Shining a torch on carbon in the supply chain
Our experience of working with companies to help reduce their carbon emissions has shown the majority of an organisation’s footprint is frequently outside its direct control.
There are a number of steps supply chain managers should take to understand and realise the opportunities for emission reduction within your supply chain.
First you must understand your organisation’s own carbon footprint. This will help develop an increasingly accurate understanding of exactly what quantity of raw materials and key commodities your business is consuming. You should identify whether carbon emissions from production, distribution and other aspects of your supply chain are a major factor in your organisation’s overall carbon footprint.
If supply chain carbon emissions looks like a major contributor to the overall footprint, you should provide a breakdown of the carbon impact of a range of resources including energy, waste, transport and the production of raw materials.
Conduct a highlevel assessment of the carbon and resource-intensity of procured materials and services.
Rank these by materiality and overlay them with key areas of spend to identify cost reduction opportunities. Conducting ‘deep dive’ assessments of high-impact items will help you better understand the breakdown of their value chain (to assess opportunity for reduction). You should also engage with selected suppliers and include carbon and resource impacts within procurement criteria and processes.
Taking these steps will not only help your business reduce its carbon emissions, but it will also help develop an accurate understanding of the quantities of raw materials and key commodities that different product/service mixes of your business consume. Since every pound of inflation in your business’ supply chain is a pound less of profit, the best way to outperform your competitors is to uncover where these inflationary risks are highest and start mitigating them now.
Aleyn Smith-Gillespie is a principal at the Carbon Trust Advisory, which is the Carbon Trust’s consultancy service on carbon emission reduction.
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Interesting, but The effect of carbon dioxide on climate and Global Warming as a whole is one of the most discredited pieces of science this century. The only people I come across who believe in it are those whose livelyhoods depend on it or governments who want an excuse to raise taxes. Spend your effort on something that improves your business.
Please may i contact the marketing team to reduce The Carbon Trust’s Carbon footprint with Waterless Environmental and ZERO WASTE TO LANDFILL PRINTING.
Kind Regards
Jim Dunlop
Seacourt Ltd
Pat Saunders, whoever you are – you’re a breath of fresh air. (Fresh, that is – not recycled)
Pat
Energy can neither be created nor destroyed …it can only be changed from one form to another – Einstein – ergo fossil fuels are inert until they are retrieved from the earth’s crust and burnt in our atmosphere and become active as increased GHG gases – FACT
Thanks Josh, thats just the kind of informed scientific comment needed to challenge the climate change skeptics.
That is interesting !
The more transportation in your Supply Chain, the more pollution you are responsible for.
It is tree that the faster transportation, the highest cost will result and highest carbon dioxine emmissions.
Find out the air/cargo transporation versus road/train cost : sometime it’s better to rethink the logisitcs to reduce overall cost (incl. carbon dioxine).