Sustainability is taking a hit as companies worldwide prioritize efforts to trim costs and deal with supply chain uncertainties. Your purchasing department may be able to help.
Victoria Kickham started her career as a newspaper reporter in the Boston area before moving into B2B journalism. She has covered manufacturing, distribution and supply chain issues for a variety of publications in the industrial and electronics sectors, and now writes about everything from forklift batteries to omnichannel business trends for DC Velocity.
Inflation continues to take a toll on the economy, and one of the newest victims in the corporate world is the sustainability movement.
Companies are making slower progress toward their environmental goals as they prioritize cost-cutting strategies and take steps to deal with supply chain disruptions, according to a study from procurement software firm Ivalua. The company surveyed 850 procurement leaders across Europe and in the U.S. earlier this fall and found that most—64%—blame inflation and higher costs for hampering their efforts to improve the sustainability of their supply chains. The news comes despite an increasing focus on corporate environmental impact and risk management practices—measures that fall under the “environmental, social, and governance” or “ESG” umbrella.
Among the findings, the researchers reported that:
**bullet** More than half of organizations (57%) said they have been working with cheaper, rather than greener, suppliers due to rising costs.
**bullet** Many said they have responded to high inflation by increasing their focus on cost-cutting (50%) and operational efficiency (40%).
**bullet** And a majority said that in the past 12 months they have been disrupted by the rising cost of energy and fuel (86%) and raw materials (84%).
These factors are putting companies at risk of missing those ESG goals we hear so much about these days—things like stated “net-zero targets” and emissions reduction strategies. They also make companies more vulnerable to “greenwashing”—a practice of misleading or misrepresenting your organization’s environmental sustainability efforts—and can put them behind the curve in meeting regulatory requirements, according to the survey. It’s a tough position to be in, especially for larger companies that have made big commitments to their “green” goals.
The issue is also contributing to a growing feeling of frustration in supply chain circles. The survey found that almost half (49%) of procurement leaders said their organization has been ill-equipped to deal with and react to uncertainty, for example, and more than two-thirds said they want more responsibility to help manage that uncertainty—but just 37% said they feel sufficiently empowered by their organization to do so.
The study argues that corporate leadership should take notice, because the purchasing department may be the key to solving many of these problems. Armed with technology tools that can improve visibility across their supply chains, procurement professionals can identify opportunities to work with suppliers on cost-saving measures while also preserving sustainability and risk mitigation efforts, according to the report. Those measures could include giving suppliers more flexibility in meeting selection requirements, as well as making early payments or bulk purchasing to curb the effects of inflation—all of which can foster stronger relationships so that the parties can collaborate on ways to meet other business objectives.
Other industry experts agree that sourcing and procurement will have a large role to play in this area, especially the sustainability piece. Earlier this year, I spoke with Karl Manrodt and Joe Tillman, who dug into ESG as part of their research for the annualDC Measures report, published this past spring by the Warehousing Education and Research Council (WERC). Manrodt is a professor of logistics and director of the Master of Logistics and Supply Chain Management online program at Georgia College & State University, and Tillman is founder of TSquared Logistics, an industry research, education, and training business. Both agree that most companies are in the early stages of their ESG journey, but they said sourcing will be on the front lines of meeting any goals and requirements that may be put in place—primarily because many sourcing departments already have sustainability elements baked into their processes.
The need to cut costs and mitigate risk isn’t going away anytime soon. Neither is sustainability. Finding a way to balance it all may be the biggest challenge ahead.
Raise your hand if you think you’re a pretty good driver. Now put your hand back down, because we’re about to introduce you to someone who has set the bar much higher than you can ever dream of reaching.
Meet Greg Swift, a longtime driver for Schneider National Inc. who has driven 5 million miles without a preventable accident. The Green Bay, Wisconsin-based carrier boasts a notable safety record: More than 6,500 of its drivers have traveled at least 1 million safe driving miles with the company. Swift, however, stands out from that crowd, joining only two other drivers in Schneider’s nearly 90-year history in reaching the 5 million-mile mark.
Swift’s achievement was recognized with a parade, a “Sound the Horn” celebration—a long-standing tradition of sounding a truck horn inside the headquarters building to celebrate achievements—and a $10,000 bonus.
And if you’re wondering how long it takes to motor 5 million miles, that’s the equivalent of driving to the moon and back 10 times. Swift began that odyssey 33 years ago when he started his career with Schneider after leaving his teaching job. He now runs a dedicated route for Schneider customer Georgia-Pacific.
In his time as a driver, Swift has witnessed the evolution of trucking technology from paper maps to advanced GPS and collision-mitigation systems, but his advice to new drivers is simple and technology-free: Plan ahead and manage your time efficiently.
Look around any distribution center and you’ll see dozens of devices powered by batteries. They range from large-scale cells in electric forklifts, to mid-size units in autonomous mobile robots (AMRs), to slim, palm-size batteries in barcode scanners and smartphones. Despite the ubiquity of these applications, there is more work to be done. That’s why a battery-industry group has launched an initiative it hopes will encourage the next generation of engineers to continue developing smaller, safer, more powerful industrial batteries.
The effort is funded by donations from BCI member companies, including the lead donors Entek and Daramic, as well as gifts from more than a dozen other companies, including such distribution center stalwarts as Crown Battery, East Penn, and EnerSys.
Logistics service providers looking to cut emissions from their transportation operations have largely focused on the switch from internal combustion engines to battery electric vehicles (BEVs). But some proponents say that hydrogen fuel cells are a better way to generate the electricity required to reach that goal. A new demonstration project now underway is designed to prove their point.
The FCEV began real-world testing on routes in the San Francisco Bay Area in August. Over the next few months, the truck will head down to the Los Angeles area before making its way to northern California and then to western Canada.
Those tests follow similar demos in Australia as well as a July trial of Hyzon’s Class 8 FCEV tractor-trailer with some of its North American fleet customers, which include waste haulers. According to Hyzon, those tests showed that hydrogen fuel-cell technology is a viable replacement for heavy-duty diesel engines and can overcome some of the inherent challenges associated with other zero-emission technologies, such as fluctuations in operating temperatures, payload limitations, and short ranges (the company says its hydrogen fuel cells provide the refuse-collection trucks with reliable power for up to 125 miles).
Global supply chains have long had to weather disruptions triggered by sudden spikes in demand. Holiday gift shopping, big price discounts, and stocking up before major storms are just a few reasons for jumps in consumption. Now there’s another variable to consider: Taylor Swift.
Devoted fans of the pop megastar often wear outfits reflecting Swift’s own costumes or references to her songs when they attend concerts. Her influence is so notable that, according to London-based Dalston Mill Fabrics, the singer’s lyrics appear to drive spikes in demand for certain styles and fabrics.
Songs on Swift’s most recent album, The Tortured Poets Department, mention several types of clothing and have boosted fans’ interest in similar items. For instance, as any Swiftie knows, miniskirts have always been a signature piece in Taylor’s wardrobe. But this summer, they jumped in importance thanks to a reference in her song “imgonnagetyouback,” which begins with the words “Lilac short skirt, the one that fits me like skin.” The singer wore a lilac skirt in a video for the song, increasing the hype. Since the video was released, worldwide internet searches for “lilac skirt” have skyrocketed by 992%, reaching a peak in July, Dalston Mill said, citing data from Google Trends. The fabric purveyor reports similar search trends for black dresses, lace tops, and dresses with buttons, all of which are mentioned on the album.
“The recent release of The Tortured Poets Department has solidified Taylor Swift’s reputation as a fashion icon,” a Dalston Mill spokesperson said in a release. “These search spikes also demonstrate Taylor Swift’s position as a global trendsetter. Her influence is indisputable, and it will be great to see Swifties debuting some of these outfit trends at the upcoming Eras Tour shows.”
Which prompts a burning question for supply chain professionals: Should demand planners in the apparel industry consider Taylor Swift albums as leading indicators in their forecasts?
The announcement from the electric vehicle (EV) charging company contained a really big number: 1 million. That’s the number of places in North America and Europe where drivers can go to charge up their cars, according to ChargePoint, a California company that provides a list of those charging stations on its smartphone app. And it’s important because the lack of a robust charging network has been one of the main obstacles to the mass transition from fossil fuel to battery power.
But the number also made me wonder, How does that stack up against the number of service stations where drivers can pump gas or diesel? And since charging an electric car takes longer than filling a tank, does the EV industry need more plugs than pumps anyway?
The rough answers to those questions were easy to find—the American Petroleum Institute says there are more than 145,000 traditional fueling stations across the U.S., and Statista puts the number in Europe at around 135,719—but those numbers only raised more questions for me. For example, each filling station typically has between four and eight pumps, so shouldn’t we multiply the number of stations by the number of hoses at each one? As it turns out, ChargePoint’s number is the total amount of ports—or plugs—not the number of locations. So I was trying to compare apples to oranges.
Don’t get me wrong—providing drivers with a list of a million charging stations is an awesome achievement—but the number also demonstrates the difficulty of comparing electric and fossil fuel infrastructures.
Here’s an example: We recently learned about a $3 billion EV battery factory being planned as a joint venture by the automotive giants Cummins, Daimler, and Paccar. Intended to ensure a U.S.-based supply of commercial and industrial batteries, the plant will be a 21-gigawatt hour (GWh) factory. I’m not an engineer, just a humble reporter, so that number meant precisely nothing to me. And when I tried to figure out how that would stack up by more conventional measures of production capacity, I ran up against the vagaries of “green math.”
First, a little background: In transportation terms, gigawatts are like horsepower—a measure of maximum potential output—and so, gigawatt hours are like horsepower multiplied by endurance. But of course, no one drives their car at top horsepower all the time—they’d quickly collect a stack of speeding tickets at the very least. Maybe that’s why legacy automotive plants don’t measure their vehicles’ output in “horsepower hours.”
Further complicating matters, an EV battery is like an internal combustion engine (ICE) and its fuel tank, all wrapped up in one box. Describing the “power” of that box with a single number requires that drivers think about energy in a new way. Here’s the best I could do: That new battery factory would be able to offer a single charge-up to about 48,000 electric Freightliner eCascadia trucks. But that math only works in the absurd scenario where those truckers somehow all come in for a charge on the same day and claim the plant’s entire annual battery output.
It was a similar story when I started looking into the driving ranges of EVs versus their gas-powered counterparts. That seems like a simple concept, but I stumbled over that one too when I learned that my friend’s Ford F-150 Lightning electric pickup truck has an EPA-estimated range of 300 miles. Pretty impressive: That’s more than my Toyota Rav4, which runs about 240 miles on a tank of gas. But wait a minute, that’s not a fair comparison because maybe the Rav4 has a smaller gas tank, so … but hold on, the Lightning doesn’t even have a gas tank! See, I lost my direct comparison again.
Fortunately, the next generation may have this thing figured out. We now have two teenage drivers in the house, and whenever I hand my son the keys to that Toyota, he sets the digital dashboard display to show the car’s estimated remaining mileage. Call me old-fashioned, but all these years, I’ve just been keeping an eye on the analog gas tank needle to see when I needed to fill up. If you change your mode of thinking to watch the number of miles the car can go, not the number of gallons left in the tank, it no longer matters whether you’re burning gasoline or electrons under the hood. Wait a minute, an EV doesn’t actually burn any electrons … oops, I did it again.