Eco ethics guiding business decisions

Almost a third of businesses have sacked a supplier in the past year because they did not meet their environmental or ethical standards, research suggests.

A survey to be released tomorrow by the Business Council for Sustainable Development has found more than 27 per cent of business owners, managers and self-employed people had ditched a supplier for social, ethical or environmental reasons. For business owners the figure was higher at 35 per cent.

The national poll sought the views of 1955 business owners, managers and self-employed people, 336 of them business owners.

Business council head Peter Neilson said the results showed companies would be "silly" to ignore the wishes of nearly a third of the market, who wanted suppliers to help meet their customers' "deeply held" concerns.

He said sustainable buying policies were starting to drive more of the $25 billion the Government spent each year buying goods and services - and interest in sustainability had risen, not fallen, with the recession.

Two managers of companies with sustainable buying policies - Robb Donze, the New Zealand managing director for carpet company Interface, and Malcolm Rands of green cleaning product company Eco-store - said it was getting easier to find sustainable suppliers as more companies adopted green policies.

Mr Donze said Interface changed its freight company - a major decision for the carpet distributor - in favour of Mainfreight-owned Owens Transport "mainly because they were willing to talk to us about keeping track of our carbon footprint and nobody else was, so we dropped our other supplier".

The company's seven cars are Toyota Prius hybrids and Mr Donze said it also did the "easy stuff" such as buying recycled paper and using mainly natural light in its offices.

He said suppliers were asked three main questions: what goes into a product, how long does it last and what do you do with it when you have finished?

"You start asking ... 'are you going to take it back [when I've finished with it]?' If they don't have an answer we will probably look at buying it from somebody who will have an answer, because we are being asked the same thing by our customers."

Mr Rands said insisting on sustainable supplies was an area of life where ordinary people had true power.

But he warned it was important to do your research. "If you don't know what you're looking for it is quite easy for people to bullshit you."

For example, he said: "Nuclear waste is actually 'biodegradable' if you can wait half a million years.

"You have to say how long does it take to biodegrade and what sea animals does it kill on the way?"

Mr Rands said when he started his company 17 years ago he was the only one asking for items such as recycled paper and plant-based inks.

It was a lot easier now because more companies were seeing sustainability as a competitive advantage, he said.

A positive spin-off was growing demand from companies for his cleaning products, he said.

Mr Donze agreed sourcing was getting easier. "For the first 10 years I would even have staff members coming up to me and saying, 'Why are we doing this? Nobody cares.'

"But in the last five years it has changed quite a bit.

"I think it is because there are companies who are doing it and showing they have grown in spite of [sustainable buying]."

He said choosing sustainable options had financially worked out extremely well for the company.

EYE ON STANDARDS

Has the organisation you work for or with ditched suppliers in the past year because of their social, environmental or ethical behaviour?

BUSINESS DECISION-MAKERS
Yes 27 per cent
No 38 per cent
Don't know 34 per cent

BUSINESS OWNERS
Yes 35 per cent
No 55 per cent
Don't know 10 per cent

Source: ShapeNZ survey of 1955 business decision makers.