The New York Times reports today that the group was founded in 1999 by universities, nonprofit groups and by companies, including Nike, that were trying to address supply chain worker conditions in the face of criticism from anti-sweatshop groups.

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The business, social and environmental results of supply chain operations have the potential to address many of the issues outlined above but need to be framed against the social purpose of the business and not as management by check box.

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Partnerships that address NGOs' misgivings about a firm's supply chain are likely to prove much more successful.

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Not only does the cloud address the issue of providing affordable access to traditional supply chain applications, it also enables a whole new class of multi-enterprise supply chain visibility and collaboration capability, that was previously technically challenging and costly to deliver.

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Mr. Zoldan speculated the chain may have been selected by suspects in both cases because it has a prominent Internet address, fireworks.com, which directs customers to retail showrooms.

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That should also address some of the concerns that we've seen about the disruption of the fuel supply chain.

WHITEHOUSE: The White House