Building Sustainable C21 Companies

Sustainability, Social Responsibility, Green. These terms mean different things to different organizations—and even the people within them. Newport Consulting Group helps you create a sustainable strategy that is relevant to your business and its culture to maximize your bottom line through highly-effective and innovative approaches.  We position companies to compete in the 21st Century marketplace, what we call C21 companies.

Whether you’re looking for a better, more efficient supply chain or to you want to better manage your organization’s brand reputation—our multi-faceted group of experts are here to ensure your efforts equal smart business across the triple bottom-line: environmental, social and financial elements of business performance.

Sustainability Whitepapers, Podcasts 

June 28,2012 - New White Paper by principal Cindy Jennings: Sustainability Planning, Getting Started Might be Easier than You Think read it

January 27, 2012 - Audio Archive: Leveraging Your Supply Chain for Competitive Advantage listen to the recording sponsored by Sustainable Business Forum, DuPont Sustainable Solutions

December 22, 2011 New White Paper by principal Liz Garnand: Conflict Minerals - How Manufacturers Can Stay Ahead of Unformulated but Inevitable Regulations read it

December 21, 2011 New White Paper by principal Liz Garnand: Meeting the Automotive Challenge of Creating Sustainability in a Complex Supply Chain read it

July 14, 2011 - eBook by Newport Consulting managing principal William Newman: Best Practices for Managing a Sustainabile Supply Chain read the eBook Series

Carbon Footprints to Social Fingerprints

Our firm is recognized as an SAP Influence Partner across many program areas including Sustainability, EPM, and GRC services.

Our firm is an official Authorized Representative for Social Accountability International (SAI), a non-profit, multi-stakeholder organization that is a leader in the field of supply chain management and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) training. The Social Fingerprint business improvement framework is used by some of the most progressive leaders in social accountability to create beneficial value chains and work placces for their employees and stakeholders.

We are approved as a B Corporation Service Provider, advising high growth green firms and Fortune 500 leaders in Corporate Responsibility.

How we Work with Our Clients

We engage in many parts of the corporate sustainability process. We believe the core to full realization of a sustainable strategy is the ability to articulate the components of sustainability in a program plan, to assure the plan meets the objectives of the organization’s strategy, and to monitor the plan over time and make adjustments as events, context, and resources change. A "trifecta" for successful sustainability programs.

Firm Relationships in Sustainability

Our work in the area of corporate sustainability may be traced back to 1998 through the early work of our principals in the area of social accountability. Our staff have been trained and familiarized in the area of social accountability for over 10 years, developing a deep understanding of international environmental regulations, policies, codes and successful business practices.

Since then, our firm has provided assistance to commercial organizations in the areas of environmental compliance (including reduction of hazardous substances (RoHS) and greenhouse gas emissions), developed economic models that create sustainable enterprise performance management (EPM) strategies.We have also mapped our approaches to both the GRI G3 for corporate governance and ICLEI milestone approach for municipal governments.

We have been active participants of the University of Oregon Sustainability Leadership Program since 2010, both learning from mentors in the field as well as contributing our body of knowledge to program activities.

We do our best to "walk the walk" when it comes to our daily practices and sustainability. When possible we work with our clients to implement "triple bottom line" practices in our engagements where benefits may exist for all parties:

• virtual meetings, reducing energy and transport
• summarizing proposal steps, reducing paper
• use of electronic publishing, reducing paper
• work from home Fridays, increasing social benefit

We look forward to speaking with you about our sustainable practices and how they may benefit your organization and our work together.

Sustainable Business Strategy

Newport is uniquely positioned to help our clients move beyond compliance toward competitively positioned and highly sustainable profitability. Newport’s team specializes in helping companies identify unique opportunities to reduce consumption, mitigate risk, minimize environmental impact and maximize human talent.

Our experience includes creating support for a new commitment to sustainable management as well as helping organizations find new opportunities within an existing sustainable structure. The result is even greater impact by bringing both cutting edge and relevant strategy to the table. Whether highly localized or broad scale—our goal is to outline sustainable strategies in a way that is both feasible (possible) and viable (achievable).

Business Program Development

Designing and managing sustainability-focused programs takes focus and perseverance. Collaborating with us means we help to design the right program for your needs, and help you monitor and adjust it as needed along the way. Our team can also help you design the appropriate pilot and rollout strategies for programs as well as the supporting internal and external communications, education and behavior change models to ensure its success.

Sustainable Supply Circle

Information to locate and aggregate functions across the supply chain are increasingly complex and under growing economic pressures. This can lead to productivity losses and short-term decision-making that may create undue harm in the long term. Newport minimizes the data collection and management burden through appropriate use of government and industry data and IT solutions.

Newport Consulting Group can help you evaluate the cost benefits of greener and leaner packaging and manufacturing supply chains to make sound decisions. We use the principles of design, the regulatory climate and strategic drivers to determine the best overall direction.

Sustainable Brand and Reputation

Companies embark on their sustainable strategy for different reasons. For some, it’s in their brand DNA and it’s their reason for existence. For others, their public perception has been blemished and is in need of a strategic pivot to make real effort toward sustainable operations.

Newport Consulting Group can align your business and your sustainable brand strategy to communicate the alignment powerfully to your targeted audiences. A strong sustainable brand establishes preference for your organization thus leading to increased revenues.

Sustainable Performance Improvement

Newport Consulting Group helps clients build their internal talent to execute the sustainability programs necessary for a company’s success. Our organizational and behavior change management teams work within your internal culture to effect the desired change.

Outside of the organization, our team will also help you define and improve your corporate social responsibility and fingerprint within the communities you operate—whether local or abroad. Specifically, our certified team can prepare you for the Social Accountability Index’s Social Fingerprint or SA8000 Framework including remediation, planning and implementation.