Supply chain sustainability (SCS) is a comprehensive aspect of supply chain mechanisms, logistics, and technologies that address the environmental, social, economic and legal aspects of a supply chain’s components. Building a sustainable supply chain will help your business to grow by providing new selling opportunities. It will also help to reduce costs and improve efficiencies, creating a better work environment for your staff and a more sustainable environment for the world. Companies should take the following measures in order to improve supply chain sustainability:
1. The most important step is to identify critical points and areas of improvement within the entire supply chain. The environmental effect of a supply chain is a culmination of each step in the manufacture and operation process. Therefore, companies should understand where most emissions and risks are present in order to improve.
2. Use supply chain management and measurement tools to help track progress and find the area of weaknesses. The Sustainability Consortium, World Wildlife Fund, and The Sustainability Accounting Standards Board are some of the organizations which formed guidelines and key performance indicators (KPIs) that can help consumer businesses move towards their environmental goals.
3. Target those supply chain sustainability goals that reflect global sustainability goals. Companies should set sustainability goals around scientific recommendations and government regulations to contribute to the greatest impact on the global sustainability agenda.
4. Choose and collaborate with other sustainable suppliers. The practice of collaboration and combination of resources between manufacturers can help companies reduce waste, cost, and environmental risks. For example, sharing modes of delivery is one of the solutions to reduce pollution by ensuring multiple half-vacant vehicles are not sent out in the same direction.
5. Maintain liability throughout the whole process. Processes that can be put in place to ensure liability are routine audits, implementation of sustainability programs and teams, software tools that track impact and customer-facing goals and progress reports.
6. Organizations that have less control over the supply chain or want to start making a quick impact can also look into buying carbon offsets. These are credits that help neutralize an organization’s carbon emissions by investing in environmentally-friendly initiatives.
Get in touch with the experts at Tenaxx Logistics today for more information about how improving your supply chain sustainability can improve the efficiency of your supply chain and help you meet your supply chain sustainability goals.