Green Supply Chain

Green Supply Chain Management aims to integrate environmental thinking into supply chain
management. This includes product design, material sourcing and selection, the manufacturing process,
delivery of the final product to consumers, and end-of-life product management.
Toyota has been one of the forerunners in the field of green supply chain management. Toyota Earth
charter is shared among Toyota affiliates subject to the Consolidated Environmental Management System
(consolidated EMS) around the world.

Green supply chain is much aligned to lean supply chain too, as both focus on reducing waste at every
stage of supply chain. With the advent of Internet of things, it has been possible to implement sustainable
processes through optimisation of resources, including energy consumption. Further the digitisation of
supply chain has reduced time as well as paper trails that used to be followed earlier. The logistics
department, both inbound and outbound sides have seen a major shift to cater to green supply chain
principles. For example, FedEx has put forward many initiatives to reduce its environmental footprint.
Company has futuristic plans of converting forest waste into biofuel. Fed Ex possesses few hybrid
deliveries trucks in its fleet. It uses around 70 per cent of the recycled fibres for packaging materials. Latest
trucks have a push-up axle, which is used when the load is high, and it’s not used when load is less, to save
fuel that may be spent due to friction of those wheels on road. Apart from this, companies are trying
options like using biodiesel as fuel, or using electric trucks. McDonald’s is recycling used cooking oil to
generate biodiesel to power its supply delivery trucks. Government initiatives in India include
announcement of BS VI norms and at the same time promoting Electric Vehicles. Abolishing plastic usage
in Maharashtra, did affect the logistics sector as they must now find better packaging methods.

Ford’s connection with its value chain has increased the use of recovered materials in vehicle production.
As per the statistics four billion pounds of recycled materials are incorporated into vehicle
design. A circular economy is an economic system aimed at minimising waste and making the most of
resources. In a circular system resource input and waste, emission, and energy leakage are minimized by
slowing, closing, and narrowing energy and material loops. For example, Unilever’s program “Zero-Non-
Hazardous-Waste-to-Landfill” saves over 140,000 tonnes of waste going to landfill. Unilever purchases
over 2 million tonnes of waste packaging every year and recycles the same for fresh packaging. HP
recovers plastic from used ink cartridges and toners via the Planet Partners program and recycles it to
produce new ink cartridges.

On the manufacturing front for example in apparel industry, many brands are using sustainable cotton
initiatives to reduce water, energy and chemical use, new dyeing technology to reduce water consumption
by up to 50 percent, as well as numerous energy and chemical saving schemes throughout the supply
chain.