The supply chain is the core and also the biggest operation for any organization. Without a proper supply chain, it is not possible for a company to deliver better business to consumers. If you don’t worry about your supply chain, then you are in danger because it might affect your whole business.
The most unexplored area of business is the supply chain process because it is not a single or simple area to cover, and auditors need to go through the whole supply and demand process to understand the current conditions of their supply chain process.
Whether unexplored, the environmental impact through the supply chain is huge, and that can also be considered the most vulnerable section of any business for carbon emission. The supply chain of plastic and chemical companies is causing 80% of overall carbon emissions by the companies.
This article will focus on the supply chain process in particular to understand its impact on the environment and to understand the mitigation ways as well.
Supply Chain And Its Environmental Impact
Before we understand the environmental impacts of the supply chain, we need to understand how a supply chain contributes to its business process.
The business process is nothing without a supply chain because it is the network involving people, activities, information, and resources to ensure that a product is reaching the consumer.
The impact supply chain?
It is huge. Greenhouse gas emission is the main reason behind our global warming, and the contribution of the supply chain is head-breaking. Carbon emission is a huge concern for many companies, and thus we need to focus on the supply chain in particular.
It is very crucial to know how to calculate carbon emissions! As it will help us to be advanced in managing carbon emissions while performing our company operations, including supply chain.
The other environmental impact due to the supply chain can include-
- Deforestation
- loss of biodiversity
- toxic waste
- long-term damage to ecosystems
- water pollution
- hazardous air emissions, et cetera.
How Do We Reduce Carbon Emissions In The Supply Chain?
After we understand how dangerous the supply chain is becoming for our environment, how can we not do anything! There is a solution to every problem, and there is a mitigation process to global warming.
In various ways, you can reduce carbon emissions in your company’s supply chain process. Here we will discuss a few effective ways to help you contribute to an environmentally friendly approach.
1. Three Pillars Of Sustainability
The three pillars of sustainability consider people, planet, and profit, which simultaneously determine social, environmental, and economic factors. Looking at the social and environmental factors can help you to break the boundaries of profit while doing business.
You can adopt green engineering and ecosystem services to satisfy the environmental factors. On the other hand, if you contribute to social issues, you can adjust, understand and adjust the social conflicts.
Moreover, a green economy is very crucial for your supply chain, and you can follow through with natural accounting and resources.
2. Space Utilization
You might think that space utilization is not a necessary process. But do you know that each year shipping containers go to various places with 24% empty space!
How is it relevant?
This is relevant because it causes 61 million TEUs of containers every year to ship unnecessarily. With that, the cost also increases to tens of billions of dollars, and the carbon dioxide emission increases by approximately 122 million tons per year.
Can you imagine the unnecessary waste and expenses we are continuing to affect our society and economy? Try to figure out which products are particular for which packaging process, and that will help you to reduce this kind of damage.
3. Material Management
We all know that corrugated packaging is more sustainable than plastic packaging. But do we know the quality of every corrugated packaging?
It seems that if we use corrugated packaging for all the shipments, the damage will be huge. Corrugated packaging cannot sustain all-weather, and damaged packaging needs repairing; thus, new packages and, thus, again, carbon footprint.
So what would we do?
We might hire material experts to understand the whole process of packaging and shipping. They might help us with better sustainability and better materials to sustain your packages as well.
4. Strategic Analysis
If you want to reduce the carbon footprint of your company effectively, then you have to be serious about the strategies that you can take currently to be successful in the future. Strategy comes with planning, and planning comes with analysis.
Only 25% of the companies are allowing their suppliers to make an effort to reduce carbon emissions. This statistic is not very satisfying, and thus we need to take immediate action.
If you do not measure the whole process of the supply chain step by step, how will you be able to understand the glitches? This is why you are required to manage your supply chain by engaging your suppliers appropriately.
To Conclude
The environmental impacts due to our current supply chain practices and the unnecessary waste through packaging have been acknowledged so far.
Now is the time to act!
No matter how successful you are in your business, this is not a proper business method unless you are responsible enough for your supply chain process. You can write to us back if you have more ideas regarding sustainable supply chain management.
