Bangalore: Going green’s no more a fad for global corporates. It’s business critical as the ‘green quotient’ is increasingly becoming a decisive factor in making or breaking business deals. Increasingly, global outsourcers are interested only in vendors who talk and walk the green.
The Black Book of Outsourcing’s recent Green Outsourcers’ Report-2007 study — done by Florida-based Brown-Wilson Group — has found that some 21% of around 20,000 corporate respondents interviewed has newly introduced green policies to gain preferred-vendor status. Also, 94% of respondents said they have plans to include green clauses as part of their renegotiating processes.
Brown-Wilson ranked providers based on how well they met key criteria like company’s independent green standards, voluntary adoption of eco-friendly practices, their adherence to UN’s environment standards and their compliance to green measures outlined by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), says a recent Business-Week report.
The study ranks Accenture at No. 1, scoring in 8 of 18 criteria. Two Indian firms — UST Global and Intelligroup — were also part of the top 10, at No. 7 and 10 respectively. Other companies included Computer Sciences Corp (CSC), Hewlett-Packard, SAIC, IBM, Unisys, Perot Systems and Oracle.
Accenture globally topped the list for its initiatives in reducing carbon imprints for clients, implementing green tracking measures and setting green performance objectives. While the study found CSC’s environmental stewardship and green benchmarking for outsourcing worth rewarding, HP was rated as an effective communicator of green messages to employees and clients. SAIC scored higher than any other provider in mandating environmental legal compliance, while IBM ranked first in developing green technologies, products, services for reducing waste, conserving energy, and increasing efficiency of resources.
Unisys was recognized for its active involvement in developing green technologies, products and services.
The mid-sized UST Global was ranked second in creating a governance programme that orchestrates environmental goals and needs of clients. It also scored second in encouraging the development of environment-friendly technologies.
Arun Narayanan, joint COO of UST Global, said that just being a responsible corporate citizen is not good enough today. “Each corporate has a very critical role to play in protecting and preserving environment through comprehensive green initiatives,’’ he said.
Perot Systems scored on overseeing environmental health on behalf of clients as well as pushing products and service innovations that help protect the environment. Oracle was ranked high for encouraging the development of environment-friendly technologies. Intelligroup was recognized for having pushed product and service innovations that result in environmental protection.
Says Brown-Wilson, “Green factors are forcing a new stage of expectations on global outsourcing suppliers. Environmental concerns have entered into the formal selection process of outsourcing vendors. The influence of consumer and investor opinions for green corporate accountability and the creation of new government regulations in favour of protecting the environment have pushed green issues onto the boardroom agenda and onto outsourcing vendors’ growing plate of priorities.’’
While many outsourcing vendors, particularly European and US-based vendors, have already established proactive green corporate policies, there is expected to be a flurry of activity among offshore firms from India and China to retain competitive appeal.
The impact on outsourcing vendors is forcing executives to incorporate issues like hardware energy consumption, alternative energies, waste disposal, use of recycled content products and environmentally preferable products and services, use of bio-based products, energy- and water-efficient products, alternate fuel vehicles, products using renewable energy, and alternatives to hazardous or toxic chemicals as well as asset disposal into their sourcing strategies, the study stated.
“The economic development of emerging outsourcing countries is alarming. Earth scientists are concerned about the surge in greenhouse gas emissions in countries like China and India,’’ said Scott Wilson, partner in Brown-Wilson.
“Clearly there’s pressure on suppliers to build equities to be attractive to global buyers,’’ said Anuradha Thampy, a green evangelist.
Top 10 greensourcers 1. Accenture 2. CSC 3. Hewlett-Packard 4. SAIC 5. IBM 6. Unisys 7. UST Global 8. Perot Systems 9. Oracle 10. Intelligroup
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