We spoke with Debra Robertson, the Global Marketing and Communications Manager at Global GreenTag, about sustainability and affecting change through supply chains:
Q. Debra, it’s great to have you onboard can you talk through what prompted Global GreenTag to become a School Technical Partner?
“Global GreenTag International essentially shares similar values and core drivers with the Supply Chain Sustainability School (SCSS) and hopes to collaborate more proactively as a School Partner to help accelerate the evolution of sustainability, by focusing on the improvement of product supply chains to protect the environment and all life and cultures along with them. Fundamentally, GreenTag believes that strong partnerships are vital and that more can be achieved when like minds and related industry bodies like SCSS and GreenTag come together to inspire change with co-created initiatives that educate and drive greater awareness of the issues that still prevail in global supply chains and access to solutions that help industries overcome them.”
Q. How important is sustainability to GreenTag across economic, environmental and social issues?
“Global GreenTag International was created with a mission to protect and/or regenerate natural systems and resources by supporting manufacturers, professionals and consumers with product certification and metrics that encourage the choice of Greener Products… in an independent and scientifically robust manner. Sustainability, therefore, is built into every aspect of the Global GreenTag organisation as we continue to offer and develop our globally recognised green product Certification Standard – Global GreenTag CertTM – which is one of the most scientifically advanced, certification systems in the world, assessing and ranking products through leading LCA based product ecolabelling, rating, EPD and Product Health Declaration (PHD) programs for progressive manufacturers. The Standard insists on materials transparency and serves to inform and simplify the selection of sustainable products for the green building, interiors and infrastructure sectors. GreenTag also addresses social compliance and laws at a product level and was an early responder to the Modern Slavery Act as one of the core group of companies that pledged support behind the Australian Human Rights Commission’s call for Modern Slavery legislation in late 2017. FollowingGreenTag began working with the successful Ethical Labour Sourcing tool designed by BRE in the UK to develop a new company assessment tool for Australia to help eliminate possibilities of trafficking or slavery in product supply chains and aid tracking and reporting.”
Q. What other ways are you working with supply chains for better outcomes?
“At a company level, Global GreenTag International follows its own annually audited quality management system to run as a sustainable business at all levels; and that includes its policies in procurement. But, we have a significant role in the supply chain of many and by this, we refer to the number of companies whose products that we have certified, which is in excess of 4,000 products under Global GreenTag Certification on 400 plus certificates for over 100 companies from factories in over 22 countries where we have a direct influence in their supply chains. We actually are affecting a far higher level of change at an expedited rate, owing to the fact that those manufacturers with products certified by GreenTag need to be reviewed on a yearly basis. This allows us to conduct regular surveillance on the company themselves plus their extended supply chains.”
Q. Are there any Global GreenTag innovations that you would like to highlight?
“What GreenTag has done, by virtue of our analysis of supply chains and the assessment of the composition of products, we have been able to bring about change through increasing the veracity of the GreenTag Certification Standard and providing innovative new Certification and Declaration services that firstly, protect the environment, and secondly, safeguard the health and safety of workers in factories where products are made and extend to the health and wellbeing of end-users of the products themselves. As part of Global GreenTag’s own CSR, we have always required full material transparency and declarations to be supplied by manufacturing companies and their suppliers to show that they are adhering to the laws of the land and or respect for its workers.”
To learn more about Global GreenTag visit www.globalgreentag.com