Transportation is the single biggest contributor to carbon emissions and accounts for 28 percent of all energy consumption in the U.S. The most obvious solutions for making freight more sustainable seem simple on their face: reduce load weight and improve route efficiency. Making these changes also lowers the cost of transportation, so that when supply…

Green purchasing within supply chain management has become a top priority for many businesses and affects which vendors a business chooses as partners. Today, being a green company means working only–or primarily–with companies who also follow eco-friendly guidelines. Yet it can be difficult to thoroughly vet a third party’s green practices. We’ll talk about some…

Going green is a priority for many supply chain managers today, but not every effort is successful. In fact, efforts to “go green” often involve strategies whose impacts are difficult to measure. A crucial part of any environmental initiative is being able to evaluate how green your supply chain is in an actionable way. While…

The ethical supply chain has gone from something that only students and a handful of others worried about to a mainstream consideration. Any local grocery store carries more than a few products bearing a fair trade stamp, which indicates they were grown, harvested, and prepared ethically with consideration for both the environment and laborers. Over…

Eco-friendly business practices are a major topic of discussion right now. Twenty-one percent of businesses globally believe that sustainability is crucial to their long-term existence. But moving toward more sustainable practices isn’t simple or easy, and there are some green supply chain challenges your company should be prepared to face before you start on this…

Most major supply chains today are seeking to make their practices more environmentally responsible. From UPS’ use of alternative, energy-efficient vehicles to Amazon’s installation of solar panels on the rooftops of fulfillment centers, all of these efforts help to reduce the impact the big companies have on the environment.  Environmentally friendly logistics strategies like these…

Questions of morality and ethics are always difficult. In fact, answering these questions often comes at a steep cost, personally or professionally. In business, this cost is literal; the answer to the question of how to build an ethical supply chain is usually to pay more. Labor welfare, for instance, is one of the biggest…