Supply Chain

How Sustainable Is Your Supply Chain?

Beginning this month, Sustainable Brands will launch a new Issues in Focus editorial channel examining sustainable supply chain management.The SB editorial team — with the help of guest editors Dave Meyer of EORM, Tara Norton of BSR and Sam Hummel of the Sustainable Purchasing Leadership Council — are seeking articles, interviews and case studies for publication throughout the year.

By Jennifer Elks | Published 11 years ago | About a 4 minute read

Beginning this month, Sustainable Brands will launch a new Issues in Focus editorial channel examining sustainable supply chain management.

The SB editorial team — with the help of guest editors Dave Meyer of EORM, Tara Norton of BSR and Sam Hummel of the Sustainable Purchasing Leadership Council — are seeking articles, interviews and case studies for publication throughout the year.

The Issue in Focus

In today’s economy, there is increasing emphasis on supply chain management as being vital to a long-term, successful business strategy. Over the past decade, sustainable sourcing and procurement, environmentally responsible logistics, and ‘Green’ Supply Chain Management (GSCM) have increasingly gained traction as essential business management tools, directly linked to business value. We are seeing major shifts in business thinking to account for the environment, to create positive social impact and to drive innovation – from material sourcing through product design, manufacturing, distribution, delivery and end-of-life management.

Is your company part of this sweeping change? Sustainable Brands wants to hear your story! Please send content ideas to the email addresses below.

Content Guidelines

Our readers are business leaders and strategists seeking information about how others are innovating and improving business practices through embedding resilience and sustainability into business strategy and operational practices. Sustainable Brands is seeking contributors that can offer insights and ideas that might be applied across market sectors. Contributions should offer best practices, innovative approaches, case studies, tools and/or resources that offer our readers strategic and “boots on the ground” value.

We evaluate submissions based on currency and relevance of the examples or ideas presented, balance of perspective, strength and clarity of content and delivered principles. See our Writers’ Handbook for further guidelines.

What

Written, audio or video perspectives on management concepts and actions across any aspect of your supply chain. Certainly descriptions of measurable improvements are desired but equally important is the struggle with supply chains — planning, values, metrics, collaboration, progress and failures. At the heart of all work in our supply chains is our shared effort to manage what we don’t own and don’t fully control.

If written, please edit to 600 to 1000 words. Shorter submissions will also be considered.

Who

Supply chain managers, directors and VPs, CFOs, COOs and sustainability professionals at all levels in companies, governments, academic institutions and NGOs. Suppliers to western brands are especially encouraged to submit their experience and efforts in supply chain leadership.

How

Share a one-paragraph to one-page overview describing your insights, initiatives, case studies, etc.

When

Article ideas and submissions will be accepted on an ongoing basis throughout the year; email our editors at the addresses below.

Topics to Explore

All examples of supply chain management are welcome. The vast majority of these efforts contain an element of sustainability, so it is critical that it be highlighted in the submittal:

Bettering People’s Lives: Efforts to improve the lives of people in the supply chain through more secure employment, better labor conditions or community actions
Energy and Carbon Management: Programs and efforts to measure and reduce energy use and greenhouse gas emissions across, or in parts of, the supply chain
Alignment with Sustainable Services, Raw Materials or Products: Supply chains supporting the creation of more sustainable products or services
Supplier Collaboration and Scorecards: Efforts to align data and communication flows to support values or specific metrics in a supply chain
Sourcing: Using sustainability to drive supply chain design and construction or highly innovative procurement programs
Standards, Ecolabels, Certifications and Ratings: The benefits and challenges that come with using these to manage supply chain impacts and risks
Holistic Sustainability: Examples of organizations integrating their environmental, supplier diversity, small-medium enterprise, and labor and human rights into their supply chain efforts
Toxics, Water, Wastewater and Waste: Plans and efforts to reduce the environmental impacts of supply chains — including Lean Enterprise Systems in manufacturing and non-manufacturing sectors
Raw Material Traceability and Impacts: Efforts to define where raw materials, components and products originate
Packaging: Successful implementation of efforts to reduce the life-cycle impacts of packaging
Transportation and Logistics: Programs and experiments to increase effectiveness and also measurably reduce impact — such as cross-docking and shortened distribution legs
Data Management: Successful data collection and its transformation into usable knowledge is at the heart of most successful supply chain and sustainability programs