Blue Yonder’s Mission to Create Sustainable Supply Chains
Supply chains are known to generate around 60% of global carbon emissions, according to research from Accenture and others.
However, there exists plenty of evidence to suggest organisations are responding.
Deloitte’s 2024 CxO Sustainability Report found 85% of organisations had increased sustainability investments over the past year, up from 75% in 2023, while seven in 10 executives expect climate change to have a high or very high impact on their company’s strategies and operations over the next three years.
All this means demand for technology solutions is growing exponentially and, in the supply chain space specifically, Blue Yonder is leading the charge.
Led by CEO Duncan Angove, the firm is helping companies achieve sustainability by integrating eco-friendly practices directly into their supply chain management, offering comprehensive tools that not only reduce environmental impact, but improve operational efficiency.
Staying ahead of the curve
Blue Yonder’s commitment to helping customers stay ahead of the curve when it comes to sustainability is driven by three main factors:
- Meeting regulatory reporting requirements: A host of new and upcoming regulations, not to mention growing pressure from stakeholders, is pushing companies to provide detailed, standardised ESG reports. Blue Yonder says businesses proactively implementing data collection and reporting systems that involve both internal teams and external partners can better navigate regulatory changes and maintain a competitive edge.
- Achieving public-facing sustainability goals and commitments: Most big-name organisations set publicly-accessible sustainability targets. Many focus on improvements like enhancing energy efficiency in their everyday operations, but Blue Yonder points to a leading few going the extra mile by addressing the significant waste and carbon emissions across their entire supply chain – critical steps for making meaningful progress towards achieving their goals.
- Coping with shareholder and consumer pressures: Companies are clearly under growing pressure from shareholders and consumers to adopt more sustainable practices. Blue Yonder highlights that, by prioritising sustainability, businesses can enhance the resilience of their supply chains, gain a competitive edge and create long-term value.
End-to-end sustainability
Underpinned by its vision for a truly end-to-end supply chain, Blue Yonder’s platform is aimed at creating a more sustainable supply chain – from supplier right the way through to customer.
Hundreds of big-name retailers, manufacturers and logistics service providers based across the globe are already enjoying the following benefits:
- Optimised forecasting: With Blue Yonder, businesses can avoid overproduction and associated waste and emissions through intelligent planning.
- Preferred vendor selection: Companies have the ability to automate the selection process from facilities with more favourable environmental practices.
- Efficient manufacturing planning: At the manufacturing stage, firms can coordinate proceedings to reduce changeovers – reducing waste in the process.
- Optimised network design: By using the Blue Yonder platform, businesses have the necessary tools at their disposal to design networks more efficiently, allowing them to cut down on transportation and related emissions.
- Avoid split and expedited shipments: Users are well positioned to time orders in a bid to avoid split and expedited shipments, thus cutting carbon emissions.
- Low footprint returns: Reduced last-mile transportation and emissions with smarter pick up and drop off.
Incorporate transparency and traceability
Blue Yonder has itself carried out plenty of research focused on the sustainability space.
In its third annual Consumer Sustainability Survey, Blue Yonder found that more than three-quarters (78%) of consumers consider sustainability concerns to be either very or somewhat important to them when choosing to buy a product or shop at a retailer.
However, researchers also uncovered scepticism towards companies’ sustainability claims, with almost half (48%) of surveyed consumers stating they only “sometimes” trusted a brand’s sustainability claims, depending on its message, brand reputation and history.
More than one-third (35%) of respondents said they don’t trust brands’ claims, citing the need for their own additional research (21%) and the belief that brands tout sustainability regardless of whether it aligns with their actions (14%).
Speaking in the October edition of Supply Chain Digital, Saskia van Gendt, CSO at Blue Yonder, discussed how organisations can incorporate transparency and traceability into their supply chains to make them more sustainable.
“Most organisations lack the systems to track their full value chain,” she said. “Retailers and manufacturers often only have visibility for and influence on tier 1 suppliers, whereas traceability requires n-tier accountability.
“Lacking the right tracking systems, organisations are responding to the pressure for transparency by surveying suppliers down their value chain, which has led to survey fatigue and is challenging to maintain given supply chains are constantly changing.”
Saskia continued: “Blue Yonder can support traceability and chain of custody for all trading partners on a single platform, maintaining a real-time single version of the truth for supply chain management. This means end-to-end visibility of raw materials, across all tiers of supply and across all modes and legs of the supply chain.”
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Supply Chain Digital is a BizClik brand.
