I N D U S T R I A L E C O L O G Y I N N O RT H A M E R I C A

Sustainability and CommerceTrendsIndustry Consortia as the Drivers for GreenProduct Design

J. S. Golden, V. Subramanian, and J. B. Zimmerman

Multinational retailers and manufac-turers are arguably the most influen-tial forces driving the rapid growth andexpansion of sustainable product de-sign throughout the life cycle aroundthe globe.

Despite the current political climate in Wash-ington, it is clear that the 2nd decade of the 21stcentury has brought with it increased interest andproactive engagement by the U.S. business com-munity and federal government to transition fromfirm and facility sustainability to a more holisticfocus on product sus-tainability throughoutthe value chain. Al-though many of the ef-forts are not systematicor coordinated, a de-scription of them in-dicates that individualorganizations are rec-ognizing their responsibility to address sustain-ability challenges.

Public Sector

At the national level, the White House andmultiple federal agencies have promulgated pro-grams in an effort to drive industrial ecologythrough product sustainability. Executive Order13514, issued by President Obama on October 5,2009, requires federal agencies to reduce Scope 1,2, and 3 greenhouse gas emissions, obtain 50% di-version rates of solid waste, pursue opportunitieswith vendors to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG)emissions, ensure procurement preferences forenergy-efficient products, and reduce consump-tion of paper with low recycled content.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s(U.S. EPA’s) Office of Research and Devel-

c© 2011 by Yale UniversityDOI: 10.1111/j.1530-9290.2011.00381.x

Volume 15, Number 6

opment (ORD) has partnered with the Na-tional Academies of Science to incorporate sus-tainability into all of the agency’s activitiesand programs. Through the lens of sustainabil-ity, the EPA has created the Materials Man-agement and Safe Chemical program to sup-

port green productdesign and manufac-turing processes.

The General Ser-vices Administration(GSA), which pro-vides more than 12million products andservices to other U.S.

federal agencies, is driving to “green” its sup-ply chain. The GSA’s initial effort to complywith the executive order is focused on seekingGHG emission inventory reporting from its sup-ply chain, with the potential to expand intobroader sustainability metrics, such as resourcedepletion, water, and wastes to aid in their pur-chasing decisions. In addition, the National Agri-culture Library at the U.S. Department of Agri-culture is expanding the development of the LCADigital Commons, which will house primary datafrom agricultural and industrial operations forrelated agricultural chemical production, agron-omy, logistics, and industrial operations.

The Securities Exchange Commission (SEC)and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) arealso indirectly driving sustainable product designand supply chain behavior throughout the lifecycle. The SEC on January 27, 2010, issued in-terpretive guidance1 that instructs firms on howto evaluate and disclose how direct and indirectimpacts resulting from climate change affect theirfinancial performance. The FTC is finalizing its

www.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/jie Journal of Industrial Ecology 821

I N D U S T R I A L E C O L O G Y I N N O RT H A M E R I C A

revisions to the Guides for the Use of Environmen-tal Marketing Claims (aka the “Green Guides”)to regulate how firms market or make environ-mental claims under Section 5 of the FTC Act.Firms will have to be able to substantiate theirenvironmental benefit claims, which will requireincreased transparency in the data and methodsutilized to derive the results.

Industry Consortia

Multinational retailers and manufacturers arearguably the most influential forces driving therapid growth and expansion of sustainable prod-uct design throughout the life cycle around theglobe. These changes stem from a collective effortto seek greater transparency in the value chain,which is intended to, among other goals, identifyeconomic inefficiencies by reducing socioenvi-ronmental burdens and risks.

This is best exemplified by the relativelyrecent emergence of the Sustainable ApparelCoalition (SAC), the Sustainability Consor-tium (TSC), and the Outdoor Industry Asso-ciation (OIA). All three are multistakeholderorganizations that are developing varied ap-proaches aimed toward a similar outcome of in-creased transparency throughout the value chain.The industry members comprising these con-sortia include well over 200 of the world’slargest retailers, manufacturers, and subtier sup-pliers. The fact that buyers from multiple ma-jor retailers and manufacturers now requirelife cycle inventory and product benchmarkingdata as purchasing criteria is significant mo-tivation. Additionally, industry consortia areideally suited to establish standardized metricsfor cross-organization comparison and to definebest management practices to improve environ-mental and social conditions within antitrustframeworks.

One of the pioneers in this space is the OIA’sEco Working Group (OIA-EWG), which wasformed in 2007. This organization has partneredwith its transatlantic counterpart, the EuropeanOutdoor Group (EOG), to create the OIA-EOGEco-Index.2 The index is initially a product de-sign tool focused on reducing environmental im-pacts of product materials, intermediates, and fi-nal products specific to the outdoor industry.

The SAC3 was formally launched in 2011 andhas joined efforts with the OIA. The SAC de-veloped the Sustainable Apparel Index to allowapparel retailers and brands to compare the per-formance of the upstream supply chain throughunified methods, metrics, and reporting on envi-ronmental and social performance to customers.

Version 1.0 of the index employs a cradle-to-gate life cycle approach, based on three buildingblocks: (1) The OIA-EOG Eco-Index, (2) Nike’sEnvironmental Design Tool,4 and (3) social andlabor indicators for the manufacturing phase be-ing developed by the SAC. The index is primarilyqualitative, deploying best management practicetypes of questions on energy, GHG and other airemissions, water quality, water use, toxics, solidwaste, and land use. The next version, currentlybeing designed (Version 2.0), will transition toa more quantitative, life-cycle-oriented tool thatwill account for environmental and social im-pacts over all phases of the life cycle to helpdrive product performance and effective decisionmaking.

The Sustainability Consortium5 was launchedin 2009 at the Bentonville, Arkansas, headquar-ters of Walmart. Created as a university-led ini-tiative in partnership with industry, it set out tocreate a common sustainability measurement andreporting system (SMRS) for products through-out the value chain, on the basis of life cycleapproaches. The SMRS is based on the ISO14025 standard for environmental product decla-rations6 and has recently adopted the GHG Pro-tocol7 product level accounting principles for lifecycle assessment (LCA). Apart from the tradi-tional LCA, the SMRS is composed of (1) prod-uct category baseline models that use worst-casemarket-typical products for comparative analysis;(2) product category rules; and (3) computationaltools to conduct life cycle modeling, including aninput-output LCA model.8

The progressive approach to the SMRS in-volves creating a common understanding of theenvironmental and social “hotspots” for eachproduct category. This information is universallyshared to accelerate best management practicesthrough the value chain. Eventually, firms will beable to use this information as a part of a formalproduct declaration, which can then be commu-nicated business to business (B2B) and business

822 Journal of Industrial Ecology

I N D U S T R I A L E C O L O G Y I N N O RT H A M E R I C A

to consumer (B2C). The OIA and the ApparelCoalition have a taken a quicker-to-market ap-proach by initially focusing on a single productcategory; the Sustainability Consortium has en-gaged in a broader product category approach, in-cluding the food, beverage, agriculture, personalcare, household care, and electronics sectors.

Beyond the industry consortia, numerousservice-oriented companies are supporting thesustainable product initiatives due to the po-tential emerging business opportunities. This in-cludes the proliferation of eco-labels, which. atlatest count, number approximately 400 (Golden2010), and traditional accounting firms that areentering the business segment by developing sus-tainable product validation and auditing services.Trans-sector service firms, such as intermodaltransporters, materials management firms, andenterprise reporting companies are also activelytracking and, in many cases, participating withvarious consortia.

Common Approaches andCommon Needs

Each of the described institutional efforts isundertaking an incremental approach towardquantifying and communicating B2B product sus-tainability, while maintaining the idea that B2Ccommunication may not be a priority or refinedfor the near term.

If these existing and emerging initiatives are tohelp the United States collectively move forwardin a responsible way, a number of common needmust be addressed. These include the following:

1. A platform for regular communication onmethods for measuring and quantifyingmetrics and frameworks for transparent,consistent reporting, among initiatives forsustainable product design and value chainmanagement. This will promote sharedlearning and reduce duplication.

2. Creation of a single secure and confiden-tial national registry to harmonize, stan-dardize, receive, and benchmark LCA datafor the various industry initiatives. Requir-ing industry to submit proprietary data tomultiple public and private entities is in-feasible due to the obvious business im-plications as well as the costs and time

to report to many different organizationsthat require information in different for-mats and on different platforms.

3. Increased support of the U.S. Life Cy-cle Inventory (USLCI), currently main-tained by the National Renewable En-ergy Lab (NREL), which contains ap-proximately 400 processes, as compared tothe more strongly supported, European-focused Ecoinvent database, with morethan 4,000 processes.

4. Expansion of sustainable systems researchat the national level and by industry re-garding issues of unintended consequences(Golden et al. 2010), supply chain risks,and economic national security. As moreindividual firms and sectors look to alterna-tive feedstocks and designs at a time of in-creased global demand for consumer prod-ucts, there will be a shift in supply chains,increased demand for traditional and novelfeedstocks, emerging economies of scale,and potential implications for infrastruc-ture needs and security demands (Com-mittee on Critical Mineral Impacts on theU.S. Economy 2008).

5. Expansion of programs to educate and trainuniversity students and retrain the currentworkforce in sustainable product designand supply chain management approaches,such as industrial ecology, LCA, systemdynamics modeling and optimization, andgreen chemistry and engineering, to meetindustry workforce recruitment needs andemerging demands.

6. An inclusive systems approach that isstructured in a way that reflects currentglobal value chain realities. The developedand shared systems must promote solutionsthat are universally accepted and imple-mented to realize the full potential of mea-suring, quantifying, and reporting currentand future environmental and social im-pacts of product design and value chaindecisions and activities.

Acknowledgements

This column is based on research sup-ported by the Sustainability Consortium, a

Golden et al., How U.S. Institutions Are Driving Sustainable Product Design 823

I N D U S T R I A L E C O L O G Y I N N O RT H A M E R I C A

multistakeholder organization, based in Fayet-teville, Arkansas and Tempe, Arizona, USA.

Notes

1. www.sec.gov/rules/interp/2010/33–9106.pdf2. www.ecoindexbeta.org/3. www.apparelcoalition.org/4. www.nikebiz.com/responsibility/nikeenvironmental

designtool5. www.sustainabilityconsortium.org/6. www.iso.org/iso/catalogue_detail?csnumber=381317. www.ghgprotocol.org/8. www.open-io.org/

References

Committee on Critical Mineral Impacts on the U.S.Economy. 2008. Minerals, critical minerals, andthe U.S. economy. Washington, DC: NationalAcademies Press.

Golden, J. S., ed. 2010. An overview of ecolabels andsustainability certifications in the global market-place. Duke University Center for Sustainabilityand Commerce. http://center.sustainability.duke.edu/sites/default/files/documents/ecolabelsreport.pdf. Accessed June 2011.

Golden, J. S., K. J. Dooley, J. M. Anderies, B. H.Thompson, G. Gereffi, and L. Pratson. 2010.Sustainable product indexing: Navigating thechallenge of eco-labeling. Ecology and Society15(3): 8.

About the Authors

Jay Golden is director of the Duke Centerfor Sustainability & Commerce at Duke Univer-sity in Durham, North Carolina, USA, where heis an associate professor of the practice for sus-tainable systems analysis in the Nicholas Schoolof the Environment and Pratt School of Engi-neering. Golden provides technical assistance tothe Sustainable Apparel Coalition and the Out-door Industry Association, and he cofounded andcodirected the Sustainability Consortium until2010, who sponsored research that supportedthis article. Julie Zimmerman is acting directorof the Center for Green Chemistry and GreenEngineering at Yale University in New Haven,Connecticut, USA, where she is an associate pro-fessor of green engineering in the School of En-gineering and Applied Science and the Schoolof Forestry & Environmental Studies. VairavanSubramanian is a PhD candidate in the Schoolof Sustainability at Arizona State University,Tempe, Arizona, USA.

Address correspondence to:Dr. Jay S. Golden, DirectorDuke Center for Sustainability & CommerceBox 90335Duke UniversityDurham, NC 27708Jay.Golden@Duke.eduhttp://center.sustainability.duke.edu

824 Journal of Industrial Ecology

Copyright of Journal of Industrial Ecology is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied

or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission.

However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.