Supply Chain

2degrees Releases Sustainable Manufacturing Platform to Help Brands Engage Suppliers at Scale

Supply chains are where 80 percent or more of a company’s costs and risks lie and where most interventions geared towards helping companies stay competitive are focused. Squeezing supply chains alone, however, is no longer an effective measure to keep ahead of the curve — moving forward, brands will need to find new ways to collaborate with suppliers to achieve further savings and reduce risk and impacts. A new online platform created by 2degrees seeks to make this possible, for the first time, at scale.

By Libby MacCarthy | Published 7 years ago | About a 3 minute read

Supply chains are where 80 percent or more of a company’s costs and risks lie and where most interventions geared towards helping companies stay competitive are focused. Squeezing supply chains alone, however, is no longer an effective measure to keep ahead of the curve — moving forward, brands will need to find new ways to collaborate with suppliers to achieve further savings and reduce risk and impacts. A new online platform created by 2degrees seeks to make this possible, for the first time, at scale.

Manufacture 2030 is a global platform designed to help companies cut costs, reduce risk and minimize environmental impact through better supply chain and cross-industry collaboration. It is accessible to businesses of all sizes, corporates and SMEs to collaborate and drive improvement via wastewater, energy and cost reduction. It builds upon 2degrees’ existing collaboration solutions that have helped remove over $40 million of operational costs from just one food and drink supply chain.

“Most retailers and large companies now recognize there is a significant opportunity to reduce cost and risk and drive growth by being more sustainable. In fact, the Business and Sustainable Development Commission have put a global figure on it; US$12 trillion and 380 million jobs by 2030,” said Martin Chilcott, founder and CEO of 2degrees.

“The challenge for businesses is that most of that opportunity sits in sprawling supply chains and until Manufacture 2030, there has been no cost-effective way to unlock it. The case for sustainable business has never been stronger. And now with Manufacture 2030, it just got a lot easier.”

The platform seeks to enable retailers and brands to cost-effectively engage their suppliers in large numbers; helping suppliers and operational managers to improve the performance of their individual factories using collaborative tools. It consists of three offerings:

Supplier Engagement Channels: Private spaces on the platform for supply chain owners to work with their suppliers to motivate them to go beyond compliance and achieve lower costs, reduced risk and become more sustainable.
Energy, Waste & Water Hubs: Open spaces focused on energy, waste and water, where operational managers from all companies, supply chains and select 3rd party experts can share best practice and experience.
Tools: A peer-enhanced site-specific collaboration tool with resources to help managers cut costs, risks and impacts. Additionally, a second tool with benchmarking and reporting capabilities is available.

“Over the next few years, Co-Op have ambitious plans to reduce the environmental impact of our products and actively support our suppliers to make sure our supply base is resilient to a changing climate. We are excited to be the founding retail partner of Manufacture 2030, which will enable our suppliers to share best practice and limit the time spent on reporting with the ultimate aim of reducing environmental impact. We firmly believe that working together with other major businesses and building trust among our suppliers are key in achieving our goals,” said Sarah Wakefield, food sustainability manager for Co-Op.