follow-up implementation assistance after completing a Green Suppliers Network review.
- "Green" your supply chain. Leading companies are looking to promote sustainable manufacturing and reduce their environmental footprint by "greening" their supply chain. The Green Suppliers Network Lean and Green Advantage expands traditional lean tools to include a specialized focus on material, energy, and resource use.
As suppliers implement recommendations from the Green Suppliers Network review, they become more material and energy efficient, thereby reducing the environmental footprint of your supply chain.
- Boost your bottom line. A 5 percent reduction in waste throughout your supply chain can double your company's profit margins.
- Get real results. Learn more about your own environmental footprint by receiving aggregate information about the environmental performance of your supply chain. MEP centers will quantify and aggregate all lean and green benefits identified during supplier reviews. As a Corporate Champion, you can view aggregate supplier results on both potential and actual cost savings. You can then use this information to inform internal and external stakeholders on the environmental performance of your supply chain.
- Access lean and green tools. As a Corporate Champion, you can access all the same tools and resources made available to your suppliers. You can even have a Green Suppliers Network review or training conducted at one of you own facilities.
*Business for Social Responsibility, Issue Brief: Supplier Environmental Management, October 2003.
Corporate Champion Commitments
You know your supply chain best. You identify and nominate those suppliers who can benefit most from the Green Suppliers Network. There is no cost to becoming a Green Suppliers Network Corporate Champion. The role of a Corporate Champion is to facilitate supplier selection and engagement. As a Corporate Champion, you will:
- Meet with the Green Suppliers Network team to fully understand how to benefit from the program and how the program can be integrated into your supply chain.
- Involve staff from purchasing; supply chain management; and environment, health, and safety to work on selecting suppliers for the program.
- Nominate at least five suppliers to join the Green Suppliers Network as Partners and complete a technical review within a year of joining the program. Green Suppliers Network staff members can advise you on successful supplier engagement strategies from other Corporate Champions.
- Consider corporate recognition and other ways to support supplier participation in the Green Suppliers Network process throughout your supply chain (e.g., purchasing opportunities for suppliers who successfully complete the review process).
- Continue greening your supply chain by renewing your membership annually and committing to engaging at least five suppliers for each year that the company is a member.
