The Green Choice Alliance 

The Green Choice Alliance (GCA) is a coalition of NGO organizations that promote a global green supply chain by pushing large corporations to concentrate on procurement and the environmental performance of their suppliers.

At the same the GCA consumer initiative takes into consideration the environmental performance of manufacturing enterprises while exercising their purchasing power to make green choices.

Key Features of the GCA Program

Based on both practical on-the-ground experience and basic economic principles that guide this market-based solution to curb industrial environmental pollution, the GCA Program has the following five features:

• Creates a level playfield to stop global procurement’s “race to the bottom”- The commitment to common sourcing practices by companies helps raise the bar for environmental performance so that suppliers compete above the baseline requirements of legal compliance.

• Transparency based on publicly-available government-sourced data on polluters - Use of a government-sourced database to identify factories that fail to meet legal standards increases the supplier screening process’ validity.

• Use of market-based independent auditors with NGO participation - This arrangement means to minimize the potential risks caused by conflicts of interest by introducing transparency and public participation to the audit process.

• Reduce multiple/repetitious audits and associated cost & fatigue - The use of the pollution map database to screen the company supplier list allows companies to focus efforts in places where it is needed.

• The power to work with the public - This Alliance involves public stakeholders in supply chain management, which enables the clean-up efforts made by client companies and suppliers to become more widely visible.