The Supply Chain and the Carbon Footprint

Kennedy Maize

Pages: 1 2

Wringing Your Chain

In a related development, Penn State University’s Smeal College of Business has formed a sustainability council to look at issues and coordinate research related to supply chain management, economics, finance, overall management, and marketing. For example, the university’s Center for Supply Chain Research is looking at how altering supply chains can shrink a firm’s carbon footprint.

Dan Guide, an assistant professor of operations and supply chain management, is examining closed-looped supply chains and remanufacturing as a foundation in environmentally sustainable industrial systems. Daniel Cahoy, an associate professor of business law, is looking at the relationship of intellectual property rights and investment in sustainability-related innovation.

As part of the new organization, Smeal’s Center for Global Business Studies is researching the impact of environmental degradation on business in the next quarter century. The Center for Management of Technological and Organization Change is examining ways to reduce water and energy waste. The Institute for the Study of Business Markets is pondering the relationship of branding and sustainability.

Smeal’s sustainability council, said Gerald Susman, chair of the new organization, “puts a public face on all of the impressive projects being conducted by Smeal faculty and research centers. The council gives sustainability a home at Smeal, and it shows the world that we have presence in this area of research and are willing to work with other groups within Penn State and beyond.”

Does a green supply chain make sense for power generators? Probably not, says a veteran fuel buyer for a New England utility. “Coal is coal. Gas is gas,” he says. “There’s not much you can do to ‘green-up’ buying these essential commodities.” On the other hand, manufacturers of power equipment may have opportunities to limit their carbon footprint. General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt said recently, “Opportunities exist for companies to become greener from the beginning of their value chain—with how products are sourced, produced, and fulfilled—through how they're serviced and ultimately disposed of at the end of their useful life.”

For power companies, said the former fuel buyer, it’s largely a matter of economics. If green procurement saves dollars, it will thrive. If not, it’s dead. These buying decisions are based on very small margins, so it’s all about cost.

—Kennedy Maize is executive editor of MANAGING POWER.

Pages: 1 2