Initiatives

If this product could talk: Product Roadmaps

The following tools and resources have been developed as part of a national project housed at St James Ethics Centre and funded by the Federal Government (through Treasury) to expand responsible business practice in Australia across a wide range of companies including small and medium enterprises.

What is a product roadmap?

Product roadmaps identify the social and environmental impacts of a specific sector/product throughout the supply chain and then identify areas for improvement, cross-participant opportunities, government responses and tools that can assist to increase responsible business practices.

Why product roadmap?

The product road mapping concept provides a common ground for participants along a supply chain (from primary producer through to consumers) to engage in meaningful dialogue about broader social and environmental issues that are typically harder to address in their entirety. Roadmapping allows:

end consumers and businesses along the product roadmap to be better informed of where their product comes from and the related sustainability issues associated with their supply chain
supply chain participants including business, government regulators and industry bodies to assess and address the processes, costs and issues involved across the whole roadmap within which they participate.

Generic product roadmap

Download a PDF Version of the Generic Product Roadmap

Collaborators

St James Ethics Centre has commissioned three organisations - Brotherhood of St Laurence, Net Balance Foundation and the Total Environment Centre - to create the generic roadmap above, highlighting opportunities to enhance responsible business practice in a typical sector.

In addition to the generic roadmap, specific sectors and products were addressed: the Total Environment Centre has mapped a building; the Brotherhood of St Laurence mapped a natural fibre garment and Net Balance Foundation focused on fresh products, creating a potato roadmap. Click here to view and download these roadmaps and their supporting detailed reports.

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PDF: In order to download or print PDF versions of documents, you need to have Adobe Reader installed. If you don't have Adobe Reader installed, download the installer from the Adobe Reader web page and then install the Reader before continuing: http://get.adobe.com/uk/reader/

Disclaimer: The compatible application listed above is an example only. St James Ethics Centre does not endorse any particular software developer or specific application.

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Build your own roadmap!

We've created a template for you to download and instructions for you to begin road mapping your own products or services - click here to find out more.