Is Your Brand Socially Sustainable?

A strong element in a sustainable supply chain is social sustainability. Without social sustainability, it would be hard to contribute to implementing drastic positive social changes and allow supply chains to be responsible for the role they play in improving social issues.

A supply chain is a network between a company and its suppliers to produce and distribute a specific product to the final buyer. This network includes different activities, people, entities, information, and resources. The supply chain also represents the steps it takes to get the product or service from its original state to the customer. — An excerpt from InvestoPedia.com

Definition of Socially Sustainable Supply Chain

A socially sustainable supply chain maintains social ethics and works towards achieving overall social wellbeing in its practices with its workers.

Actively practicing social sustainability enables them to not only monitor their actions but also monitor how their products are sourced and make sure it is sourced in a socially sustainable way. This can include investing in socially sustainable suppliers and contributing to positive social changes on a local and global scale.

In order to practice social sustainability in the supply chain, there needs to be transparency between the supply chain and the customer regarding how they are contributing to social issues, ethical standards, and their commitment to positive social change.

Ways to Implement Social Responsibility Within the Supply Chain

Social Responsibility can be implemented within the supply chain in different ways including:

• Directly identifying their values and stance on social issues both verbally as well as making sure to only collaborate with vendors that follow fair labor practices & meet safety regulations regarding social responsibility.
• Being responsible for their own ethical practices & performing regular checks on vendors to ensure they are following sustainable policies, social equity, and fair treatment of workers.
• Implement educational training programs to instill an awareness for social issues and educate employees on the company’s contribution towards social change, charity, and social equity towards sustainability.
• Aim to gain and maintain a good CSR (corporate social responsibility) score which will help achieve credibility, professional recognition, competitive edge, and measure their performance. This can also be achieved by creating and working on a CSR strategy that outlines how the supply chain is contributing towards social responsibility.
• Identify social challenges that may be faced and work on improving them. get the team on board including suppliers and vendors.
• Identify the current social issues that the supply chain is able to contribute to according to their budget and hold themselves accountable.

Destructive Effects Of Lack Of Social Responsibility in the Supply Chain

One of the most dramatic consequences of a lack of social responsibility in the supply chain is the outbreak of epidemics. For example, in 2008, a pandemic of swine flu originated in China, and soon spread around the world. This epidemic caused a great deal of death and illness, and it was only because of the efforts of public health officials that it was not even more widespread.

Another example of the consequences of a lack of social responsibility in the supply chain is the collapse of the global financial system in 2007. This collapse was the result of the irresponsible behaviour of a number of banks, and it caused a great deal of economic turmoil.

Scandals include child labor exploitations and abuse and mistreatment of workers.

If you would like to support my journey, then kindly subscribe to my youtube channel where I will be sharing updates as well as step-by-step guides on my passive income journey as well as business strategies and tricks. Subscribe here.

About The Author

Noor is a second-year business student at Tredu. She is also studying for Diploma in International Smart Industry at Tampere University. She is passionate about marketing and content creation. She recently launched her YouTube channel specializing in holistic healing.