Sustainability & ESG apps in Consumer Goods and Retail
Industry: Consumer Goods & Retail
The Consumer Goods and Retail industry faces significant ESG challenges related to sustainable sourcing, ethical labor practices, and reducing environmental impact throughout the supply chain. challenges are digital challenges, smart solutions are shaping the industry's sustainable future.
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Your solution is One flexible Sustainability and ESG app layer on top of all your data sources.
The Sustaira Sustainability Circle is a high-level overview of what Sustaira offers. Sustaira has created building block applications within and between all of the domains of sustainability and ESG seen around the circle. These applications are meant to be tailored, tweaked, and customized to 100% meet the needs of the end user. The applications then live in the Sustaira launchpad that acts as a smart layer on top of your internal and external data sources. Bring your sustainability and ESG data together with a building block approach that eliminates manual processes and allows you the flexibility to grow and change throughout your sustainability journey.
78% Sustainable Life is Important
A recent study by NielsenIQ found that 78 percent of US consumers say that a sustainable lifestyle is important to them
64%, 50% and 46%
Consumers want to do more but many want brands to take the lead with 64% of consumers wanting brands to reduce packaging, 50% wanting information on how to recycle and 46% needing clarity on sourcing products.
1 in 3 Consumers buy based on Sustainability
Nearly 1 in 3 consumers claimed to have stopped purchasing certain brands or products because they had ethical or sustainability related concerns about them.
Sustainability and ESG challenges within Consumer Goods and Retail
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Transparency
In just about every industry, but especially in consumer goods and retail transparency around ESG and Sustainability is essential . With the fashion industry alone accounting for 20% of waste water and 8% of global carbon emissions, being transparent around action taken to mitigate that footprint is an essential part of operations and has been for a long time, but is much easier said than done. This combined with consumer demands to see progress and proof furthers a need for true transparency.
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PLM Rigidness & Design Decision Impact (Circular Economy)
Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) systems often lack flexibility, making it difficult to design and produce products with circular economy principles in mind, such as easy disassembly, reuse, and recycling. Addressing these challenges is crucial for companies seeking to improve their ESG performance and meet the growing expectations of consumers, investors, and regulators.
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Complexity of Scope 3
Scope 3 across all industries is seen as challenging to navigate. As we explore consumer goods and retail, there are challenges around not only upstream scope 3 emissions such as sourcing, raw materials, packaging, and more, but also downstream as well looking at things like product life cycle and post-consumption fate. Diving into scope 3 understanding the true impact is an arduous process.
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Consumer Perspectives and Beliefs
Consumers more and more are making buying decisions based on sustainability practices. Retailers and providers are often facing skepticism and worries around greenwashing. This is also met with demands from consumers - particularly Gen Z - to take action and share results. Consumers want evidence that retailers are making progress to become more sustainable, rather than vague promises for the future.
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Disparate or Siloed Data
Often, data is spread across multiple systems or even users. This data is often even excel or email based. This means that there is no easy and efficient way to aggregate and manage that data nor make it actionable or insightful.
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Changing Policies and Requirements
Policy changes around the world are going into effect around sustainability. This includes policies such as the EU Taxonomy, CSRD, The SEC Climate Disclosures, New York’s Fashion Sustainability and Social Accountability Act, California’s Climate Corporate Accountability Act (CAA), and more. All of these relate to environmental impacts, scope 3, reporting, and even sourcing. Keeping up with these requirements is now mandatory and can be challenging.
Sustainability & ESG Challenges are a Digital Issue
Shifting the Paradigm
Sustaira uses Siemens' Mendix low-code platform, striking a balance between inflexible off-the-shelf solutions and time-consuming custom coding. With a building-block approach and reusable templates, Sustaira offers a customizable accelerator, bridging the gap between pre-made solutions and fully tailored projects, delivering flexibility without compromising efficiency.
The business challenges outlined above put a tremendous amount of pressure on the digital capabilities within organizations. This is everything from supply chain transparency, circular economy, disparate data, and ever-changing requirements around ESG data transparency needs. Typically, these core challenges translate back to a lack of flexible solutions that are instead replaced by a myriad of off-the-shelf solutions that only somewhat address the needs of the organization. It’s a lack of IT solutions that can truly deliver the value needed, without creating new challenges or expanding an already tangled workflow. So how are we going to solve and tackle these things?
Sustainability and ESG Solutions for Consumer Goods & Retail
Carbon and Emissions Accounting Scope 1, 2 and 3: Measuring impact throughout your supply chain
The Carbon Accounting Application is used by organizations to get an overview of their Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions. Allowing organizations to make informed decisions around their sustainability efforts, not only internally, but throughout their supply chain. To do this, the carbon accounting module uses answers from our survey to build a reflexive dashboard that highlights action items to calculate the impact environmentally and financially. Dive into Scope 3 and open this up to your suppliers or external stakeholders as well!
Data Aggregation
Create your single source of Sustainability and ESG data with Sustaira’s Launchpad. Each tile represents an application, custom project, or other software. Bring everything together in a single, agile, smart layer, that sits on top of the systems you’re already using.
This launchpad is meant to work WITH what you already have. Have an application or system that you love for one piece of your sustainability journey? We can add a tile to the Launchpad for that piece and bring everything together.
Custom Sustainability and ESG Apps
There are unique projects that require extensive specialization expertise and attention. For those, our expert development team can take your ideas and bring them to life. Our team uses an Agile Methodology and works alongside your team the entire time. Have something special brewing? Let us help.
Goal Setting & KPI Tracking
The Sustaira Projects & KPI module is designed with pre-built projects and tracking KPIs related to sustainable initiatives. Tied to the U.N. goals for sustainability or the framework of your choosing, you can assess the impact and ease of change with our QuickStart Survey, selecting those goals that you are most interested in. Then, choose from a buffet of pre-configured projects and KPIs to quickly add to your sustainability roadmap.
Sustainability Supplier Management
The Sustaira Sustainability Supplier Management solution is designed for quantitative and qualitative data intake and interaction with your suppliers. If you’re still using spreadsheets and emails to remind suppliers to submit ESG and Sustainability information, this solution is for you. Everything in this template is customizable and can be tailored towards your unique needs. Whether you use a questionnaire/survey or a data intake overview, it’s all possible. You can set actions, reminders and different data input parameters per supplier. This includes reporting and actionable insights.
Additional Resources
Stay up to date on the latest Sustainability and ESG news with Sustaira!
Watch Sustaira’s Webinar, Carbon Accounting: The Engine Behind ESG Disclosures And learn how Sustaira can help!
Learn about how a Low-code Building Block Approach for Sustainability and ESG Software is the necessary paradigm shift!