Parties at the end of the chain such as retailers, wholesalers, the hospitality industry, and catering (hereinafter referred to as buyers) play an important role in making the chains more sustainable. However, it is difficult for them to gather the correct sustainability information in an efficient and consistent way for the sometimes thousands of products they sell. To resolve this, The Sustainability Consortium (TSC) determined what the most urgent sustainability issues (hotspots) are for nearly all consumer products (divided into 113 categories), and where they are located in the chain.

Four objectives

1. Increase scalability:

Increase the scalability of implementing the TSC toolkits in the Netherlands using improvements in the models relating to methodology, process, data, and knowledge. This includes an examination of how the cycle (see figure 1) can be best integrated into the current organisation (sustainability, purchasing, sales, IT, and R&D positions).

2. Context-specific information:

Making modifications that enable questions and suggestions for improvements to be applied to the situation in the Netherlands.

3. Impact measurement and communication:

Examine how the impact of toolkit use can be better measured and communicated more effectively with stakeholders. Research will be conducted into how the effects can be better defined, e.g. by resending the survey (or sending it annually), or by measuring the implementation of improvements at a later time.

4. Increasing impact:

Researching how the impact of toolkit use can be increased. An examination of the situations that achieved a large impact and those that did not, and the factors that play a role in this.