Situation

Ninety percent of Walmart’s environmental impacts are related to the products they sell. How might Blu Skye create a tool that improves supply chain transparency?

Our Goal

Create a system that is credible, transparent, flexible, and works for 100,000 suppliers and hundreds of thousands of products, while gaining alignment from a diverse group of stakeholders including buyers, suppliers, and NGOs.

Our Role

• Worked with the Sustainable Value Networks (SVNs), we explored the issues and developed metrics that create the foundation of the Index. (SVN members include leaders from Walmart, supplier companies, academia, government, and NGOs.)

• Developed a working model and rollout plan for the Index and socialized the concept within Walmart leadership, a stakeholder steering committee, and key suppliers, incorporating revisions along the way to create a truly collaborative approach to the Index.

• Organized and facilitated a summit of 170 stakeholders to tackle key questions about the design and implementation of the Index.

• Assisted with the strategy and management of subsequent index phases including working with multi-stakeholder (and multi-retailer) groups to develop standard metrics

• Designed the initial governance structure.

Results

• The Sustainability Index announced by Walmart is a world-changing effort that assesses products across impact areas and drive innovation.

• The Sustainability Consortium, a global non-governmental organization managed by the University of Arizona and University of Arkansas, with >100 members representing corporations, non-profits, and academic institutions.

• The Sustainability Insight System (THESIS), which uses science to identify hot-spots, improvement opportunities, and key performance indicators for different types of consumer products.

• In 2020, > 1700 manufacturers representing almost $1 trillion of consumer products annual sales performed an assessment of their product and supply chain sustainability using THESIS.