The Sustainability Consortum

The second way in which corporate change occurs is by companies voluntarily changing their practices. When a manufacturer, retailer, or consumer uses their purchasing power to influence or select supplies or products with better sustainability attributes, they are engaging market rather than regulatory mechanisms. Market mechanisms have the benefit of encouraging leadership in meeting market demands, and generally operate with lower costs than regulatory mechanisms. To create a scalable, science-based system that could support market mechanisms driving supply chain sustainability, Walmart created the Walmart Sustainability Index in 2015. The Index is now known as the THESIS Index and is managed by The Sustainability Consortium and powered by SupplyShift. THESIS is the independent, science-based, holistic sustainability performance solution that allows companies to understand and then tell the sustainability story of their products. THESIS on SupplyShift enables these users to select assessments most appropriate for their products and then simultaneously share their results with all participating retailers. What Do THESIS Results Tell Us about Current State of Sustainable Practices? Even through a global pandemic, over 1700 manufacturers representing almost $1 trillion of consumer products annual sales performed a THESIS assessment powered by SupplyShift in 2020. From 2016 to 2020, product manufacturers’ Dr. Kevin Dooley