Sustainable Practices To Use In Your Business’s Supply Chain
Modeling a sustainable supply chain is about tending to the needs of the earth and the public. It’s about taking responsibility for your company’s impact on the world, and adopting and practicing a code of ethics for the greater good.
America, in particular, is guilty of using a large portion of the world’s resources. As highlighted on Dosomething.org, the U.S. only accounts for 5% of the world’s population, yet we use 25% of the earth’s resources. America uses 26% of the earth’s oil and burns almost 25% of its coal. Moreover, according to the U.S. Department of Energy’s Annual Energy Review, supply chain activities, such as the transportation and industrial sectors, are responsible for 61% of America’s carbon emissions. Indicating business supply chains in the U.S. largely contributes to global warming.
Supply chains that are damaging to the environment are not just bad for the earth; they’re bad for business. Excessive energy use is costly for companies. And as government regulations surrounding greener practices tighten up, companies will be at risk of paying penalties if they’re not operating in the environment’s interests.
Plus, consumers are becoming more aware and conscientious about how businesses conduct their operations. In many cases, consumers will opt for businesses that use eco-friendly practices over those that don’t. And, customers are more likely to pay for a product if it has endured a sustainable process, as opposed to one riddled with excessive energy consumption and exploiting cheap labor in developing countries.
You have to hold yourself accountable for your actions, and that’s how we’re going to protect the earth. – Julia Butterfly Hill
Installing greener practices in business, for the most part, takes time. But, if you’re serious about making changes to help the planet, you may want to look at ways to amend your current supply chain. For guidance and advice on where to start and how to begin, the below steps can help.
Green Partnerships
Are the suppliers you use at the moment eco-friendly? If they’re not, to protect the planet, people, and your profit, effect change and choose suppliers who are.
Partnering with and empowering green suppliers, from sourcing reusable wooden pallets for sale, to using transportation businesses that have changed their vehicles to hybrids. Is essential and advantageous for business because it shall help you appeal to an eco-friendly conscious market. It will mean you’re making strides that will enable you to tick off new government regulations. And it also means you have contacts that can help advise you on other greener solutions that could work for your business.
Assess Your Product
Is your product light to transport around? Easy to separate into recyclable components, or biodegradable? If not, the product your company creates is part of the issue and could be causing excessive energy consumption and waste.
Companies can reduce their carbon footprint extensively by adjusting the elements in their products. For instance, Friesland Coberco Dairy Foods changed its recipe and production processes. In turn, they reduced their transportation use annually by 127,000 miles per year.
Review your product, and evaluate whether there are materials you can cut out or change to make it easier to transport and recycle.
Streamline Processes
With advanced technology and multiple ways to create the same product, businesses have an array of eco-friendly manufacturing solutions to reduce pollution, energy use, and waste.
By monitoring the manufacturing process, take notes of the amount of waste accrued. Then think about how the waste can be prevented or even reused, such as using renewable energy sources or reusing heat from the manufacturing process elsewhere in the business. Streamlining operations is essential to ensure all possibilities of creating a sustainable process are applied.
Relocation and Route Planning
The larger the distance between you and your suppliers and customers, the more energy and pollution that’s pumped into the oceans and air to create and distribute the product in locations that are far apart.
When you’re considering greener suppliers, you can also assess what companies are near you that you can use. Alternatively, could you relocate your company closer to your target customers. And reduce the distance your product needs to travel to reduce fuel consumption. A shorter distance between your business and customers means less money spent on transport and delivering products to the store, or customers’ home addresses.
Additionally, assess whether you can redesign transportation routes, to faster and more fuel-efficient ones. For example, UPS used software that enabled the business to use roads without performing left-hand turns. As a result, UPS saved 28.5 million miles that it would usually spend on deliveries. In terms of pollution, UPS prevented 31,000 metric tons of C02 emissions from invading the atmosphere.
Change Packaging
Lighter and less packaging on your business’s products means more space in transportation to ship more goods. Fewer trips transporting goods means less fuel used, which translates to lower transportation costs for your company.
The packaging is often a pain for retailers and customers to dispose of. Plus, according to the Sustainability Management School Switzerland, plastic takes thousands of years to decompose. Less packaging, which is biodegradable, is much more sustainable for your business and the planet.
Start Making Sustainable Changes In Your Supply Chain Today
The above sections detail just some of the ways you can begin to incorporate greener practices into your supply chain. With buyers opting for businesses that operate ethically towards the environment, it’s becoming necessary for companies to move towards more sustainable practices to remain competitive.
Because each business’s supply chain differs, it’s essential to evaluate yours from start to finish and make notes on which areas waste energy and resources the most. Here, you can identify which sections of the process are a priority to fix and make greener, and start brainstorming solutions.
By choosing to become an environmentally friendly company, the earth shall thank you for it, and the public will too.
Being a good human being is good business.
— Paul Hawken, environmentalist, entrepreneur, and writer