Creating the Spotify for Supply Chains

The Challenge:

In 2018, Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and Shelton Group embarked on a journey to fully understand how EDF could better support consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies on their sustainability journeys. We interviewed several sustainability directors ranging in titles from vice presidents, directors and C-suite executives at top CPG companies. We found their biggest unmet need/challenge was finding credible resources quickly that they could use or share with their suppliers to support a sustainable supply chain. It was clear from our interviews that a persistent barrier to setting or executing scientific sustainability goals was the perceived time and effort it takes. Because of this upfront work, it was evident that EDF was primed to serve this need, reimagining a new way to facilitate the flow of information to promote sustainable supply chains.

The Supply Chain Solutions Center

The Solution:

To effectively create a solution not limited to just facilitating information but increasing EDF’s reach and ability to effect positive change on a global scale, we looked to modern-day platforms for inspiration and asked, “Why can’t finding sustainability solutions be as easy as finding a song on Spotify?”

It can be.

Together, we built a new, multimedia-rich website that matches you with sustainability resources, best practices, case studies, thought leadership and news, filtered to help you solve your specific challenges. Branded the Supply Chain Solutions Center, this free, go-to resource allows sustainability professionals to create a profile and get personalized recommendations, matching their environmental and business goals.

The site goal was the mission – get more companies on the path to greening their global supply chains by delivering supply chain professionals at high-impact companies a discoverable, engaging and intuitive user experience for varying levels of sustainability experience.

In addition to publishing research and digital content, the Supply Chain Solutions Center curates an extensive library of articles, reports, videos, digital media and professional online tools from a network of partner organizations and leading industry experts designed to educate, instruct and inform.

Sustainability, Streamlined

The Process:

A thorough discovery session with the client helped us identify opportunities and challenges inherent to the project. We presented a range of design and UX concepts, and real-time client feedback jump-started the creative process.

The result was a website design that utilizes rich, compelling visuals with the thoughtful use of negative space, organized in carousel format that captures user attention and encourages content exploration.

The homepage draws immediate focus to the Supply Chain Solutions Center’s six supply chain workstream categories – agriculture, forests, energy, chemicals, freight and zero waste – while offering content discoverability as users progress down the page.

Each of the category pages utilizes a custom content filtering and tagging system that simplifies user searches while displaying the most relevant content with images, titles and descriptions.

An important feature of the site is the online sustainability assessment specifically for supply chain professionals. This highly customized, interactive, logic-based tool known as the “GAIA Supply Chain Maturity Model” enables users to self-assess on a recurring basis in order to quantify growth and identify opportunities more accurately and efficiently.

"... finding solutions is now as simple as finding Beyoncé’s greatest hits."

The Payoff:

Modern CPG supply chains have an enormous environmental and human health impact. That means they also present huge opportunities for companies striving to become more sustainable. Even still, we all know that consumers expect companies to make their products more sustainable – so every choice at shelf is a “good choice.”

Sounds daunting, right? Not anymore. Thanks to the crowdsourced platform, simply finding solutions is now as simple as finding Beyoncé’s greatest hits. And we couldn’t be prouder to be the architects.