The genesis for this post comes from an article this month about the GS1 UK annual conference. It’s a rather long article, written by Simon Holloway, a Senior Analyst at Bloor Research, but it represents the first time I’ve seen GS1 global standards mentioned in support of sustainability by GS1 officials. Mr. Holloway, in fact, opens his piece with this report about the GS1 Conference:

James Spittle, Chairman of GS1 UK, opened the session by introducing the topic of sustainability. He said, “Sustainability is rapidly becoming a critical business strategy…”

The author then goes on to recount the remarks of several speakers on this topic and about how it relates to supply chain excellence and the growing green movement globally. If you hadn’t thought of product and packaging standards as a way to achieve sustainability and more eco-friendliness, you’ll want to at least scan this report.

Speakers covered in this feature by Mr. Holloway include Mathew Stephenson, a Partner at Deloitte; Ian Hall, Director of Logistics for Nestlé UK and Ireland; and, Michael Bowden of GS1 UK who, it is reported …opened his talk with following quote from Thomas L Friedman in The New York Times on 26 September 2007, “…green is not just right for the world, it is better, more profitable, more healthy, more innovative, more efficient, more successful…”

I don’t think GS1 UK would be talking about these trends if GS1 UK didn’t believe that its global standards contribute to the achievement of these corporate goals. In other words, I don’t think it is some made-up marketing-driven attribute of global standardization created by GS1 to merely further their own PR. But as they say on cable TV news, ‘What say you?’