New Sustainability Standard for Professional Services Firms

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The first sustainability standard for professional services, the American National Standards Institute (ANSI)-approved NSF 391.1, has been adopted and published. The new standard provides a road map to address and furnish incentives for adopting meaningful environmental, social, economic and sustainable supply chain practices and outcomes. Several organizations, including Federal agencies, have expressed interest in integrating NSF 391.1 into their procurement policy.

The ANSI-approved NSF 391.1 adopts a voluntary multi-stakeholder process and provides a road map to address issues under the sustainability umbrella. The standard was facilitated by NSF International, an independent standards accreditation organization, and aided by a collective of professional services firms, governmental agencies and academia.

The new standard is significant because professional services firms’ core business centers on the performance of human capital. While traditional sustainability frameworks focus heavily on a company’s environmental footprint, such as its carbon emission or water use, services’ firms have a more significant impact on their handprint than their footprint. They affect social benefits in a much bigger way, which the new standard addresses with its distinct points-based and results-based system.

With publication of the sustainability standard, attention now turns to deciding and defining other prerequisites necessary for organizations to integrate the standard into their procurement policy. These include:

Identifying certifying bodies to review and attest that professional service firms have met the standard.
Making clear what the standard specifically requires in using it.
Communicating the documentation needed to demonstrate that a firm has met specific key performance indicators.
Activating the maintenance phase, as appropriate, to update the standard when necessary.

ABOUT THE NSF NATIONAL CENTER FOR SUSTAINABILITY STANDARDS
The Center develops standards, product category rules and protocols in a consensus-based stakeholder process. Input from manufacturers, suppliers, regulatory agencies, environmental organizations, procurement professionals, product specifiers, customers and academia achieves acceptance and support for these market-changing standards. NSF Sustainability can work with your industry on standards, PCRs or protocols that add credibility to your products and meet time-to-market needs.