As mentioned in our last blog post, the logistics industry is currently trending with green and sustainability initiatives. Research from PwC has already shown that 42% of supply chain executives rank sustainability as highly important to their companies, and 67% agreed that supply chain sustainability will be even more important in the future. Apart from the notion that these projects not only attempt to reduce the potential damage to our ecosystem (via carbon footprint reductions, etc.) and promote the notion of fair trade, there are more interesting factors that also stimulate this move.
One of them is that there are indeed hints at cost-savings in the supply chain for the future. We mentioned before that companies are not only talking about nearshoring, but have already attempted to bring their supply chain ‘back home.’ This is due to the fact that recent trends have shown that China is losing its pricing power as the US and especially Mexico move to match China by 2015. Though this trend may require some watch as some industrial real estate investors have recently made a move to target logistics property in China. Another major factor is the increase of awareness campaigns in the logistics industry. Research by Smith & Associates shows that mobile technologies and social media are becoming important influencers in the supply chain world, suggesting that this is a contributing factor behind the current trend.
This week we’re going to highlight some of the sustainability initiatives that we thought to be interesting and worthy of mention, starting with a cool cloud-based project:
Enterprise Sustainability Platforms
Backed by three PhD environmental scientists and policy analysts, the EcoShift development team has created a cloud-based solution to help companies find out more about their suppliers’ sustainability information. How it works is that buyers can analyze supplier sustainability information and risk while suppliers have access to a dashboard to see where their sustainability efforts rank compared to industry peers. This information allows buyers to see who the sustainable suppliers are. Suppliers, on the other hand, get access to information on how to improve their own efforts.
Green Warehouse Projects
Warehouses consume quite a bit of energy. Apart from being a cost-saving initiative, they also lessen the harm that high energy consumption does to the environment while gaining respect from customers and the community.A great post by Maida Napolitano over at Supply Chain 24/7 offers a great summary highlighting some great attempts. Warehouse power initiatives are now attempting to have ‘net-zero’ buildings; a move to generate as much energy as it uses up over a year. This leads to companies in the industry investing in solar- and wind-powered technology for their warehouses. Another noteworthy attempt to reduce power usage is by having a ‘smarter’ warehouse. These typically consist of an energy management system that uses submetering to monitor equipment energy use and performance. These efforts, combined with energy saving fans, lights, etc. showcase a real attempt at a green warehouse.
Logistics and Supply Chain Awareness Campaigns
As mentioned above, mobile technology and social media are becoming more and more important to the world of logistics and supply chain. Efforts to show awareness through campaigns such as the UPS ‘We Love Logistics’ campaign shows not only that awareness can lead to better business, but also that people are indeed actually interested in finding out more about the logistics industry as a whole. One recent noteworthy campaign is Starbucks’ Behind the Scenes campaign. With a supply chain that spans more than 19 countries, they definitely do a good job showing how interesting it is to start from where they get their cocoa beans to serving you that steaming cup of coffee.
While there are other efforts that could be made of note, these three examples are offer a great insight into how the logistics and supply chain industry are trying to provide a clean, green business. It is nice to see that these attempts are trending because it shows that companies are becoming more and more concerned about the environmental factors of their supply chain process.
