Procter & Gamble’s Journey Towards Sustainable Supply Chain

Procter and Gamble remains to be an organization that deals with the production of diverse products. Its ambition is to be capable of reaching different demands of its targeted and esteemed consumers. In the operations of Procter and Gamble (P&G), sustainable supply chains relate to the business factors that affect its activities that deal with supply chain or networks of logistics operations regarding environmental, dangers of services, together with costs of waste (Review Editor 2016, p. 112). Therefore this cases study explores Procter and Gamble’s journey towards attaining a sustainable supply chain in its operations. The company remains to be recognized as well as verified firm by many business stakeholders as the firm sustainability player. It has also received various certifications awarded to its operations by independent organization s in the sector of corporate sustainability. Moreover, the company has been putting extra effort towards its long-term vision 2020 while pursuing essential initiatives that help its management to address social issues along with environmental concerns while it successfully aims at fulfilling its economic objectives (Wasserman 2011, p. 17). This case study explores the historical timeline of operations of P&G that is essential in evaluating the progress that has been made in the process of adopting business sustainability in its chain of supply. The research aims at analyzing different outcomes from the sustainability culture along with assessment by leadership survey that aims at providing the perspective of employees about sustainable supply chain culture of P&G (Scott 2011, p. 23). Therefore, the primary target of this case study work is to examine how Procter and Gamble Company has been capable of making progress and adapts during the challenging path towards sustainable development of its operations.

For the last decades, P&G has remained to commit its operations to create the appropriate environment that comprises of social and environmental targets in their business conduct. Despite the presence of these consistent efforts for sustainable supply chain at P&G, in early days of 2013 and 2014, different media platforms repeatedly recorded that the company along with several other organizations were able to source palm oil from various suppliers connected to widespread devastation of the forest. The activity of sourcing the basic martial for operations of the company was done with the motive of developing land for plantations of palm oil. Tsing (2016, p. 34) recorded that the company’s sourcing plans expose its supply chain management to forest fire outbreaks and destruction of habitats. Such diverse effects named it possible for the organization that deals with well being of the forest, Greenpeace to commence its investigation on company’s supply chain for more than a period of twelve months (Laflev and Martin 2013, p. 5). The investigative team found out that the orangutan habitat in the forest was being cleared in the plantation connected to supply chain of P&G. 

Sourcing of Palm Oil and Deforestation Controversies

Ideal management of supply chain by P&G has made it remain as the leading manufacturer of consumer products around the global community. It also announced another successful operational year in their annual documentations with net sales of approximately sixty-five billion dollars (Lehrer 2010, p. 38). As expected for the conglomerate of their functional size, the company has the enormously complex chain of supply of its activities with many researchers reporting that in early days of 2015 the company had established at least seventy thousand suppliers around global community. Besides, P&G has managed to continue as organization leader for nearly two centuries by involvement in the operations that deal with re-evaluating and innovating new ideas for its services (Cincinnati 2012, p. 11). For instance, back in days of 2015, the company efficiently overhauled their supply chain by saving approximately one point two billion dollars on charges of operations by improving visibility throughout the management of sustainable supply chain. It also partners with various suppliers by bringing them in its operations while locating their staff at different sites of suppliers with the aim of increasing operations efficiency.

This case study examines the widespread effect of the highly visible organization in particular P&G by focusing on how they promote their active participation in the sustainability supply chain. The company deals with complicated operations since ideas of sourcing of palm oil remain to be a different issue since it comprises of both negative and positive effects. The positive effect remains to be its economic valued rescued several people in Indonesia from poverty level (Kessler et al., 2012, p. 67). P&G along with other organizations have been actively working towards attaining one hundred percent Roundtable on ways of obtaining sustainable palm oil certification as an approach of demonstrating responsible sourcing. Besides, P&G did make necessary changes to their mode of sourcing of operational policies that align with the request of Greenpeace together with other non-governmental organizations. By April 204, P&G was able to record that it had eliminated cases of deforestation from all of its practices of sourcing required palm oil. It also aimed at attaining sustainable supply chain by announcing the policy for non-deforestation for all of its essential products. In such perspective, P&G was able to confirm the objective of attaining traceability to palm oil mills by operating closely with different suppliers to ensure there are no cases of deforestation in their supply chain by the coming days as set in sustainability report of 2015. Such goal by P&G also applies to suppliers of palm Kernel oil with the focus on improving both practices as well as likelihoods to develop zero deforestation in the supply chain of P&G by early days of 2020 (Fayet and Vermeulen 2012, p. 296). All these strategies have been essential in ensuring that P&G attains sustainable supply chain by allowing the company to be on track to attain its operational goals.

Achievements Made Towards Sustainable Supply Chain

Different issues on P&G that surround palm oil indicate that the organization has been able to prove its capacity to react as well as change its sustainability on the supply chain in different urgent scenarios. There are various realities that relate to the operations of P&G. One of the essential factors for change is awareness of workers towards change in services and their willingness to change to implement ideal strategies for management of supply chain during operations (Sampson and Spring 2012, p. 43). Recently, the company has put more efforts to have the perfect effective and efficient supply chain in their activities as possible. Such strategies have made the company take significant strides towards attaining sustainable operations on supplying of its products to targeted markets. On the P&G’s website, they have indicated that they target to achieve zero cases of manufacturing waste to landfill from wastes (Wu et al., 2014, p.97). The company has also concentrated on modifying the distinctive products like improving in the manufacturing of bottles for shampoo products making the company be the best performing brand to contain almost twenty-five percent post-client recycled beach plastic products (Schoenherr and Swink 2015, p. 911). All these improvements on attaining appropriate chain of supply have made P&G achieving the milestone on working towards becoming the sustainable organization around global marketplaces (Debeny 2010, p. 53). Presently, the company remains to be the viable organization with the lasting focus and sets the instance for other organizations to follow

Wit presence of recent trend towards achieving sustainability in operations of P&G it becomes necessary for organizations to respond such regulations. Sustainably produced products by P&G are developing in popularity. The share of sustainable commodities on the P&G marketplaces is increasing. Suppliers in developing nations have to attain the much-needed set of certification systems that always underpin the claim of sustainability (Wong 2010, p. 8). These requirements are still covering both environmental along with issues affecting social and ethics. Besides, the government of different regions where P&G operates performs different distinct roles in addressing sustainability concerns of P&G. The government works carefully to ensure that they foresee the policy of development of the organization. The government offer regulations that every operator has to follow in the business markets (Sarkar 2017, p. 37). The government also facilitates the process of achieving sustainable supply chain as other places do in their marketplaces. Moreover, the different significant role of government in operations of P&G is the idea of developing internal procedures for attaining sustainable working environment and improving services. 

The Role of Government in Promoting Sustainability

In most cases, governments are always called in operation of P&G to help in forming a solid partnership with the ones with other levels of authorities to ones with civil society organizations and the private sector. About advancing sustainability, the government plays an essential role in setting the vision to incorporate sustainability policy on operations of P&G. Besides, employs two underlying system that is instrumental in operations of P&G (Lafley and Martin 2013, p. 6). These include direct regulation and marketplaces instrument and economic measures. The government remains to be a barrier to operations of P&G as in other places the authorities always set strict rules for the organization making the management to withdraw their products from such marketplaces. The government also possesses enormous taxes on operations of P&G building the organization to use the vast amount to supports its operations in most markets (Schoenher and Swink 2015, p. 887). The value-added tax in the sale of P&G commodities causes the company to increase the prices of their products and this makes most of their competitors to take advantage of this by developing cheaper products that are similar.

Competition on sustainability faceoff became high between Procter and Gamble against Colgate-Palmolive in the global marketplaces. The competition intense since the companies wanted their targeted customers to trust their operations by making the clients understand that they offer sustainable home products. Both organizations concentrated on the manufacturing of some well-regarded brands that were similar (Butler 2016, p. 63). Some of these brands comprise of Tom’s of Maine, Tide, along with Palmolive. The competition saw P&G setting up the number of green objectives that the management hoped to achieve by early days of 2012. The target included the aim of attaining twenty billion dollars in cumulative sales of different products with low eco-influences. On the other hand, Colgate-Palmolive organization also concentrated on making strides in sustainability with the use of LEED-certified manufacturing organizations along with EPA designs for the surrounding (McCoy 2010, p. 39). The designed help the organization in approving products including the production of Ultra Palmolive Pots along with pans and Palmolive dishwashing liquids, Murphy oil soap Liquid, and Ajax Expert glass that attracts huge markets. 

Both organizations have upped the ante on their ambitions to attain sustainable supply chain in the past few months, seeing it as the central concern in plans for development in markets. It is hard to achieve glaring sustainability issues with the organization of P&G, but there still exists a room for the operations of the corporation to attain improvement (Tunnicliffe 2016, p. 52). While the management of diversity, P&G could focus on getting the female manager ratios to help in reflecting present’s fifty to fifty balance in the global society along with workforce in the US. Besides, Colgate’s comprehensive website always indicates data from 2008. The reflection makes it tough for the people to judge the recent efforts that the company puts on its environmental sustainability (Colgate-Palmolive introduces new Palmolive body wash variants in India 2012, p. 4). Both organizations work by forming ideal business models in their operations to assist their workers in signaling the need for their services to go beyond the activities that deal with innovating commodities. The model of the sustainable supply chain by P&G concentrates on the essential raw materials used in manufacturing (Lafley and Martin 2013, p. 7). Besides, Colgate-Palmolive focuses on improving its operations by prioritizing on the process of regenerating resources by the use of wastes as ideal resources during the method of producing new products like liquid soaps. Besides, many surveyors believed that Colgate-Palmolive’s plan is varied to those of different organizations as it does not distinguishes its operations between several sections of business or geographical locations, but it covers many brands around the global marketplaces where it operates. The table below shows some of the differences that arise between these two competitive companies.

	Procter and Gamble	Colgate-Palmolive
Overview	Operations comprise of more than 138, 00 workers It attained approximately 79 billion in annual profit	Employ 36, 600 workers to support its operations
Product	Produces Ariel detergent’s sustainability group designed large and tightly sealed Produces polythene bags that are recyclable	Produces Tom’s of Maine that was acquired by Colgate who noticed the best chance to also promote oral health in global society
Management practices	By early days of 2012, it seek  to develop at more than twenty billion in cumulative sales of products that had less impact on environment	Making big strides in attaining sustainability in internal operations and disclosing new metrics in various categories
Health	Safety rating is less than 0.5 percent of total incident cases	Its safety rating stand at more than one percent total rate of incident
Wealth	It encourages ownership of employees	It restricts stock awards and stock options granted to various workers
Equality	It focus on managing women at a rate of about thirty-eight percent Its HRC equality index score is eighty-five percent	Women management in operation stands at thirty-two percent Its equality index score is seventy-three percent

Competition in Global Marketplaces

Table: Explores some of the differences that arise between these two competitive companies

Conclusion and Recommendations

It is evident from this illustration that sustainable supply chain in operations of a company always shifts their perspectives from focusing on how to attain ideal ways of minimizing the adverse effect to understanding how they can develop a positive impact on the critical and relevant section of community and planet. This survey has shown that P&G comprise of various opportunities and strengths that can be further developed or strengthened to succeed in the journey of attaining sustainable working conditions. Some of the positive aspects of P&G in achieving the sustainable environment in its supply chain and management are broad. For instance, it is evident that P&G has to concrete and challenges goals about the sustainability of the situation. Besides, the organization has concrete goals concerning the social aspects of sustainability that comprise of adequate access to fresh water supply, relief of disaster, commitment to health, the wellbeing of consumers and commitment to diversity, equality, and fundamental human rights. It is also clear that the organization has been able to remain competitive since its employees believe that the organization is better at the innovation of new techniques of operations that its competitors. The organization has the track of record of genuinely sustainable outside-in commodities that include Safeguard that remains as a perfect example of the argument of other surveyors. 

There are various areas that P&G still requires to improve on so as it can advance on the continuous sustainability. Such regions comprise of the need for public communication that is always driven by leaders of the organization and the broad understanding of the vision, commitments, and priorities of leaders about sustainability. Additionally, it is clear that P&G requires to communicating the comprehensive strategy along with the business case for sustainability that integrates it into the core strategy of the organization to ensure the initiatives will not be accessible as peripheral or option. The company needs to incorporate sustainability of its supply chain more deeply into the fabric of the organization specifically into goals of the organization together with workers, as evident by inclusion in metrics of performance, compensation, and rewarding employees at all sections of organizations. There is an apparent discrepancy that arises between the perceptions of senior managers of corporate culture along with the understanding of employees in attaining sustainable working condition. Therefore, P&G has to involve employees more in the commitment, operational strategies, commitment, and actions of the organization about sustainability y of its supply chain. 

List of References

Butler, K 2016, ‘Killer App’, Mother Jones, 41(2), pp. 62-63.

‘Cincinnati, Ohio Green Business Council Promotes Composting’, 2012, BioCycle, 53(6), pp. 11-12.

Colgate-Palmolive introduces new Palmolive body wash variants in India. (2012). Focus on Surfactants, 2012(8), p.4.

Deveny, K 2010, ‘The 100 Greenest Companies In America’, Newsweek, 156(17), pp. 50-57.

Epstein, MJ, Buhovac, AR, & Yuthas, K 2010, ‘Implementing Sustainability: The Role Of Leadership And Organizational Culture’, Strategic Finance, 91(10), pp. 41-47.

Fayet, L. and Vermeulen, W. (2012). Supporting Smallholders to Access Sustainable Supply Chains: Lessons from the Indian Cotton Supply Chain. Sustainable Development, 22(5), pp.289-310.

Kessler, W, McGinnis, L, Bennett, N, Basole, RC, & Bellamy, MA 2012, ‘Global supply network health: Analysis and visualization’, Information Knowledge Systems Management, 11(1/2), pp. 59-76.

Lafley, A. and Martin, R. (2013). Instituting a company?wide strategic conversation at Procter & Gamble. Strategy & Leadership, 41(4), pp.4-9.

Lehrer, J 2010, ‘Bigger Gets Better’, Print, 64(3), pp. 38-39.

Mccoy, M 2010, ‘Sustaining Clean’, Chemical & Engineering News, 88(6), pp. 38-39.

Review Editor, B. (2016). Procter and Gamble: Inspiring Success. PharmaDeals Review, 2006(69).

Sampson, S. and Spring, M. (2012). Customer Roles in Service Supply Chains and Opportunities for Innovation. Journal of Supply Chain Management, 48(4), pp.30-50.

Sarkar, S 2017, ‘Successful revolutions need suppliers’, Industrial Engineer: IE, 49(5), pp. 34-39.

Schoenherr, T. and Swink, M. (2015). The Roles of Supply Chain Intelligence and Adaptability in New Product Launch Success. Decision Sciences, 46(5), pp.901-936.

Scott, A 2011, ‘Corporate Social Responsibility Greening the Supply Chain. (Cover story)’, Chemical Week, 173(8), pp. 21-24.

Tsing, A 2016, ‘What Is Emerging? Supply Chains and the Remaking of Asia’, Professional Geographer, 68(2), pp. 330-337. Available from: 10.1080/00330124.2015.1099186. [30 April 2018].

Tunnicliffe, H 2016, ‘Sustainability, efficiency win at 2016 Awards’, TCE: The Chemical Engineer, no. 906/907, pp. 50-53.

Wasserman, T 2011, ‘P&G’s Green Guru Tells Us Why There’s No ‘Green Tide”, Brandweek, 49(21), pp. 16-17.

Wong, E 2010, ‘P&G’s Healey on Invading ‘Whitespace’ Via Innovation’, Brandweek, 51(22), p. 8.

Wu, Z., Ellram, L. and Schuchard, R. (2014). Understanding the Role of Government and Buyers in Supplier Energy Efficiency Initiatives. Journal of Supply Chain Management, 50(2), pp.84-105.