Analyst Insight: SCM World's 2014 CSCO Study shows health and safety is the number one sustainability issue for the fourth straight year. With ethical issues and product integrity coming in a close second and third, it is clear that disconnected sustainability efforts have truly evolved into integrated social and environmental responsibility (SER) initiatives. – Matt Davis, SVP Research at SCM World
President Barack Obama's administration will spend 2015 taking on energy controversies from fracking to smog, from interstate air pollution to coal-burning power plants - and in December, his negotiators will head to Paris to try to reach a global agreement on climate change. In between all that, he just might make a decision on the Keystone XL pipeline.
China's air and water pollution is more visible than its soil pollution and more often makes headlines. But recent government studies underscore the worrying extent of heavy-metal pollution tainting China's agricultural lands - and its food supply.
Nik Delmeire, the newly appointed secretary general of the European Shippers' Council (ESC), has said it is time for businesses to measure, monitor and reduce emissions by freight transport. At the same time, the new European Commission should reduce existing trade barriers in the European Union. "Together these innovations can spur economic growth and create jobs," says Delmeire.
A wet suit for surfers, made not from conventional, petroleum-based neoprene but from a natural rubber derived from a desert shrub, is one way Patagonia is trying to nudge along a sport that has not always been environmentally conscious despite its roots in the natural world.
Sustainability has for many years been growing in importance, but until recently was largely seen as a sideshow meant to burnish the image of a company and its brands. Early efforts by supply chain leaders to integrate concepts of sustainability into their operations were often meant to test notions of cost savings that align naturally with reduced environmental impacts. The results are beginning to show. - Kevin O'Marah, Chief Content Officer and Head of Research, SCM World
More predictions for the future of supply-chain management, courtesy of a panel of industry insiders at the fifth annual seer-fest sponsored by the San Francisco Roundtable of the Council of Supply-Chain Management Professionals:
Companies are increasingly connecting the dots between risk management and sustainability by making sustainability issues more prominent on corporate agendas, says a study by Ernst & Young LLP and GreenBiz. Driven by trends such as extreme weather events and risks to natural resources, among other factors, the shift is evidenced by the increasing involvement in sustainability-related issues of shareholders and the C-suite. At the same time, the study finds, companies are not adequately aligning risk response to the scale of sustainability challenges.