Supply chain lacks tools to measure sustainability

With the development of emissions regulations and company carbon footprint goals, commercial pursuits are tilting towards sustainability - or are they? A new study by Business Performance Management Forum and E2open has found that while businesses understand the need for sustainable supply chain management, the necessary changes have yet to be made.

While respondents were positive, professionals are having difficultly without metrics or any available measure of sustainable achievement to create structured goals towards neutrality. Only 38 percent of respondents strongly linked environmental initiatives to operational efficiency, however an overwhelming majority were actively involved in new efficiency programs.

With the automation of the supply chain facing challenges on the global scale, the BPM Forum conducted a study in mid-2009 with 125 professionals worldwide, 35 percent of which had more than 1,000 trading partners to manage in their value chain. 80 percent of companies also were found to recognize the value in standardized environmental scoring, though two-thirds still did not currently use metrics or scorecards for tracking sustainable supplier and vendor efforts.

Click here to read more.