Would you rather…

If you’re in the process of cleaning up your supply chain, look for that balance somewhere between compromise and perfection.

It’s always worth the effort to search for cleaner suppliers, but sometimes that perfect supplier just doesn’t exist (yet!), or the ones you find that come close don’t quite tick all the boxes.

Like maybe the perfect supplier with all the right sustainability practices is in another state, meaning if you’re to engage them regularly, there would be a freight component that would hurt the minimisation efforts.

This is where you need to be kind to yourself, and put a few criteria next to each other to see which are more important right now.

Is it more important to use a supplier who uses recyclable packaging but is interstate, or a local supplier who uses non-recyclable packaging? If you only have two criteria, it feels a bit like playing “would you rather” when we were kids, where neither option is a good one (would you rather it was always daytime, or always nighttime?). But your criteria will likely be a list of things – so weigh them all up, and go with the best of the bunch.

There will be compromises – this is a transitional decade. Do what you can for now and keep reassessing your suppliers – new options will pop up a lot over the coming years.