About THESIS

What is THESIS?

THESIS (The Sustainability Insight System), developed by The Sustainability Consortium (TSC), is a science-based performance assessment system that helps retailers and suppliers benchmark, quantify, and improve sustainability performance across consumer product supply chains.

Assessments are based on Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that measure transparency and performance on critical sustainability issues. THESIS aligns with over 600 globally recognized certifications, standards, and tools, supporting existing reporting frameworks while providing deeper insight.

Learn more on our website: https://sustainabilityconsortium.org/thesis/

What Does THESIS Assess?

THESIS assessments are made up of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).
KPIs measure environmental and social impacts across the entire supply chain.
Over 350 product category-level assessments are available, covering ~90% of consumer goods.

Types of THESIS Assessments

THESIS Start Questionnaire: Company-level, issue-focused assessment on climate, circularity, and nature. Auto-available when logging in.
Product Category Assessments: Self-selected assessments that cover specific product categories. Must collect global data for all buyers and production sites.
Retailer Priority Assessments: Required for specific products due to retailer priorities (e.g., antibiotics and animal welfare for meat).
Issue-Specific Assessments: Supplemental assessments for packaging, transportation, deforestation, etc.
THESIS Wrap-Up Questionnaire: Optional, post-submission questionnaire providing additional value to analytics and platform improvements.

Scope of THESIS Assessments

Product Coverage: 350+ product category assessments, covering about 90% of retail consumer goods.
Perspective: Final manufacturer-level, including private label and national brand products.
Geographic Scope: Global production and supply chains, regardless of region or retailer.
Activity-Based: Includes all production activities for the product category.
Exclusions: Does not cover Goods Not for Resale (GNFR).

Use the THESIS Assessment Selection Tool to identify applicable assessments. Each assessment's scope is available on their cover page.

THESIS KPIs Explained

Each KPI includes:

KPI Question: Each KPI addresses a specific impact or issue that occurs during a specific activity, or set of activities, in the supply chain.
Response options for that KPI: Response options may be numeric calculation AND/OR qualitative text choices.
KPI Guidance: detailed information for completing that KPI.
- Calculation and scope: details about how to calculate the response, including what is included and/or excluded
- Certifications, standards, and tools: resources that are directly useful in completing the KPI
- Background information: context and useful information about addressing the key issues relevant to the KPI
- Definitions: descriptions for technical terms used in the KPI.

Types of KPIs:

Category KPIs: data collection from all your products within that product category.
Facility KPIs: data collection from each facility responsible for final manufacturing of products within that category.
Supply Chain KPIs: data collection from relevant suppliers (direct or indirect) within that category.

Definitions

Private Label: A private label product is manufactured by a contract or third-party manufacturer and sold under a retailer’s brand name. Private labels carry a brand owned by the retailer rather than the producer. Also referred to as "private brand" or "store brand".
National brand: A brand of a product that is distributed nationally under a brand name owned by a producer or distributor. These are products created and distributed under a brand name that the corporation controls. When complementing the pre-assessment survey in THESIS, this can also include regional brands.

Value of THESIS

For Suppliers

THESIS helps suppliers:

Benchmark performance and compare with peers.
Build internal visibility into sustainability risks.
Reduce survey fatigue by aligning across retailers.
Access science-based tools and tailored recommendations.
Track year-over-year performance with scorecards, analytics, and improvement guides.

Deliverables include:

Scorecards with KPI-level data.
Peer rankings.
Action recommendations.
Sustainability Snapshots.
KPI improvement opportunities.

For Retailers

THESIS helps retailers drive sustainability through global supply chains and reduce risk through improved transparency and visibility.

Use cases:

Driving conversations across suppliers who may be new to sustainability.
Understanding visibility – can suppliers answer these questions at all? If they can’t, it signals a lack of visibility into their supply chain.
Getting a baseline of supplier performance across different social and environmental hotspots.
Comparing supplier performance to priority sustainability goals within a company to influence business decisions.
Using THESIS for GHG and Scope 3 measuring and reporting.
Making a plan with year over year data.

Learn more here.