Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has evolved from a PR stunt to “give back” to the community to a strategic practice that heavily integrates into global supply chains. CSR is no longer separate from manufacturing and supply chain management—all business operations play into a CSR strategy.

As Frank Maylett explained in his post, Who Made My Jacket, responsible sourcing is the foundation of CSR strategy. To illustrate this point we created a five-prong approach to a successful responsible sourcing program.

1. Develop a Unified Global CSR Strategy
Your responsible sourcing strategy should be supported by detailed risk assessments, standards, practices, and processes. This strategy should incorporate focused short- and long-term sourcing improvement goals that are clearly aligned with your business objectives and include detailed plans for adapting your processes to accommodate all of the diverse countries and cultures where you manufacture your products.

2. Get Buy-in at Every Level
This commitment starts at the top with executive leadership, but it also includes the mid-level managers who supervise your manufacturing processes, front-line employees, and all of the third-party suppliers and factories that make up your global supply chain. Then, maintaining that company-wide commitment is an ongoing process that includes consistent reporting, regular involvement in sourcing strategy changes, and active ongoing engagement to develop and refine responsible sourcing policies.

3. Deploy the Right Tools
Deploy effective, unified tools and processes to monitor, compare and document responsible sourcing efforts and progress across your entire supply chain. This typically involves leveraging effective auditing processes and solutions that are capable of tracking, measuring, analyzing, and enforcing the performance of all your suppliers and manufacturers.

4. Embrace Continuous Improvement
These processes should allow you to quickly identify and correct sourcing issues and violations—whether it’s an isolated incident at a single factory or a systemic business-wide problem. Technology solutions with built-in corrective action simply the continuous improvement process across locations.

5. Invest in Ongoing Training
Training should deliver consistent, up-to-date knowledge, requirements, and skills to every supplier, manufacturer, and employee that contributes to your supply chain. Again, these programs will likely need to be adapted and localized to meet the needs of factories and regulations in different parts of the world. Fair labor practices and safety regulations can only be enforced when all stakeholders understand the policies—and that understanding begins with training.

By embracing these core principles and applying them to your organization, you can build a modern, successful responsible sourcing program that consistently improves your social and environmental performance, lowers your business risks, and drives new value for your organization—without cutting into your profits or making your manufacturing processes less efficient.

Building a responsible and compliant global supply chain requires a comprehensive and unified strategy, a qualified team of CSR experts who are capable of successfully implementing that strategy across diverse cultures and geographies, and an advanced auditing technology platform that can automate and support your team’s efforts.

So what’s the fastest, most efficient, and least expensive way to put all of these pieces in place? And where can you turn for the CSR expertise and technology you need to build a more responsible, compliant, and low-risk global supply chain?

RizePoint and ELEVATE are ready to help you answer these crucial questions—by providing everything you need to develop, implement, and maintain a socially and environmentally responsible global supply chain. RizePoint, the leading provider of quality management software, has partnered with ELEVATE, a global professional services firm specializing in supply chain social, environmental, and business performance, to help companies understand and implement responsible sourcing.