Small-to-Mid-sized Enterprises Step Up their Supply Chain Sustainability Games (.PDF Download)

The news headlines are filled with the advances large corporations are making on the environmental sustainability front: Starbucks is storing more carbon than it emits, fully eliminating waste, and replenishing more water than it uses; Unilever sourced 62% of its raw materials from sustainable sources in 2019, and is now using artificial intelligence (AI) and blockchain technologies to get to the point where all materials come from 100% sustainable sources; and Walmart’s Project Gigaton is working to avoid the emissions of 1 billion metric tons of greenhouse gas throughout its value chain.

These are just a few examples of large-enterprise initiatives, but small-to-mid-sized businesses (SMBs) are also throwing their hats into the sustainability ring. Defined by Gartner as companies that have 100 or fewer employees (for a small business) or between 100-999 employees (for a mid-sized firm), SMBs typically have either less than $50 million in annual revenues (for small companies) or somewhere between $50 million and $1 billion in revenues (for a mid-sized organization).