Supply Chain Equity Management is a method to improve the efficiency and performance of vendor services, products, vendor management, risk management, and sustainability awareness.  SCEM originated from 15 years of research by Alvin-o Williams. The method focuses on leveraging the value created by suppliers within your supply chain, not just cost savings and spending. This means that suppliers and customers spend more time rewarding organizations that demonstrate how they benefit people, communities, and the planet, rather than just saying it.

SCEM is vendor centric.  It examines the ongoing socioeconomic impact of resource allocations derived from a customer and its suppliers regardless of business type or size.

If you are an organization looking to drive the success of the “S” of your ESG directive or if you are a supplier interested in demonstrating the lasting value you provide up the chain to your customer, SCEM is a business process worth considering. SCEM allows you to preplan socioeconomic impact, as well as measure, manage, and market your ongoing impact in real-time. Real-time quantitative and qualitative data allows you to gain new insight into how your business practices impact people, places, and our planet.  In addition, the aggregate impact created by you and your suppliers can be marketed internally and externally.

Circular economics or Circularity is not a new idea.  It is an economic system that eliminates waste and saves the planet’s resources through common sense and logic.  To learn more about Circularity, subscribe to this website to receive a link to a film exploring Circularity’s concrete solutions that individuals and communities worldwide can use to move toward a more circular economy.

The timeline for starting an SCEM initiative depends on the organization’s motivation for change and understanding why change is needed to become sustainable.  The viewpoint of circularity is universal, and the responsibility is on the customer, vendors, and leadership to ensure that resource allocations are socioeconomically impactful.

SCEM is designed to identify and utilize suppliers that provide the best impact, in addition to other competitive factors such as price, quality, and service. When purchasing professionals attempt to manage and direct suppliers by using just pricing and cost savings, they may be decreasing the overall value derived by suppliers because they don’t consider the socioeconomic impact a supplier may create. SCEM practices simplify and measure the socioeconomic impact of your suppliers that roll up into your supply chain’s socioeconomic impact. Together, this creates real and perceived socioeconomic value that tomorrow’s shareholders deem valuable.

Visit the resources page to learn more about circularity, ESG, and how SCEM supports your CSV, CSR & ESG directives.  

Cultural change is the major obstacle to implementing SCEM.  Creating a sustainable business model is the future, and leadership must clearly understand and adopt the sustainable benefits of circularity.  This paradigm shift goes against traditional practices, but it has the same impact as automation once effectively implemented.

SCEM is applicable in all markets and industries.  The greater the reputational risk to the organization, the more value SCEM provides.

An SCEM practitioner is an individual who understands the principles of circularity.  How a circular mindset helps organizations re-think and re-imagine supplier success.  How SCEM supports CSV, CSR & ESG and most importantly, how all o these business strategies support circularity.

This website is the hub for circularity and SCEM in the United States.  Additional training is in development from our support partners.

So far, the biggest success of SCEM is the ever-growing understanding and adoption of circularity and why ESG reporting helps change business cultures to drive more sustainable businesses and value to stakeholders.