Sustainable Supply Chain & Footprint

Sustainability potential can be leveraged at all stages of the supply chain – from the extraction of raw materials to pre-production, transportation, processing and delivery of the end products to the customer through to disposal or recycling. Companies must therefore understand the impact of their global network on the social and ecological environment, consider dependencies, framework conditions and market structures and develop effective approaches to reduce negative environmental effects throughout their entire value creation network.

External risks and trends to which companies are exposed and which can be addressed in the context of sustainability must be considered – e.g., the availability of renewable energies or ensuring that supply chains are ecologically and ethically sound. At the same time, it is important to analyze the company's impact on the various dimensions of sustainability, for example regarding decarbonization, biodiversity, environmental pollution, work standards or the careful use of local resources.

The integrated consideration of both perspectives forms the framework for developing scenarios, quantifying relevant factors, and prioritizing topics relating to social and environmental sustainability.

 

Low Impact Supply Chain

National and international legal standards require companies to reduce emissions in their upstream and downstream supply chain. This means that companies share responsibility for areas that they cannot influence directly, the "Scope 3 upstream" emissions. Intensive involvement of suppliers is therefore necessary in order to gain transparency about emissions and to be able to reduce them with a view to the entire global operations footprint.

ROI-EFESO's approach aims to optimize value creation networks with a view to reducing the carbon footprint and increasing resilience. To this end, we extend the classic approaches for planning and managing supply networks with specific methods for improving the sustainability balance:

  • Strategy & risk management: establishing sustainability goals in the network and resolving conflicting goals between efficiency and resilience; assessing site-specific sustainability benefits and risks and integrating them into decision-making processes and developing mitigating approaches.
  • Transparency: ensuring comprehensive transparency on key sustainability issues such as Scope 3 footprint, behavior and compliance of n-tier suppliers, location factors or external trends and framework conditions.
  • Process digitalization: use of digital technologies such as Digital Supply Chain Twin or Supply Chain Control Tower to optimize and simulate the entire value chain about sustainability criteria; increasing transparency and resilience as well as saving resources through the digitalization of physical processes.
  • Circularity: consideration of the circular economy when selecting a location with regard to factors such as proximity to recycling and infrastructure operators, access to recycled raw materials or return planning for products in circulation (see also Future Factory / Reverse Factory).

 

CONTACT

 
Tim Ballenberger

Tim Ballenberger

Program Lead
Tel.: +49 89 1215 90-0

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Dr Felix Canales

Dr. Felix Canales

Expert
Tel.: +49 89 1215 90-0

Send Mail

CASE STUDIES - PRACTICAL EXAMPLES

Case Study

A global supplier for the textile industry sets new standards in the sustainable design of its production facilities. ROI-EFESO accompanies the construction of a new factory in Bangladesh as a sparring partner and identifies together with the client potentials to reduce the use of resources and CO2 emissions as well as to increase workplace attractiveness. The result is a lighthouse factory that serves as a model for other factories of the company in terms of social and ecological sustainability.

Case Study

In order to achieve the sustainability targets it has set itself, an automotive supplier must optimize its more than 70 existing plants worldwide in terms of emissions and resource consumption. Together with the customer, ROI-EESO develops an overarching target picture to evaluate the maturity level and derive a sustainability roadmap for all sites.

Case Study

In order to achieve the self-imposed goal of being climate-neutral by 2050, a manufacturer of basic chemicals has to put its entire business model to the test. ROI-EFESO supported the client with robust scenario planning to develop a sustainability roadmap that enables sustainable growth in a challenging industry environment.

Case Study

A leading automotive manufacturer wants to make its procurement sustainable and measure progress through KPIs. But the goals cannot be achieved via the purchasing side alone - the company needs a company-wide ESG strategy.

Male employee in protective clothing at sustainable chemical company
Case Study

In order to achieve the self-imposed goal of being climate-neutral by 2050, a manufacturer of basic chemicals has to put its entire business model to the test. ROI-EFESO supported the client with robust scenario planning to develop a sustainability roadmap that enables sustainable growth in a challenging industry environment.

Case Study

A dairy group identifies the topic of energy efficiency as a lever to cushion cost pressure from falling production volumes. The case study explains, how the company determines with ROI-EFESO suitable starting points for one of its plants. The potential of the measures in terms of possible energy savings, their CapEx and their amortization are specifically quantified.