The Gap Between Intention and Implementation
SMSC was founded to strengthen the systems that turn sustainability goals into real, scalable progress.
Where SMS Collaborative Began
For years, the impacts have been known, and sustainable intention across industries has been driven by passion, innovation, and growing urgency. But the systems or tools needed to support that progress often developed unevenly and in silos.
Standards were emerging. Certification programs were expanding. Manufacturers were navigating new expectations around transparency and accountability. Yet many of these efforts were evolving independently rather than in coordination.
Founder Annie Bevan saw an opportunity to strengthen the infrastructure supporting this work to ensure sustainability investment could more clearly be connected to a return on investment.
Through decades of work across certification, nonprofit leadership, and industry collaboration, Annie recognized that sustainable progress requires more than individual initiatives—it requires alignment across strategy, standards, verification, and implementation.
SMS Collaborative was founded in 2017 to build that alignment and accelerate its implementation.
Today, SMSC continues to strengthen the systems that enable sustainability initiatives to scale with credibility, clarity, and long-term impact. And our divisions help manufacturers move sustainability from ambition to implementation.
Parallel Sustainability
Your green team, dream team.
Sustainability touches every part of an organization—but too often, it’s under-resourced, under-staffed, and siloed. Most teams are left to push the boulder uphill alone, without the support, structure, or strategy to turn effort into impact or business success.
Parallel Sustainability was created to change that.
We embed as trusted, expert teammates—bringing the bandwidth, experience, and built environment fluency you can’t find in a single hire. Whether you need technical execution, strategic alignment, or go-to-market support, we help you connect your sustainability actions to actual business outcomes.
Our founder, Annie Bevan, spent years as a third-party verifier and traditional consultant, delivering reports that went nowhere. That frustration sparked the idea for Parallel: a partnership model that supports both the doing and the leveraging of sustainability. Because a certification is just the beginning—real value comes when you use it to flip specs, win trust, and drive sales.
We built Parallel so no one has to tackle sustainability alone. Not anymore. We’re here to walk with you, through the wins and the mess, with the grit and clarity to help you move faster—and further—than you thought possible.
Verico
Your trusted partners in sustainability claims validation.
With over 110 years of combined experience, the Verico team has played a pivotal role in shaping the industry's most recognized third-party verification (3PV) standards for sustainability and environmental claims. Our deep expertise ensures the highest quality and integrity, operating in compliance with ISO/IEC 17065 requirements.
Over the past 25 years, our team has conducted 1,000s of third-party audits to bring accountability to sustainability claims. Our audits follow a robust Quality Management System (QMS) that upholds the strictest verification standards, ensuring every claim is accurate, transparent, and credible. To view our Quality Scheme, visit here.
We do this because credibility in sustainability matters. In a landscape crowded with unverified claims, we are committed to mitigating mis- and disinformation, enhancing accountability, and ensuring integrity in sustainability certifications. Our core values—accountability, reliability, transparency, efficiency, and confidence—are at the heart of everything we do, so businesses and stakeholders can trust that every certification is backed by expertise and uncompromising quality.
At Verico, we don’t create standards—we verify them with certainty.