13 Questions To Ask Suppliers About Environmental Impa

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As a buyer or a production manager, it’s not always easy to ascertain whether a supplier is implementing the kind of environmental management practices you’d like to see in your supply chain. Use CO’s key questions to help start the conversation.

Environmental management can be a complex topic and require specialist knowledge. But you can start to get a sense of how a supplier or potential supplier operates and approaches environmental management with the questions listed below.

Not all these questions will be relevant to all suppliers, and they can’t guarantee anything, but they can help you open up a conversation about environmental management practices.

Key questions to ask suppliers:

  1. What raw materials do you use? Are they organic? Are they made from recycled fibres? Where are they from?
  2. Do you have an environmental management system in place? Is it consistent with an internationally accepted standard, e.g. ISO 14001? Can you provide a copy?
  3. Are you using the Sustainable Apparel Coalition HIGG Facilities Environmental Management (FEM) Module?
  4. Are you certified under an environmental certification scheme, such as the Global Organic Textiles Standard?
  5. What local environmental regulations are you required to comply with? Have you recently been in breach of these regulations? If so what have you done or are planning to do in response?
  6. Are you tracking, reporting and managing your use of energy, water and chemicals?
  7. Do you have targets for reducing your use of energy, water and chemicals?
  8. How do you manage your water-based and solid waste?
  9. Do you use renewable energy in your facilities?
  10. Do you recycle any of your key inputs, such as water or chemicals?
  11. Do you use any hazardous chemicals or materials in your production? How do you manage them to ensure they don’t enter waste streams or water?
  12. How do you package your final products? Do you use any recycled or recyclable materials?
  13. How might we as buyers partner with you to implement the environmental management systems we want to see in our supply chains?