GEMI members board cleanup river barge and analyze cross-industry supply chain sustainability efforts
Meeting kicks off with Living Lands & Waters cleanup effort on the Ohio River, members address multiple industry supply chain sustainability harmonization initiatives
Washington, DC – The Global Environmental Management Initiative (GEMI), the global leader in developing insights, networking and creating collaborative sustainability solutions for business, convened its membership aboard the Living Lands & Waters floating classroom barge in Louisville on Nov. 15-16. After spending an afternoon cleaning up trash from the Ohio River, the group discussed supply chain sustainability harmonization and identified potential opportunities to promote harmonization across industries.
“Our organization is dedicated to driving sustainability solutions for business and finding ways to collaborate through our efforts, so we were thrilled to have an opportunity to work with Living Lands & Waters on a river cleanup as part of our meeting in Louisville,” said Steve Hellem, executive director, GEMI. “Meeting on Living Lands & Waters classroom barge provided our members a truly unique forum to discuss how certain industries are managing supply chain sustainability and to seek opportunities to work across industries to address common goals.”
Sustainability representatives from maritime shipping, pharmaceutical, aerospace, plastics and chemical industry organizations shared learnings from their industry-led initiatives on supply chain sustainability. Speakers included Dawn Krueger, 3M; Nate Springer, BSR; Steven Meszaros, Pfizer; Maribeth Malloy, Lockheed Martin; Kendra Martin, The Plastics Industry Trade Association; Daniel Perry, EcoVadis; Tom Tyler, US EPA; and Mary Beth Jordan, MBJ Strategies.
Additionally, Mary Beth Jordan provided an overview of GEMI’s supply chain sustainability project findings to date, including the results of a Landscape Assessment that summarizes the supply chain sustainability efforts of 25 organizations.
“Supply chain sustainability has been a core focus of GEMI’s efforts in 2016, and learning more about the buyer/supplier relationship can help all of us bring better visibility to industry supply chain sustainability efforts and ensure we’re giving partners the data they need to meet common goals,” said Bill Gill, AVP, Environmental Affairs, Smithfield Foods and GEMI Chair. “There’s an opportunity for GEMI to help existing industry groups with supply chain sustainability projects by mapping out the connections among efforts, and we plan to do this in the new year.”
For more information about GEMI, membership benefits and upcoming meetings, visit www.gemi.org or email GEMI’s Executive Director, Steve Hellem: shellem@navista.net.
About GEMI
GEMI is the global leader in developing insights, networking, and creating collaborative sustainability solutions for business. For 25 years, GEMI has captured the vision and experience of global corporate environmental, health and safety (EHS) and sustainability leaders from diverse business sectors through the development of a wide range of publicly-available, solutions-based tools designed to help companies improve the environment, their operations and add business value.
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