Scaling with Purpose Kit: Supply Chain and Sustainability Through a Purpose Lens

**SPEAKER_2** (0:03)
The Bliss Business Podcast, the show about empathy, connection and consciousness in business. Today's episode is brought to you by Zero Company, your paid search, social media and programmatic ad experts.

**Stephen Zakash** (0:17)
Welcome back to The Bliss Business Podcast series, Scaling with Purpose. These are our short 10, 15 minutes podcast series where we explore how to embed purpose into every level of your organization. I'm Stephen Zakash here once again with Tulio, Sarah Goosa and Ashmar. Hey, guys.

**Ashmar** (0:34)
Hello.

**Tulio** (0:35)
Let's do this.

**Stephen Zakash** (0:37)
Yeah. So today we're exploring supply chain and sustainability through a purpose lens. How to extend your organization's purpose to your supply chain, ensuring that vendors and partners align with your values and missions. Let's get started.

**Ashmar** (0:51)
All right. Thanks, Stephen. So in today's world, purpose-driven organizations can't stop at their own walls. It spreads across the entire supply chain. So, for example, if you're a goods and services company, how do you source your products? If it's aligned with your overall purpose, then you source your products as well as align with that purpose.

**Tulio** (1:08)
Exactly. And you know what? That's not always easy to do, but customers and stakeholders are increasingly demanding this kind of transparency and accountability. In fact, they want to know that the products they buy align with their values and are ethically and sustainably sourced. So it's not just enough to buy it from the vendor. They want to know the entire supply chain, right? They want the proof that the entire supply chain aligns with that purpose. So extending the purpose to the supply chain isn't just sort of the right thing to do. It's also a strategic advantage for business. So we should dive into that a little bit why this matters too.

**Stephen Zakash** (1:46)
Yeah, I think, you know, purpose-driven supply chain, it builds trust, really. You know, when customers know that every aspect of your product, from its raw materials to packaging, aligns with your mission, it creates that authenticity, right? So this transparency deepens the customer loyalty, and it really does enhance the brand reputation when you do this right.

**Ashmar** (2:09)
You know, Steve, it's not just about the marketing. I mean, it helps mitigate risks. When you're working with vendors and partners out line with your values, you're not so worried about issues that could come across when you're working with people that don't align with those values. So really, it's a mitigating risk tool as well.

**Tulio** (2:24)
It's also tied to driving long-term growth too. In fact, a study by Nielsen said that 73 percent of global consumers are willing to change their consumption habits to reduce environmental impact. So a purpose-driven supply chain in that environment would really resonate with conscious consumers and increase that brand loyalty and competitive advantage. So depending on what the purpose is, people align to it, it can increase the consumption and loyalty of those customers as well.

**Stephen Zakash** (3:00)
Yeah, and I think purpose-driven supply chain is not just like a trend. It's just becoming more of a necessity. Customers want to buy from brands they trust. And that trust always brings in with that transparency and that accountability. And they're looking into your supply chains. So let's explore some actionable strategies here to building that purpose-driven supply chain.
The first step is really choosing those vendors and partners that align with your purpose if you can. So this means evaluating potential vendors and partners, not just on that cost or efficiency, which is maybe the first thing that you're trying to do, but also on their values and practices. And so what you need to do for this is develop some criteria for selecting vendors that align with your purpose, right? So this could include sustainability practices, you know, ethical labor standards, community impact. And then what you want to do from that is kind of conduct audits to ensure that the vendors and partners uphold those ethical and sustainable practices. And this includes reviewing the labor practices, the environmental impact, and, you know, any sort of corporate social responsibility initiatives they're doing just need to be really thorough in your process here when you're vetting these different vendors and partners.

**Ashmar** (4:22)
Patagonia, an example, I mean, we've always come back to this company. They select suppliers who meet strict environmental and social standards. They ensure every product reflects those standards. And literally their Footprint Chronicles tool even allows customers to trace the supply chain, demonstrating transparency and accountability with their community.

**Stephen Zakash** (4:43)
Real quick with Patagonia, they actually make really tough decisions. The decision is that they're like, we're going to lose money on this, but they just do it anyway. And a lot of times in the end, it's like, yeah, no, this is the right decision, not just ethically and aligning with their values, but they end up being more profitable because of that too. So they've gone through some of these really tough decisions like you're talking about there, Ash.