How Olam Helps Customers Measure Their Supply Chain Sustainability

More than ever, companies want to be assured of ethical practices throughout their supply chains. Gerard Manley, managing director and CEO of Olam Cocoa, discusses plans for a collaborative portal that will give customers access to the Olam product-sourcing journey.

Read the Bain Brief: Transforming Business for a Sustainable Economy

Read the transcript below.

GERARD MANLEY: AtSource is a sustainability tool which enables customers to look at the supplies of Olam's products around the world, measure the impacts of both planet, environment and the supply of their product, and look at that in one holistic way. Initially, we're launching it in four products with some selected customers.

At the first-tier level is an entry tier into AtSource. But our suppliers have to sign an agreement with us, a supply code agreement, which actually shows that they will abide by all of Olam's policies, including our landscapes policy, our labor policies, etcetera—all crafted on many international guidelines as well.

At the second level, we're working with our customers on various KPIs, which measure areas such as gender, such as education, such as market access, such as the pricing that they have so they can receive a fair price for their commodity. We're looking at our GHG. We're looking at our footprint, our GHG footprint. We're looking at our water. We're looking at the emissions that we make. So we're putting all of that together in a very meaningful way, so that customers when they log in can actually have a look at the total journey of the product from source right through to their factory.

And the important thing here is that it is a customer proposition. Each customer will be able to have their access into their particular piece of the Olam product journey. They'll also be able to look across products. So this is not being launched by a cocoa, or a coffee or a nuts [division] on their own. It's a portal which can go across all products for Olam.

And the third tier is a tier where we want to cocreate with our customers, where we want to make a net-positive impact on the environment, a net-positive impact on the community, and do that at scale. So it's all-encompassing. We think it's a fairly ambitious plan as it stands today, and we hope to roll that out to all products within Olam by 2025.

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