SSCM

Question 1

What is sustainability?

Answer 1

to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs (Brundtland, 1987)

Question 2

Why is sustainability important in supply chains?

Answer 2

• Customer demand e.g. transparency, product expectations
• Resource scarcity - will impact product design
• Cost savings e.g. through reduced waste, less pollution
• Reputation
• Long term strategy

Question 3

Why sustainable supply chains make business sense?

Answer 3

• Reputation
• Protecting against climate change
• Exposure
• Resilience
• saving resources
• efficiency and profitability

Question 4

What is sustainable supply chain management?

Answer 4

the strategic, transparent integration and achievement of an organization’s social, environmental and economic goals - Carter and Rogers (2008)

Question 5

What are the pressures for organisations to develop sustainable supply chains?

Answer 5

Institutional pressures:

• Mimetic - copying other competitors
• Normative - training and education
• Stakeholders: shareholders, community groups, NGOs, media, suppliers, customers.

Capability pressures:

• Product innovation
• Strategic direction
• Short-term cost reduction
• COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE Giunipero et al, 2012

Question 6

Why is it important to understand the pressures?

Answer 6

• The nature of pressures will influence the nature of practices adopted e.g. regulation might mean organisations are more reactive.
• The reasons why organisations choose to do sustainability will affect the extent, the level of investment, the resources allocated etc.

Question 7

What are the barriers for organisations to develop sustainable supply chains?

Answer 7

• Lack of understanding of the rewards/ cost savings
• Cost of making changes (Grimm et al, 2014)
• Lack of consensus at board level
• Misalignment of short and long-term goals (Giunipero et al, 2012)
• External economic conditions
• Lack of appropriate regulations and standards (Walker and Jones, 2012)
• Poor supplier commitment
• Industry specific barriers e.g. switching of suppliers (Rossi et al., 2013)
• Organisational culture
• Lack of legitimacy
• Lack of customer demand

Question 8

Considerations for sustainable supply chain strategy?

Answer 8

• Short term vs. long term
• Operational vs. strategic
• Understanding impacts-assessment
• Prioritisation of initiatives
• Pressures for sustainability
• Changing the supply chain
• Changing the product

Question 9

SSCM assessment ways

Answer 9

• Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)
  e. g. study of the inflows and outflows of materials within the product’s bill of materials, the by-products from the processes used to produce them, and the potential for recycling or re-using.
• Carbon Footprinting
• Environmental Management System (EMS)

Question 10

What is DfE?

Answer 10

Design for Environment is the integration of traditional design goals (cost, quality, performance etc) with environmental considerations
e.g Toyota Prius

Question 11

Benefits of DfE?

Answer 11

• Increased innovation
• Greater ability to compete, add value
• Become more cost-effective
• Reduce environmental impacts and liability

Question 12

What is sustainable purchasing? (green purchasing, environmental purchasing, ethical purchasing, responsible purchasing)

Answer 12

• May relate to the type of product purchased (i.e. Is it fair-trade, organic, conventional etc?)
• May relate to the supplier selection process (i.e. Are sustainability criteria included?)
• Ethical behaviour

Question 13

Production SSCM strategies

Answer 13

• Reuse and reduce waste/water
• Cutting certain ways to reduce waste e.g. Zara do this
• Ensuring workers’ rights
• Avoid child labour
• Pollution prevention

Question 14

Use SSCM strategies

Answer 14

• Washing at 30 degrees
• Longevity
• Biggest environmental waste during the supply chain is us due to us washing garments repeatedly

Question 15

Manufacturing: what is pollution prevention vs control?

Answer 15

Pollution control = capture and treatment of pollutants at various stages along the supply chain

Pollution prevention = fundamental changes to product or process to reduce or eliminate pollutants, lower ‘total costs’ for prevention
e.g. 3M ‘Pollution Prevention Pays’ reported $1.2 billion savings 1975-2005

Question 16

Ethical issues in manufacturing?

Answer 16

• Much harder to pin down; different countries have different regulations and expectations.
• Fashion industry guilty of moving from country to country to get cheapest suppliers and therefore weren’t developing their supplier relationships.
• Many issues around compliance through use of words e.g. we will try not to, not we don’t do use sweatshops,
• Problems with audits, have books they show auditor and books that are true showing hours and pay and then they know when they will turn up at factory and so can hide things they don’t want auditor to see.

Question 17

Reason for ethical issues?

Answer 17

Reasons for ethical concerns:
"	Global outsourcing
o	Different regulations
o	Different expectations
o	Low cost
"	Lack of transparency
"	Use of subcontractors

Question 18

Strategies to improve ethics?

Answer 18

• Communication (reporting, labelling)
• Compliance (codes of conduct/ standards, monitoring, audits to manage supplier relationships)
• Supplier development (direct/ indirect, trust, collaboration) e.g. Collaboration can give a cooperative advantage (Strand, 2009), Positive buyer-supplier relations can improve sustainability performance (Pagell et al, 2007)

Question 19

What is product stewardship?

Answer 19

• Considers the entire product life cycle in order to reduce impacts
• Extends beyond the boundary of the organisation
• Involves integrating the voice of the stakeholder into business processes through extensive interaction with external parties

+May enhance reputation and legitimacy or reduce risk- if something goes wrong they’ve built up a relationship already.

Question 20

What is a closed loop supply chain?

Answer 20

Firm controls forward and reverse processes.

• reuse old product into something of equal value to what it started as.
• original manufacturer
• product use and end of life
• collection of product
• Dell are doing a lot with closed-loop supply chains and H&M

Question 21

Green toys example

Answer 21

• Locally produced in US means control over suppliers as they are close to them to monitor, logistics don’t harm environment with same country distribution, packaging all use of cardboard that can be recycled, procurement use of 100% recycled plastic.
• High safety standards
• Considered product design (no glue, metal, screws or paint)
• Use of recycled materials - mainly plastic milk bottles
• Packaging is 100% recyclable cardboard and printed with soy inks

Question 22

What is the triple bottom line?

Answer 22

1. environmental
2. ethical
3. economic

e. g. DHL now use couriers on bicycles in many European countries, including Germany and the Netherlands. DHL estimates that this change alone will reduce their carbon dioxide emissions by 152 metric tons per year.
e. g. Patagonia does not use any chemicals in their production processes and often use recycled, organic, or environmentally sound materials. They are proving that outdoor equipment and clothing can be made for all types of environment without causing any harm to the environment.