94% of Supply Chain Professionals Rate Green Issues As Business Priority (20-Aug-07)
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Full article: 94% of Supply Chain Professionals Rate Green Issues As Business Priority (20-Aug-07)
With up to 75% of a company’s carbon footprint coming from transportation and logistics, the focus of supply chain greening is beginning to shift towards this area.
A recent survey revealed that 69% of respondents believe that green issues will become more important to their transport and logistic processes over the next three years, and a further 9% identified green issues as their number one priority over this period.
Environmental initiatives are often thought to be detrimental to supply chain efficiency. However the survey response has challenged this with 66% or respondents stating that their green transport and logistics are not affecting efficiency. Furthermore, 27% reported that green initiatives actually make their supply chain more efficient.
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With up to 75 percent of a company’s carbon footprint coming from transportation and logistics, the focus of supply chain greening is beginning to shift towards this area, where the opportunity to make the biggest difference exists, according to Green Transportation & Logistics, a new report from eyefortransport.
Eyefortransport asked 250 North American supply chain executives to pinpoint what they were doing to green their transportation and logistics, and what effects these initiatives have had.
Only six percent of respondents designate green issues as unimportant. The vast majority of respondents, 69 percent, divulged that over the next three years green issues will become more important to their transport and logistics processes. Nine percent identified green issues as their No.1 priority over the next three years, while only one percent expects a lessening of importance.
“Greening is fundamentally a co-operative process, with majority of successful green initiatives being based on changing relationships with suppliers, partners and logistics providers,” says Eyefortransport’s Katharine O’Reilly. Indeed, 28 percent of respondents reported that they have or plan to partner with a logistics providers to help them green their processes. This push towards green is reported to be driven by a number of factors, including financial ROI (38 percent), public relations payback (36 percent), and improved supply chain efficiency (22 percent).
In order to survey the current landscape, respondents were asked what actual green initiatives have been implemented or planned in their companies. The results revealed that 59 percent are or are planning to improve energy efficiency, 42 percent are redesigning warehousing and distribution center networks, and 39 percent are measuring and/or reducing emissions.
Furthermore, though environmental initiatives are widely thought of as detrimental to supply chain efficiency, in fact 66 percent of respondents report that their current green transport and logistics initiatives are not affecting their efficiency, while a further 27 percent report that green initiatives are actually making their supply chains more efficient. Only eight percent of respondents reported a decrease in supply chain efficiency due to green initiatives.
- Source: Environmental Leader
