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Vertoro’s Interactive Supply Chain

Blog post - End Event Group 10

At the start of this project we started to think about the degrees of sustainability that a company can reach and what factors play into this. It quickly became obvious that sustainability goes much further than the production process and the product of the company itself. For Vertoro, at this moment, the most significant other factor is its suppliers. We asked the question: What degree of sustainability should Vertoro aim for and how can this be transparently implemented? The degree to which Vertoro is sustainable is strongly connected to the extent to which it takes responsibility for the sustainability of its supply chain. 

As a group we saw the first step to solving this problem lying in increasing the transparency in regards to Vertoros supply chain. This can be done by creating a visualization of the supply chain and making it available to whoever is interested. Our end product consists of an interactive document that is aimed at providing a general overview of Vertoros supply chain with further detail if one wishes to find out. 

As an additional action point we saw a more active approach to regulating the sustainability of Vertoros supply chain. We came up with three different sets of criteria, one focused on environmental sustainability, one on social sustainability and one focused on transparency. This would allow Vertoro to have an objective way of evaluating their suppliers or in general their partners, giving Vertoro the ability of impartially portraying their degrees of sustainability to outside corporations and potential clients. These criteria sets can be found in the Assignment 2 (pages 3/4) which is also attached to this post. Additional tips for implementing our solutions can be found in the recommendation part of Assignment 2 (pages 12/13) with further information and evaluation of the ethical problem. 

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The website : vertoro.ml

Description end-product group 12

Our problem statement:

For a startup company it is important to get investors to ensure the growth and profit

but investors get to make big decisions for the company which can conflict with Vertoro’s goals. If a large chemical company with a lack of transparency or regard for the environment attempted to invest in Vertoro what should they do?

In this scenario the values of integrity and growth are in conflict. The moral values come into conflict as Vertoro aims to grow, to have a larger impact as a company, it needs financial investments. In the case that this investment comes from an untransparent and environmentally unfriendly company, Vertoro’s integrity is at stake.

After analyzing our options by applying ethical theories we have come up with the following best option:

Vertoro could prevent getting this type of investors by setting criteria for future investors and make these criteria public. This way the main goals of the company will be communicated wisely to potential stakeholders and may attract new investors who support Vertoro’s vision. 

If Vertoro is in dire need for money and not enough investors have turned up yet which met the criteria, Vertoro could decide to say that they are open to negotiations. Nevertheless, Vertoro should be certain that they will at least stay significantly more sustainable than the current companies in the oil industry. It is not a problem to accept an investor who is less sustainable than Vertoro themselves, but there are limits of course. The investor should at least share the aim of making a more sustainable product than is now present in the market.

To implement these criteria we have designed a webpage for investors. The criteria and Vertoro’s goals are presented, so the investors can decide if they attempt to invest or not.

It is meant as an action plan for Vertoro to indicate how to deal with future investors. The balance between making a profit and being sustainable has been found to ensure Vertoro can reach their goals. 

[ethicalcocreationvertoro]

We, from group 11, have made an ethical analysis of the dilemma between the survivability of the company and the overall impact on sustainability. Watch the animation to find out about our conclusions and recommendations.