Sustainable Supply Chain
Extend Beyond Factory Walls
Sustainability is no longer bound by your factory walls. In the Reduce-Reuse-Recycle model endorsed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, source reduction by far has the largest impact because its effects are amplified as they cascade through each stage of the hierarchy. Reducing excess inventory eliminates the need to build the product in the first place. This not only cuts the footprint of direct operations activities, but all those upstream from the factory (production of raw materials and packaging) and several downstream (distribution and disposal). For food products, this reaches all the way back to the farm, to the animals, their feed and the fertilizer to grow the feed. As a result, lightening your inventory footprint has a multiplying effect on carbon and water use savings (“lifecycle multiplier”) across the product lifecycle.
The actual multiplier varies by company and business line, but the resultant lifecycle savings are many times those of direct operations. One of the top five global consumer goods companies recently published the lifecycle analysis for their global business, including direct operations as well as upstream and downstream contributions. The upstream lifecycle multiplier impact for both carbon emissions and water use is 12X that of direct operations.
