SSCI Expands to Help Enhance Environmental Sustainability
As businesses turn to third-party schemes and certifications to help them address the complexities of their supply chain visibility, it is difficult to know which programmes to entrust.
The expansion of the Consumer Goods Forum’s Sustainability Supply Chain Initiative (SCCI) benchmark is set to de-risk this choice.
It comes as sustainability regulation increases, including the EU’s Deforestation Regulation which is set to come into force at the end of this year.
What is the CGF and SSCI?
The Consumer Goods Forum (CGF) is the only CEO-led organisation that represents both manufacturers and retailers globally.
It brings together senior leaders from more than 400 retailers, manufacturers and other stakeholders across 70 countries.
The CGF’s SSCI first published its benchmark in 2019, to recognise the third-party auditing, monitoring, and certification schemes that align to best practice in social sustainability.
Since then, four schemes have been recognised under the social scope with several more in progress.
“Supply chains are vast, and businesses need guarantees that all stakeholders involved are adhering to sustainable practices,” says Didier Bergeret, Sustainability Director of the CGF.
“Created by the industry, for the industry, the SSCI supports organisations in their supply chain due diligence.
“The needs of people and our planet are intrinsically interlinked, so we must keep stepping up as an industry to build trust in social and environmental standards worldwide; extending the scope of our industry aligned criteria to include environmental standards is a critical part of this.
“We encourage schemes and the industry to follow our social and environmental criteria and to take the leap and apply for benchmarking against our existing social and new environmental criteria."
The SSCI's standards will assess environmental impacts
The SSCI will now provide third-party environmental sustainability schemes with minimum criteria for industry-expected standards.
The standards will be developed in consultation with leading consumer goods manufacturers and retailers, and will offer companies guidelines against which to benchmark themselves.
These standards will be applied across the following sectors:
- Primary production: The SSCI will assess the environmental impact of farming of agricultural commodities, including animal farming and field packing.
- Forestry: It will also assess the environmental impact on forests of usage of fibre-based wood, paper and pulp.
- Manufacturing: Standards will be rolled out to determine the environmental impact of conversion and manufacturing sites, including all consumer goods and post farm gate activities.
Tamara Muruetagoiena, Vice President of Sustainability at International Fresh Produce Association (IFPA) and Chair of the SSCI’s Environmental Working Group emphasises that, “Our supply chains have far-reaching impacts and can make a significant difference to environmental sustainability, ecosystem health and fair labour.”
“As a responsible business, we know our supply chain approaches and standards need to stand up to scrutiny – and this is why ensuring trust in the environmental and social schemes we are all using is so critical.
“By using recognised schemes for social and environmental sustainability, IFPA – and our peers across the sector – benefit from the additional layer of trust that comes from knowing SSCI Recognised standards meet the minimum requirements for sustainability as agreed by the industry.”
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