University of Rhode Island  
Textiles, Fashion Merchandising and Design

TMD 402N  Seminar: Sustainability

Sustainability Audits

Bureau Veritas: Rick Horwitch, Laura McIntyre, and Dan Porges

Summary by Laura Graham

If you look 360 degrees around you, from top to bottom and left to right, Bureau Veritas probably touched something there. The company is involved in testing consumer products services, including safety, quality, and regulatory checks. Currently, they are the largest toy-testing company in the world, and are involved in the expensive toy recall affecting American consumers who bought toys manufactured in China

Bureau Veritas has designed, made, sourced, and tested products to ensure four things.  First, that they are safe for consumers to use. Second, that they are compliant with regulations and current laws. Third, that they work correctly. And fourth, that they meet human rights standards, which is slightly unusual for product testing companies to be involved in.

When a customer who wants to be more sustainable comes to Bureau Veritas, the company must ask themselves how important their brand is, where there distribution is, what are the products, and whether the company actually cares or not, because, as Vice President of Solutions Business Development Rick Horowitch said, sustainability is not just about products, but about business. “Sustainability is about reducing waste through business,” he said. And, if done correctly, the customer/company can use this to leverage its brand image and equity.

A paradigm shift is occurring in the business world where global warming, an increase in chemical directives, the media, growth of ethical funds, and good corporate governance are all involved. Some of the key issues driving this paradigm shift are environmental policy, packaging, transportation, eco-design, carbon footprinting, social compliance monitoring, and having standards for suppliers. 

The key drivers are CEOs of large corporations who want to experiences some kind of cost savings. Horowitch said that if sustainability is defined as something that can “keep up or keep going as an action or process,” he said the goal is to take the waste out of everything that a company does. For example, Horowitch said Wal-Mart is one of the major players in the paradigm shift. “They’re driving the sustainability initiative as hard as I’ve ever seen them drive in twenty-five years,” he said. According to Horowitch, Wal-Mart’s drive to sustainability in both business and product will happen and it will have a profound effect on all of our lives.

Other brands and retailers are doing similar things. Many companies are changing their products, such as eliminating restrictive substances, reducing packaging ratios, making packaging biodegradable and reducing energy to produce them. Companies are also designing with BOM/BOS and using more energy-efficient methods in production. Transportation and the supply chain are also important; supplier ratings and approvals are being used, as well as more efficient fleets, transport, and shipments of product. Many retail stores are using eco-design, lowering energy usage, using florescent lighting and water collection, solar panels for energy, and air conditioning. Finally, corporations are doing their part with carbon offsets, more charity and community, and many education programs to inform people of sustainability and their involvement in the effort.