How can leaders create more sustainable supply chain management frameworks?

As important as creating sustainability goals is knowing the company's economic goals and building, together with the business areas, milestones for each of the maturity phases, thinking about short, medium and long-term strategies for the goals. Many times, the creation of goals is done without the involvement of other key areas, making a structure fragile and not feasible with the reality of organizations. In this case, setting up working groups to create goal planning is a good alternative.

Personally based on experience ,I emphasize holistic stakeholder engagement, encourage circular economy principles, integrating technology for transparency, fostering a culture of continuous learning, and expanding metrics beyond compliance as crucial notes to take. Inclusive stakeholder involvement ensures diverse perspectives, while circular economy principles minimize waste. Technology, such as blockchain, enhances transparency, and continuous learning enables adaptation to emerging trends. I underscore the importance of qualitative indicators and a balanced approach, going beyond numerical targets to measure the holistic impact of a sustainable SCM framework, ensuring resilience in a dynamic global landscape.

Set Clear Sustainability Goals: Define specific, measurable, and time-bound sustainability goals for the supply chain. This could include reducing carbon emissions, minimizing waste, or promoting ethical sourcing. Conduct a Supply Chain Audit: Assess the environmental and social impact of your current supply chain. Identify areas of improvement and understand the environmental footprint of your products or services. Supplier Collaboration: Work closely with suppliers to ensure they adhere to sustainability standards. Encourage transparency and provide support for suppliers to implement sustainable practices. Evaluate and Select Sustainable Suppliers: Consider sustainability criteria when selecting suppliers.

Based on my professional experience, drawing the main lines of sustainability is the greatest challenge for a traditional organization. Regularly, these goals should be determined by HO so as to become an actual requirement or to be translated into the company's OKRs. This perspective taken into an evolved frame , should drastically change and these initiatives and goals should better come from the smart creatives inside each group of POs. Understanding that our greatest mission is make these goals happen, we gotta first understand their impact and the reason for their statement.

Personally, I think procurement leaders can foster more sustainable supply chain management frameworks by prioritizing eco-conscious sourcing practices. This involves selecting suppliers with strong environmental and ethical credentials, implementing transparent communication channels to ensure adherence to sustainability goals, and regularly evaluating suppliers' performance against established green metrics. By integrating sustainability criteria into supplier selection, promoting collaboration for continuous improvement, and staying informed about global standards, procurement leaders play a vital role in shaping a supply chain that is both environmentally responsible and economically sound.

Sustainability performance assessment involves measuring the environmental, social and economic impact of an organization, project or product. There are several methods and indicators to carry out this assessment, such as Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), ESG criteria, carbon footprint, energy consumption or life time of materials. These indicators make it possible to compare performance, define objectives and communicate results. There are also standards and guidelines for planning and implementing a sustainability performance assessment, such as the ISO 14031 standard.

An evaluation process, for the current and future suppliers is also recommended, including: · Financial Stability; the organization assess the health of their suppliers to ensure they are stable and capable of fulfilling their contractual obligation · Compliance and Certifications; The organization reviews the certifications and compliance records of their suppliers. · Quality Management; the organization prioritizes quality management systems to ensure that their suppliers meet the highest standards in product and service delivery. · Ethical Practices; As part of the organization's commitment to ethical business conduct, the organization evaluates suppliers based on their adherence to ethical standards

Adding to this, one ought to incorporate supply chain resilience, collaborative innovation, human-centric sustainability, agile performance metrics, and ongoing education. Drawing from my experience, a resilient supply chain not only mitigates risks but ensures long-term sustainability. Collaborative innovation accelerates the adoption of sustainable solutions, while human-centric sustainability prioritizes the well-being of stakeholders. Agile performance metrics enable real-time adjustments, and continuous education empowers stakeholders to actively contribute to sustainability goals. This approach, based on real-time insights, addresses immediate concerns and future-proofs the SCM against emerging challenges

Man sollte sehr vorsichtig dabei sein die eigene Leistung zu bewerten. Ein Ansatz können die Standard des DNK oder GRI sein. Zusätzlich werden die Ausarbeitungen der CSRD Berichtspflichtigen unternehmen nach ESRS immer konkreter und dienen nach erfolgreicher und sehr komplexer Implementierung im Unternehmen dazu, messbare Grundlagen herzustellen. Eine Zertifizierung mit dem Cradle to Cradle Ansatz oder nach den Standards der Gemeinwohlökonomie Bilanz sind weitere Tools die dabei helfen das Unternehmen ganzheitlich nachhaltig mit Zertifikat aufzustellen.

Embedding sustainability in supply chain management requires a dual approach – fostering a collective mindset shift and providing targeted training courses. By integrating these elements into routine transactions, leaders empower their teams to embrace sustainability as both a movement and a mindset, ensuring a lasting impact on organizational practices.

Develop and implement comprehensive sustainability strategies taking into account the supply chain. This involves collaborating with suppliers, incorporating sustainable procurement practices, optimizing logistics for reduced environmental impact, and promoting circular economy principles. Encourage supplier diversity, prioritize local sourcing, and invest in eco-friendly packaging and transportation methods.

Incentivizing and enabling the supply chain partners for a green transition is important. Measures can include: 1. Transparent vendor evaluation criteria, with a roadmap that shows increasing weightage over time for tangible metrics (share of renewable energy, higher recycled content, benchmark emission per unit of output) 2. Separate category in Supplier Recognition initiatives, include non-financial incentives like invitation to meet senior leadership, etc. 3. Supplier workshops providing a platform to showcase initiatives and solutions

Expertly , I am for emphasizing the integration of cutting-edge technology, such as IoT and AI, to enhance traceability and transparency. Collaborating deeply with suppliers for continuous innovation, engaging employees holistically, and adopting a data-driven approach to decision-making are vital components. Drawing from my own experience, this multifaceted approach not only achieves sustainability goals but also cultivates a resilient supply chain capable of adapting to unforeseen challenges. Crisis preparedness and adaptability become integral, ensuring sustained sustainability efforts and positioning the organization as a forward-thinking leader in the dynamic landscape of supply chain management.

Meiner Meinung nach ist es wichtig zu verstehen, dass es nie 100 % geben wird und das nicht alles auf einmal funktionieren kann. Vor der Umsetzung müssen die Maßnahmen nach Wichtigkeit eingestuft und kommuniziert werden. Zudem ist es essentiell, die Unternehmung nicht durch die Maßnahmen in wirtschaftliche Schieflage zu bringen. Es ist super wichtig nachhaltig zu agieren und wir haben kaum noch Zeit dafür. Aber wenn das Unternehmen insolvent ist, kann es nicht positiv wirken und keine Vorbildrolle mehr einnehmen.

Important that the data is reliable. Future solutions need to integrate blockchain technology with ERP solutions to increase traceability

As with all reports in the corporate context, sustainability metrics should be measured and presented transparently to stakeholders. Due to the fact, that external validation (leading to comparability) of metrics with regard to sustainability is viewed as even more important than others, the emphasis on transparency might even be increased. To approach this sensitive subject an end-to-end procedure might be helpful. Thereby a whole journey from data collection points via data consolidation and processing towards a final presentation should be recognizable.

Integration of technology to track and report the sustainability metrics in place will enhance traceability and transparency (e.g. blockchain). As well, M & E will enable the development of strategies to mitigate the impact of potential disruptions from sustainability related risks that arise from assessments done in the SCM systems in place.

There should also be an effort and investment made into gleaning insights from the end-to-end supply chain through data analytics on the blindspots and weaknesses in the value chain, as well as the largest drivers contributing to the overall sustainability score/index. You may arrive at GHG as your primary driver, with lets say Food waste and Water pollution as the 2nd and 3rd. You now know the priority order in which you can tackle these challenges, and the underlying metrics driving these challenges.

To enhance supply chain sustainability, there are nemourous things that can be done, some of wgich include: integrating sustainability criteria in suppliers selection and contracts (This may be difficult if a company has limited suppliers options, and the suppliers available are not sustainable, but you need to conduct business anyways). Regular sustainability audits, suppliers screening, and transparent reporting. These can create supply chain sustainability improvement and maintain accountability.

Creating sustainable supply chains is basically working on data points and ensuring sustainability in up-steam and down stream across the supply chain. Every company starts somewhere and works on the supply chain ; upstream and downstream. Look at omni crom or apple or Nestle supply chain. They have reached an advanced stage in sustainable supply chain.

Step 1 of creating a Sustainable Supply Chain framework, before even drafting the organizations' own sustainability goals; is to interact with the key supplier partners across the value-chain of products and services sourced by the organisation. It is important to align with them on a shared Scope 1 to Scope 3 impact areas of the supply-chain. The sooner we get a buy-in from our supplier partners to have GHG reduction and product innovation for climate change as key incentive criteria, the more successful our venture into this transformation. Remember, that this would include training, enabling and even co-investing with certain laggard suppliers, to get them on track for the larger sustainability vision.

Un elemento fundamental es la vinculación entre la tecnología, transformación digital y la evolución hacia cadenas de suministro sostenibles. Un ejemplo muy concreto que he analizado es el blockchain, donde al ser éste un sistema que registra cada movimiento de un bien o producto durante un proceso, y que a su vez, permite alimentar al instante a todos los usuarios por sus características colaborativas, permite transformar no solo las cadenas de suministro, sino todo el ecosistema del negocio al tener detalle sobre el origen, intermediarios, especificidades de tratamiento o ubicación de un producto dentro de los diversos recorridos de la cadena hasta que llega al consumidor. Logrando eficiencia de procesos y reducción de riesgos.