Pictured above: Cindy Holmes (center) and Sustainable Purchasing team members (left to right) Monica, Stephanie, Corbin, Ayahna, Gabriel, and Ryan finalize project goals on Friday, February 8th, 2019. The team will meet regularly with Cindy to provide ensure the transparency of the project.

Sustainable Purchasing Team Shakes Hands with UCLA Trademarks and Licensing

By: Ryan Hallman, Stephanie Hauschildt, Gabriel Hernandez, Corbin Kehrberg, Ayahna Mack, and Monica Portillo

Sustainability Action Research: Sustainable Purchasing Team discusses plans to increase the sustainable and ethical framework of UCLA’s promotional product supply chain with Cynthia Holmes, Director of UCLA Trademarks and Licensing. Holmes was excited to learn what the team had come up with since their first meeting together. After their meeting on Monday, February 4th, 2019, Holmes and the team shake hands to begin the efforts of advancing ethicality and sustainability in UCLA’s promotional product supply chain.

Prior to meeting with Holmes, the team spent time researching the UC Code of conduct, methods of supply chain measurements, global supply chain efforts on ethics and sustainability, and supply chain reporting. The team found that the UC Code of Conduct is extremely vague in its ethical and sustainable requirements, measurement methods are difficult to put into action, global efforts are advancing, and reporting is done internally and unlikely accurate. The key issue that global supply chain managers and the Sustainable Purchasing team will face is transparency. Luckily, Cynthia Holmes offered to put the team into contact with the promotional suppliers for direct communication.

The team used information provided by their research to develop their project outline. The team was able to define five objectives. These objectives were described and put into a rough time frame to keep the team accountable throughout their journey. The team aims to select metrics to analyze the eight UCLA promotional product suppliers and use the metrics to rank and compare the ethical and sustainable levels of each supplier. Based off of the results, the team plans to market products of more highly rated suppliers with a seal or badge. Cynthia Holmes recommended that seal be incorporated into catalogs departments use to select products. The team was very receptive of this idea.

Over the course of the last five weeks, the Sustainability Action Research: Sustainable Purchasing Team has learned that they cannot achieve their goals by themselves. It takes team collaboration internally and externally with campus leadership to make sure their work is valuable and feasible for all parties involved. Ryan, Stephanie, Monica, Gabriel, Ayana, and Corbin are excited to be working with each other and are excited to have finalized their project goals with Cynthia Holmes.