Greening Supply Chain - Improving supply chain governance with sustainable supply chain model

• By: Ramesh Srinivasan, Manager MetricStream Inc
• Date: December 07, 2009

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With companies waking up to an environmentally aware world, whether it’s about the competitive advantage or for regulatory reasons, greening the supply chain has become a necessity. Greening the supply chain is not a onetime exercise, nor can it be done overnight. It’s a journey that not only requires the four major functions - purchasing and in-bound logistics, production, distribution and out-bound logistics, and reverses logistics- to be the drivers, but also requires organizations to adopt EMS system.

Environment Management System and Green Supply Chain Management adoption may not just provide a vehicle for organizations to “signal” to market participants that their environmental strategies adhere to or exceed generally accepted environmental standards but also lead to greater acceptance of the organization’s
strategic approach and insulate organizations from competitors’ criticisms.

References
1. Kari Lydersen, “Sceintists: Pace of Climate Change Exceeds Estimates,” The Washington Post, February 25, 2009,
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/14/AR2009021401757.html.

2. Thomas Freidman, “Mother Nature’s Dow,” The New York Times, March 28, 2009,
www.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/opinion/29friedman.html.

3. Knickle, Kimberly, “Can a Green Supply Chain be an Efficient Supply Chain,” i2’s Supply Chain Leader magazine, October, 2008, www.i2.com/supplychainleader/opinion/opinion_green_supply_chain.cfm

4. Joseph Sarkis, “How Green is the Supply Chain?: Practice and Research,” Social Science Research Network, August, 1999.

5. Jeff S. McDaniel, Joseph Fiksel, and Susan McLaughlin, “The Lean and Green Supply Chain: A practical guide for Materials Manager and Supply Chain Manager to Reduce Costs and Improve Environmental Perfrormance,” United States Environmental Protection Agency Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics, January, 2000.

6. Toshi H. Arimura, Nicole Darnall, and Hajime Katayama, “Is ISO 14001 a Gateway to More Advanced Voluntary Action?: A Case for Green Supply Chain Management,” Social Science Research Network,March, 2009.

7. Nicole Darnall, G. Jason Jolley, Robert Handfield, “Environmental Management Systems and Green Supply Chain Management: Complements for Sustainability?,” Social Science Research Network, August, 2007.

8. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Enhancing Materials Management and Supply Chain Performance with Environmental Cost Information: Examples from Commonwealth Edison, Andersen Corporation, and Ashland Chemical, EPA742-R-00-XXX, forthcoming in 2000, www.epa.gov/opptintr/acctg.

9. Prof Paul Cousins, “Business Environmental Soundness and Green Supply Chain Management,” Manchester Business School, Executive Briefing, 2007-08, www.mbs.ac.uk/research/supplychain/documents/EB2007-08EnvironmentI.pdf.

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