Plan, procure, execute, & track transportation for every shipment across your supply chain & logistics operations
A SaaS solution to help grow your business by achieving 100% perfect order execution at high volumes
Increase vehicle capacity utilization and customer promise adherence
Grow your business with omnichannel presence and automated pickups
Consolidate shipments for hub to hub movement across land and air
Real-time customer communications and collect accurate PODs
Orchestrate logistics operations with multiple 3rd party carriers
Achieve cost effective, scalable, sustainable, and customer centric deliveries
Orchestrate all your cross-border logistics operations with ease
Improve address accuracy, ensure first-attempt delivery success, reduce costs and boost customer experience
Gain end-to-end shipment visibility, get proactive alerts, and send customers live tracking links
Grow business in a dynamic world and manage operations across First, Middle & Last mile
Delight customers by seamlessly managing store and online orders across own fleet and 3rd party
Reduce freight costs & get end to end visibility across shipments
Directly Jump To
Freight activity is growing multifold with each passing day. Mobile adaptivity, convenience, and omnichannel retailing are critical factors that have accelerated the growth of e-commerce. This has spurred a surge in online orders, resulting in increased deliveries and miles traveled globally.
The global freight forwarding market is expected to be more than USD 206 BN by 2025. However, the face of global consumerism is changing in light of environmental challenges as consumers, investors, and supply chain professionals are all focusing on sustainable supply chains.
CDP’s Global Supply Chain Report 2020 estimated that within the next five years, companies would face up to US$120 billion in costs from environmental risks in their supply chain. In a rapidly changing market, this has become all the more necessary to remain resilient and competitive.
In this blog, we will discuss how sustainable supply chain approaches enable enterprises to meet rising customer expectations in an economical and environmentally-conscious manner.
Sustainability in the supply chain includes incorporating ethical and environmentally conscious practices and processes in the business operations to reduce carbon footprint. The goal is to increase business efficiency for greater ROI without negatively affecting the environment.
A sustainable supply chain is about gaining a holistic view of the entire supply chain operations, from product storage, resource optimization, and responsible outsourcing of the produced items.
It begins with the mapping of the entire supply chain ecosystem, and the supply chain managers must identify both the risks and opportunities that come with it.
Even though consumer demands keep increasing, buyers are becoming conscious of their shopping habits and environmental repercussions.
The Global Sustainability Study revealed that 85% of people feel that their purchase behavior has shifted towards being more sustainable in the last five years. And more than one-third of customers are willing to pay more for sustainable products or services.
In recent times, there has also been a significant shift in the sustainability mindset from ‘good to have’ to ‘must have’ for all enterprises. A major contributor to the economy, logistics transportation is responsible for 37% of CO2 emissions from end-user sectors. So, it is imperative to adopt operational and technical energy efficiency measures to drive sustainability in supply chains.
In the next section, we will now explore the three major components of a sustainable supply chain.
People, processes, and business – these are the three pillars of sustainable supply chains. So, ideally, businesses should be able to deliver delightful customer experiences via highly optimized and sustainable processes (operations) without harming the business deliverables or revenue.
However, due to the massively disparate nature of supply chains, highly volatile logistical movements, and rapid disruptions, they often grapple with realizing their sustainability goals.
Now, technology and automation might emerge as general answers to overcome this challenge, but it is the right implementation, quality, and extent of integration and data-driven learning from previous experiences that play the major role.
Some of the ways supply chain professionals and leaders are implementing the above-mentioned practices to build sustainable supply chains are as follows:
Next, we discuss how the right automation and right implementation that gets improved over time can help build a sustainable supply chain.
Stats suggest that 62% of the organizations have modeled as much as 25% of their businesses, still, only a meager 2% have modeled all their processes. Further, 94% of organizations prefer working with a unified automation platform instead of multiple disparate tools, and yet, only 38% of them have taken the first step towards automation.
Hence, it is not surprising that when the supply chain management market is growing at a CAGR of 10.7% and is expected to be USD 52,632.37 MN by 2030, only 6% of companies have full visibility over their supply chains.
Implementing automation such that it offers a unified view of the entire supply chain and logistics ecosystem and helps businesses manage, track, control, and monitor all the processes and operations from a single dashboard is crucial for introducing sustainability in supply chains.
Such unified platforms also enable the supply chain managers to communicate and collaborate with all the stakeholders in real time and track individual performance via smart KPI management. They can check the real-time status of every shipment, every on-the-move order, vehicle, and even the reasons for returns or delivery failures.
We discuss more of these capabilities in detail in the next section.
As companies move away from traditional logistics management practices and adopt newer alternatives, the productivity of delivery operations also increases. With intelligent functionalities, such as shipment/order tracking, real-time status tracking, automated alerts and notifications, and information standardization, companies gain end-to-end visibility of each product within the supply chain.
The smart AI/ML routines help them access highly advanced functionalities, such as Geocoding feature for easier location identification, smart order clubbing, a multi-drop pickup feature, etc.
These features help optimize delivery trip KPIs, such as distance traveled, route length, load carried, etc. In this way, brands can make their supply chains sustainable in both an economic and environmental sense.
Supply chain management automation platforms that come with smart routing and route optimization features help businesses reduce their empty miles and miles traveled for a fixed amount of deliveries. They can also reduce the number of trips to deliver a set order volume by optimizing the vehicle capacity, automated order allocation, and en route order clubbing with multiple stops.
This reduction in fuel consumption results in a considerable reduction in carbon emissions, thereby reducing operational costs as well.
Automated transportation logistics management platforms can be configured to exercise compliance controls and regulatory demands in an automated manner. The businesses can opt for vehicles running on alternative fuels, such as EVs, or orchestrate on-foot or bicycle-based deliveries for nearby delivery locations.
They can place checks on various vehicle makes to ensure that the deliveries are being made in an environment-friendly manner.
With the introduction of free shipping and returns by brands, consumers are increasingly using the return option. In the US alone, returning goods causes 5 billion pounds of landfill waste and 15 million tonnes of annual carbon emissions. The reason for returns can vary- from receiving damaged products to customer dissatisfaction.
And when a shopper initiates a return, it means that the product will travel in an opposite direction within the supply chain. As a result, there is an increase in cost and energy waste throughout the various stages of product pickup, reverse logistics transport, storage in a warehouse, return to the factory, etc.
An automated reverse logistics system allows for easy and efficient reverse logistics operation. This helps facilitate easy return pickup and replacement delivery. In fact, companies are increasingly adopting the 5 R’s for greater sustainability in the supply chain, i.e., Returns, Reselling, Repairs, Recycling, and Replacements.
Climate change is a reality, and governments all over the globe are looking to introduce robust measures to reduce carbon emissions. A supply chain with a sustainable orientation can help reduce the carbon footprint by optimizing delivery operations, introducing fuel-efficient vehicles and EVs, improving worker benefits, etc.
Companies can initiate ESG accounting to further streamline their supply chain operation to enhance compliance and inspire confidence among all stakeholders.
Covid-19 significantly highlighted the need for connection with varied and high-quality suppliers to ensure the continuity of supply services. When selecting suppliers, due diligence is exercised to gauge business continuity strategies and environmental and social adherence.
Sustainability in the supply chain ensures businesses do not over-rely on a few supply sources, which can be potentially troublesome in case of unseen exigencies. After all, sustainability and reliability are closely linked in the supply chain.
Maintaining sustainable and ethical practices in all operational stages enables businesses to always ensure a positive brand value. A holistic approach to managing the supply chain is not only about environmental concerns but also about adopting enterprise frameworks that accelerate employee growth.
Sustainable supply chain approaches pay attention to ensuring quality-working conditions along with the workers’ health and safety. An organization that cares about its employees and promotes environmental safeguarding is one that consumers can easily get behind.
A recent survey reported that 64% of customers feel that they can make a difference with their purchases. With the increase in conscious consumerism, brands need to be extra cautious of their business decisions and their environmental impact.
Ethical sourcing, circular economy, and sustainable packaging are no longer isolated events. Brands with higher transparency of the entire supply chain and a positive attitude towards the environment are increasingly preferred by consumers.
A sustainable supply chain is built on intelligent features like environmentally friendly procurement, sustainable manufacturing, optimized routing, intelligent load allocation, etc.
Therefore, businesses are able to quickly identify any service disruptions and provide prompt redressal of such issues. This positively impacts supply chain operations, reduces business costs, and increases profit margins.
Job seekers, especially younger generations, are looking for impact-oriented job profiles. The company’s ESG records, public commitments to environmental impact, and similar factors influence the decision-making of prospective talents.
Stats reveal that a company’s stand on sustainability is crucial for 56% of employees to remain committed to the brand.
Though price and quality continue to dominate, sustainability is increasingly becoming a significant purchase criterion across industries and countries. Companies are increasingly expected to deliver on both speed and sustainability.
Moreover, with rising governmental intervention and public awareness, companies are increasingly investing in practices to leverage sustainable approaches in their production and manufacturing. To attract and maintain customer loyalty, companies need to adopt sustainability as part of their core value proposition.
In the long run, sustainability efforts become a potential source of business cost optimization and branding. Also, the increased industry acceptance of electric vehicles, autonomous vehicles, and drones as delivery channels has established them as potential alternatives to conventional resources.
Growing carbon emissions is both an environmental and business roadblock, and enterprises need to pursue avenues that make financial sense and positively impact our surroundings at the same time.
Shipsy’s smart automation-powered supply chain management capabilities can empower businesses to ensure cost-efficiency and carbon efficiency while keeping the customer experience intact. Its multiple in-built functionalities based on AI, ML, and Big Data Analytics can help businesses build sustainable supply chains.
Shipsy’s smart supply chain management platform equips businesses with the right automation and empowers them with hundreds of custom optimization and planning criteria for routing, delivery orchestration, hub management, distribution, international logistics, Last Mile, and more.
Our latest offering – Indicator of Carbon Emissions (ICE), is one such novel initiative. With the help of this framework, businesses can easily track the TTW carbon emissions for each shipment across air cargo and marine shipments.
Shipsy helps businesses build sustainable supply chains and unlock the following at the same time:
Connect today to schedule a call with our in-house experts for a customized demo to get started with superior and sustainable supply chain operations.
The transportation and logistics industry forms the backbone of any economy, it's also the most significant contributor to growing carbon emissions and hence climate change.
Supply chain disruptions cost organizations around USD 184 MN annually. Here's a detailed logistics and supply chain management guide to overcome these challenges and leverage automation smartly.
