Green strategies can add to the corporate bottom line. It is a perfect “win win situation” by improving the environment and generating profits at the same time by reducing costs and enhancing your brand image. The opportunities are being accelerated as governments around the world create incentives to stimulate green technology advances. In the United States, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 allocated approximately $75 billion toward clean energy initiatives. Local and state governments are starting to create the same incentives on a smaller scale. Companies are scrambling to take advantage of these opportunities through the development of new technologies that will allow businesses to reduce their energy consumption, decrease the costs of fuels, reduce waste and become a more sustainable, carbon-neutral organization.
The possibility of having CO2 emission limits or penalties pushed down to companies is getting closer to reality. The Copenhagen Accord created in December 2009 both acknowledged the problem of climate change and states that “deep cuts in global emissions are required according to science”. Developed countries committed to emissions reduction targets by 2020. Developing countries committed to implementing mitigation actions to slow their growth in emissions. There are still many obstacles to be overcome before specific legislation is implemented, but the commitments could conceivably create a bonanza of opportunity for green technology companies. At the same time it could result in an explicit cost on every corporation’s income statement for CO emissions also known as a “Carbon Tax”.
A particular product’s environmental impact consists of a complex web of manufacturing processes, power consumption, and transportation of components and finished goods. By incorporating carbon reduction into their overall SCM strategy, companies can help reduce their environmental emissions footprint, strengthen their brand image, reduce costs and develop competitive advantages. Therefore, companies are looking for new approaches to managing carbon effectively — from sourcing and production, to distribution and product afterlife.
When assessing your firm’s carbon footprint, you must start from the upstream purchase of production materials to the delivery of the finished product to the customer and the packaging waste that is left. However, the actual transportation of goods most likely creates the highest carbon impact in your supply chain. NNR is now offering a free white paper to get you started on analyzing your organizations logistics emissions. You can obtain a copy of the report here: Managing Logistics Emissions Whitepaper.
0998b3ea-bf96-43ac-a482-fb5fd8efdf0d|0|.0