Supply chain leaders across the globe are building more sustainable supply chains.
Ethical, business, and waste elimination/cost savings goals are driving this work.
Global supply chain executives understand that sustainability brings its own set of challenges, including:
It becomes readily apparent that information transparency and communication are key to overcoming these challenges.
This University of Tennessee Global Supply Chain Institute (GSCI) whitepaper addresses the key issues in supply chain sustainability transparency.
To accomplish this, we conducted academic and applied research, surveying sixteen best-in-class supply chains and companies, including more than forty professionals, to establish a set of best practices related to sustainable supply chains and transparency.
The research showed us that supply chain professionals are busy working on solutions to a multitude of sustainability issues including:
Throughout the interview process we recognized that transparency was irretrievably linked to sustainability. Without the growing importance of sustainability in the business world, this transparency discussion might not be taking place.
In this report, we present results that demonstrate the relationship between sustainable supply chain visibility, traceability, integrity, and transparency.
Further, we make the case that supply chain transparency - and the underlying tenets of supply chain integrity - creates the key foundation to sustainable supply chain management.
Following the research results, we present a best practices section that shows what best-in-class companies are utilizing to create excellence.