While the Ariba LIVE Las Vegas mainstage spotlighted leaders using Spend Management to drive innovation, value, and growth for their organizations, many of the hallway conversations and private meetings turned to the issue of corporate responsibility and sustainable supply. A number of procurement and supply management executives attending the conference told me that their companies were making very public commitments to greening their supply chains. And they were on the hook to deliver the strategy.

One of the more intriguing conversations I had was with the CPO of one of America’s largest public universities. He warned against spend management professionals making rash decisions to greenwash their supply strategies without fully understanding the implications of their decisions. He uses his own experience as an example.

In response to picketing from Birkenstock-wearing environmentalists, the university’s cafeteria elected to put in place a “buy local” campaign. The reasoning for this seemed logical enough. Buying produce from farmers and fishermen in the region would support the local economy, cut down on shipping costs, and reduce emissions associated with importing food from faraway regions. The policy was a win-win for everyone, right? Well, not exactly.

With the university located in the Northeast, for most of the school year, buying locally meant sourcing produce that was grown in inefficient greenhouses that consumed more energy, used more fertilizer, and released more carbon into the environment per plant than buying from farms in California, Florida, or, even, Central- and South America. On top of that, the quality and flavor of the greenhouse-grown produce was far below that of produce brought in from other regions.

“They were putting policies in place to placate student concerns about the environment,” the CPO told me. “But they were unaware that these policies actually had the opposite effect they intended. So, I’ve had to spend a good deal of time reeducating faculty and students on the true impacts of these policies.”

As for organic, the CPO says the environmental impact is even worse. And, if you believe what you read, it appears that he is right. A highly insightful (and contrarian) article in the latest edition of Wired magazine reports that organically raised meat, milk, fruit, and veggies are more harmful to the planet than their industrially raised counterparts.

The long-time pitch has been that organic is good because organically raised crops don’t use commercial pesticides or fertilizers and organically raised animals don’t use steroids or other chemicals to induce growth. Unfortunately, this all-natural, slow-grown method takes its toll on the environment. Consider these facts from the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization:

• It takes 25 organic cows to make as much milk as 23 industrial ones. And an organically raised cow puts out 16% more greenhouse gases than its counterpart. Upshot: that means more cows and more emissions per cow.
• And, not to be overly graphic, but the article also reports that organic beef takes longer to achieve slaughter weight, which gives them more time to emit polluting methane.
• Similarly, an organically raised chicken emits 45% more greenhouse gas emissions over its lifetime than its industrialized counterpart.

While, on the surface, it may seem that I just made a strong argument to become a vegan (a non-organic vegetable eating one), my deep intent was to encourage procurement and supply executives to avoid knee-jerk responses to the sustainability movement. Instead, when you move to embrace sustainability (and it is a question of when — not if) take the time to educate yourself, your company, and your suppliers on the true environmental impacts of your supply strategies. That way you can make recommendations and decisions based on fact, not on popular misconceptions.