Supply Chain Sustainability Consulting

Commercial success with social value.

A rising number of conscious consumers want to spend their money with companies doing good for people and planet.

Governments are setting key dates and rolling out business sustainability standards. Meanwhile, investors are looking for businesses to be hitting certain ESG credentials. It’s now more important than ever to look at ways to improve the sustainability of your business.

For product-led business, your supply chain is key to achieving a sustainable offering, with opportunities at every step. This includes your internal operations and logistics, but can also include activities outside of your business that contribute to the overall carbon footprint.

Ask yourself/your organisation:

• Are the raw materials used in your products conscious to the limited resource on earth?
• Could your production processes be more environmentally friendly?
• How energy efficient is your company’s storage/warehouse?
• Are your packaging materials recyclable?
• How efficient is the transportation within your network (between suppliers, warehouses, and stores)?
• Do you have an electric fleet?
• Could you offer less carbon intensive delivery options to customers?
• Could you reduce the volume of customer returns?
• Could you improve the circularity of your product / business model? (What of old products could be cannibalised to make new ones.)

Not just a tick box exercise.

Truly sustainable business (and by extension supply chains) will balance opportunities and risks across social, environmental and economic factors for long-term success.

One of the UK Government’s sustainable initiatives – the Streamlined Energy and Carbon Report (SECR) – requires companies which have either 250 employees or more, a turnover of £36 million or more, or assets of £18 million or more to report their annual energy usage including gas, electricity, and transport fuel, along with their reduction plans for the future.

It is also becoming increasingly common for companies to volunteer additional sustainability data purporting to their business, in order to ensure customers that they are making positive change.

Enforcing sustainability requirements on large companies has the domino effect of passing on these objectives to their entire supply chain. It drives large companies to be conscious about where they procure components from, making it important to collaborate on sustainability to secure future contracts. These changes won’t just have impacts on your business, but also your suppliers and B2B customers.

Working across strategy, materials, design, logistics and operations, we help you take a holistic approach to the sustainability of your supply chain, ensuring that all parts of your business are moving towards the same goal. Far from a tick box exercise, navigating your sustainability strategy over the next 10, 20 or 30 years could be one of the most important challenges your organisation faces.

How you deal with this challenge will shape the future of your business, services and products.