As we celebrate Earth Day, and its focus on environmental conservation and sustainability, the Responsible Business Alliance (RBA) would also like to mark the one-year anniversary of its Responsible Environment Initiative (REI). The REI was formed in April 2023 as a dedicated program to address environmental sustainability challenges across the entire value chains of our members’ industries; helping to reduce resource consumption and pollution, and to advance more sustainable products, manufacturing processes, and business operations. We are pleased to have had a number of successes in the first year and look forward to expanding the REI’s impact in its second year.
In 2023, we released our Emissions Management Tool (EMT). The EMT includes a survey to capture essential greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions data, a guided calculator to help respondents develop their own GHG inventory, and an estimator to provide a baseline of emissions data for respondents at any level of maturity. Using established trading relationships in RBA-Online, suppliers can easily complete their GHG inventory one time and share results with their RBA customers, facilitating GHG emissions reporting across their entire value chain.
We also created a portfolio of due diligence tools to address chemical management risks associated with manufacturing and supply chain operations. These tools are designed to work systematically to identify, assess, and address occupational health risks at manufacturing facilities with the goal of eliminating worker exposures and environmental impacts.
We also incorporated waste and water surveys into our RBA-Online supply chain reporting tool, and we partnered with allied organizations, such as the Alliance for Water Stewardship (AWS) and the Circular Electronics Partnership (CEP) to kick-start RBA initiatives to address water consumption and waste generation.
In Year 2 of the REI, we’re developing a roadmap to guide our work and establishing environmental due diligence programs across priority environmental focus areas that will leverage the RBA’s recognized and best-in-class due diligence tools and scalability approaches.
Learn more about the RBA’s environmental efforts and how your company can benefit from its programs and tools at ResponsibleEnvironment.org.
