Oritain Leads Sustainability Discussion at Reuters Conference in London

Supply chain sustainability was the hot topic at this year’s Reuters Responsible Business Europe conference, at which Oritain was a gold sponsor.

Held in London, England, on the back of intensifying regulation and increased global demand for stronger environmental and social practices, the two-day event was attended by hundreds of business leaders, industry experts, and regulatory bodies.

The objective of the event was to create impactful change and showcase true business leadership by enabling companies to integrate sustainability across their organization.

In a packed agenda, Reuters brought together a cross-functional group of speakers from a range of industries, including influential leaders at Peugeot, Societe Generale, Brightwell, and Rolls-Royce.

 

Tackling the Challenges of Business

Oritain enjoyed a high-profile presence at the event, with senior members of the leadership, business, government services, and product teams in attendance.

An engaging booth, including eye-catching 3D hologram, attracted considerable attention from attendees, from where the Oritain experts provided insights around forensic science and the growing role of traceability in supply chains.

Visitors to the booth frequently expressed awareness of the issues facing the sector but uncertainty around how to resolve them. The Oritain team were able to demonstrate how forensic traceability is able to provide certainty and reassurance around product and supply chain integrity.

 

 

The Drive for Heightened Supplier Engagement

A highlight of the Reuters conference was the panel session ‘Supplier Engagement: The Imperative for Integrating Sustainability Today’, which featured Oritain Deputy CEO and Chief Operating Officer, Monica Jonas, alongside Dr Martens Director of Sustainability, Tuze Mekik.

The session sought to deliver practical advice to businesses on how to identify supply chain hotspots, reduce red-tape, achieve positive sustainability impacts, and keep sustainability front and center in operational processes.

“Transparency in supply chains has dominated the headlines lately,” commented Monica Jonas. “Traditional models of engaging solely with tier one suppliers are a thing of the past. Operating a sustainability-focused business model is now absolutely critical, and transparency is the key to unlock that. Organizations which fail to adapt their processes place themselves at risk of potentially damaging consumer and regulatory backlash.”

The importance of the subject to today’s retail brands and manufacturing companies drew a large audience. In a robust discussion, the panel spoke about the challenges of meeting business emissions targets, managing the cost of sustainability initiatives, and collecting sufficient data to accurately report on outcomes.

The subject of regulation was addressed, where the EU and other countries are increasingly regulating the human and environmental cost of production through legislation targeting deforestation and corporate greenwashing.

“This legislation has the power to impose financial penalties and restrict access to markets, leading to millions of dollars in lost revenue,” said Monica. “That’s why brands must apply pressure on their suppliers to understand chain of custody and sourcing of product materials and components to satisfy compliance requirements.”

Monica believed that doing this was also of value to suppliers, as those with a proactive program of compliance stood to benefit from increased trust with their customers and the opportunity to unlock new revenue streams.

The panel agreed that in order to build a robust and reliable reporting system for legislative compliance, each stakeholder must be held responsible in the development, including the board, investors, C-suite executives, and heads of departments. This was essential to meet requirements under director’s liability.

Tools such as carbon emission calculators were proposed to support data collection and cascading results across the organization.

Independence of data analysis was believed important by all panelists to corroborate outputs and reassure markets. “Sustainability and ESG claims must be credible and authentic. Confidence in the reliability of information and verification by a third party is key,” said Monica.

The panel concluded with a message to brands that in engaging with suppliers it’s important to emphasize that sustainability is not a short-term goal – but that the longer-term payback in competitive advantage will be worth the investment.

 

Reuters Responsible Business Europe 2024 was another successful event for Oritain to engage a diverse group of industry leaders and professionals around the value of scientific traceability for supply chain management.

See a list of all coming events Oritain are appearing at, and contact us about scheduling an in-person meeting, on our Events page.