Headquartered in London, Core provides supply chain management, customs classification, and sustainability solutions and services to global retailers, with a vision to realize the benefits of a digitized supply chain through their three software-as-a-service platforms – Suppliview, TariffTel, and Leaf. Core’s goal is to provide their clients the opportunity to work with a trusted supplier where understanding each other’s business drivers and ethos are key factors in promoting corporate engagement and a successful solution outcome.
Core’s most recent solution, Leaf, is a technology platform that captures and receives data through tight integration with suppliers and other organizations, enabling retailers to track the impact of their sustainability initiatives and strives to visualize their C02e emissions, waste and water usage, and toxic chemical usage during the manufacturing process via bespoke reports and a dashboard.
Sustainability Journey
Since Core is a Saas provider, one of the most critical initiatives has been to ensure that their servers and web-hosting services and infrastructure were optimized. The data centers that they use have a multitude of eco-credentials – their electricity is backed by Renewable Energy Guarantees Origin Certificates, they provide carbon neutral cloud services through carbon offsetting, and they have won numerous awards for energy efficiency.
Prior to the global COVID-19 crisis, Core’s office was arranged to take advantage of natural sunlight, and the company will design future spaces with natural lighting opportunities in mind. Furthermore, all their office printers have duplex functions to minimize paper waste and they supply drinkable tap water to minimize plastic waste from bottled water. Finally, the use of virtual offices has been a valuable way to respect social distancing along with reducing C02e emissions that come from employees commuting to work.
Looking to the future, Core plans to establish office recycling programs that include paper products, glass, plastic, and metals, and they will explore food waste composting as an alternative to putting food in general waste. This will mean that food waste can be used to create biofuel rather than going to a landfill. Core plans to also purchase copy paper, folders, paper towels, toilet paper, and other office paper products that are 30-100% post-consumer recycled materials. Last, since commuting constitutes a substantial portion of Core’s carbon footprint, they plan to purchase carbon offsets for travel emissions that cannot be avoided.
Using GBB as a Guide
Making the transition to more sustainable business practices can seem like a daunting and complex task, yet Green Business Bureau’s comprehensive sustainability framework has given Core the guidance they were looking for along with clear, concise greening initiatives and an easy to understand points-driven system. The GBB platform has allowed Core to prioritize impactful initiatives and hone in on areas of improvement for the company while sharing their progress, commitments, and achievements with their clients and their communities in a very public way.
For more information, please visit www.core-uk.com
