Press Release
Not for Release before 12 Noon on July 12th, 2014
Green Supply Chain CITI Index Released at Guiyang Eco-Forum
June 12, 2014 – The Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs (IPE) and the Natural
Resources Defense Council (NRDC) today jointly release the Corporate Information
Transparency Index (CITI) at the 2014 Eco-Forum Global Conference in Guiyang, China. This
inaugural CITI report found that Apple, H&M, and Esquel Group are leading the pack in terms
of green supply chain performance out of 147 consumer brands that were assessed.
The CITI is a new quantitative evaluation system designed to measure a brand’s performance
in managing the environmental impacts of their supply chains in China. The CITI is jointly
developed by IPE and the NRDC, with the generous support of the SEE Foundation.
The CITI is being released at the Greening the Global Supply Chain sub-forum, organized by
the SEE Foundation and IPE, to be held at the Guiyang Eco-Forum Global hosted by the
Environmental Protection Department of Guizhou. Jia Feng, Director at the Center for
Environmental Education and Communications (CEEC), Fang Li, Deputy Director, Foreign
Economic Cooperation Office, Ministry of Environmental Protection of China, Tian Huo, Party
Committee Secretary and Bureau Chief, Guizhou Environmental Protection Inspection
Department and Arthur Hanson, CCICED International Chief Advisor, are featured presenters
who will be speaking on the importance of greening the global supply chain.
The CITI has been developed to help address the environmental challenges brought forth by
global production and procurement. As the workshop of the world, China’s industrial
production and processes have brought about severe pollution to its air, water and soil. Given
the complexity of global supply chains, existing Chinese and international supply chain
standards and assessment regimes have been ineffective in accounting for the environmental
performance of supply chains.
“Despite the central importance of supply chains in globalized business core function, and
despite the heavy impact of pollution from manufacturing in this way, company corporate
social responsibility programs generally focus very inadequate attention on pollution from
their supply chain. To the contrary, they focus on where it is easiest to start, rather than where
it is the most important to fix,” says Linda E. Greer, Ph.D., Director of NRDC’s Health and
Environment Program.
Over the past few years there has been progress made in the level environmental information
disclosure in China and also developments in levels of public participation. In order to increase
stakeholder participation in environmental management of supply chains, since 2010, IPE and
partner NGOs have pushed dozens of brands from the IT and textile industries to use IPE’s
Pollution Map database to identify and address their supply chain pollution problems. They
have then conducted qualitative assessments of these brands. In August 2013, IPE began
partnering with NRDC to refine its supply chain evaluation methods, and based on the input
from multiple sources, developed the CITI.
Ma Jun, Director of the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs said that, “The inaugural
CITI evaluation looks at brands that have hundreds of millions of customers across the world.
Our hope is that consumers in and outside of China pay attention to the CITI evaluation scores
and rankings and use their own purchasing power to make more environmentally conscious
choices, and be a force for pollution and emissions reduction in China.”
It is already apparent from this inaugural CITI evaluation that green procurement policies are
reducing energy use and emissions. As of June 2014, Chinese and foreign brands had
collectively pushed more than 1600 suppliers to issue statements on their specific pollution
problems or to disclose their emissions data, and several hundred of these companies have
taken corrective actions. To help more consumers understand the performance of different
brands, IPE has also developed the ”Pollution Map” mobile app that allows users to use their
cell phones to look up the environmental performance of different brands.
Another goal of the CITI is to create a roadmap that brands can follow to green their supply
chains in China. Ma Yingying, Project Manager at IPE, said that the CITI evaluation is built upon
five main themes: Communication and Follow-up, Compliance and Corrective Actions,
Extending Green Supply Chains Practices, Target Setting and Data Disclosure, and Recycling
and Reuse. These five themes are split into the 10 criteria the CITI uses for evaluating
companies. Each of the evaluation criteria is split into five levels, from ones that are easy to
implement, to more challenging ones that require a deeper level of supply chain management.
The final aim is to reach a level of green supply chain best practice. So overall the CITI is also
designed to be a green supply chain roadmap.
Ma Jun believes that, “The CITI reflects the brand’s will, capability, and institutional backing to
solve pollution problems in its supply chain, and can also aid brands to move from basic
compliance to continuous improvement and eventually best practice.”
This inaugural CITI assessment looks at eight industrial sectors with significant environmental
impacts: IT, textiles, food and beverage, household and personal care, automobile, breweries,
and leather. Apple, H&M, Unilever, Coca Cola, Stora Enso, and Puma were top performers in
their respective sectors. However, 47 of the brands were unable to provide any sort of
response to questions about their supply chains, demonstrating that there’s a long road ahead
before the goal of green supply chains can be attained.
Ma Yingying says that, “The CITI evaluation is based on data platforms and information
disclosure. We believe that those brands that lack transparency cannot demonstrate the
effectiveness of their environmental protection work, and cannot carry out meaningful
communications with stakeholders, and therefore face difficulties in ensuring supply chains
can meet environmental standards given the complex social conditions in which they operate.”
Notably, this CITI evaluation includes numerous Chinese brands. While Chinese brands have
lots of room for improvement, Huawei, Lenovo, Li-Ning, Youngor Group, and Toread have
already started to enact green procurement policies.
Wang Limin, vice secretary of the SEE Foundation, commented that, “Over the past few years,
Chinese products and services have been distributed globally, with supply chains of Chinese
companies extending worldwide, and Chinese outbound investment rising. This means
Chinese multinationals, in respect to their environmental management, will be subject to
many different local regulations and also public supervision from consumers across the world.
Therefore, it’s important that Chinese enterprises develop their green supply chain
management.”
To help Chinese companies assume more environmental responsibility, and implement
sustainable development practices, the SEE Foundation, in June this year, initiated a
conference called the Green Agreement for Chinese Businesses- Green Supply Chain Action,
in which more than 60 Chinese companies participated. Two SEE Foundation members, Han
Jiahuan, Chairman of the Board at the Dachan Group, and Wang Jing, Chairman of Toread, will
attend the forum, and with other guests, including Joan Krajewski, General Manager at
Microsoft, Leyla Ertur, H&M China Regional Representative, Wang Jing, Chairwoman of Toread
Group, Alex Wang, Professor at UCLA School of Law, and Susan Keane, Senior Analyst at the
NRDC’s Health and Environment Program, will share their knowledge and experiences on how
companies can make their supply chains greener.