The end of the calendar year is an opportunity for organizations to check in on their goals. For many, sustainability is at the top of the list. The new year presents an opportunity to put new proposals into action, while also tracking progress so far.
Many of these sustainability initiatives look at the entirety of an organization’s supply chain. They need to rely on data from every corner of the business to make sure they have all of the information necessary to make decisions. Here are a couple of instances where organizations are measuring sustainability, and what an analytics solution can do to help.
Climate transition plan
Levi Strauss & Co. (LS&Co.) provides one such example. The denim company released its first-ever climate transition plan in October, setting a goal to achieve net-zero emissions across its supply chain by 2050. The company also announced its approach to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. This work heavily relies on data.
LS&Co. says it will integrate climate change considerations into its partnerships and procurement process. That’s part of its commitment to working with hundreds of suppliers around the world to mitigate emissions, tracking climate targets for everything from renewable energy to sustainable cotton farming practices. An analytics solution can help track all of those metrics and produce reports that allow the company to publicly disclose its progress towards its goals.
Supply chain investment
For Starbucks, the data takes a different form. The coffee company has responded to changing climates by increasing investments in its supply chain. Starbucks sources and roasts Arabica beans, which are sensitive to heat, and rising temperatures in areas of the world where those beans are grown are threatening production.
Starbucks recently bought two innovation farms in Guatemala and Costa Rica, and plans to add more in Africa and Asia in the future. The farms will study coffee varieties under different elevations and soil conditions as Starbucks works to mitigate the impacts of climate change on its coffee. Some of the data gathered will focus on the coffee itself, and some of it will focus on the methods of growing coffee, using drones, for example, to help support labor availability challenges faced by farmers in Latin America.
Using data to achieve sustainability and climate goals
Every company on some level needs to do this type of work, finding opportunities within its operation to increase sustainability measures or to take proactive measures against the kinds of disruptions climate change can bring. Data and analytics can make that work easier if you know what you want to measure and how to approach it.
Just as data can be used to map out an entire supply chain operation to identify weak links in delivery or supply, it can also be used to see where sustainability measures are lacking. An analytics solution can also produce the reports necessary for compliance, or just for organizations to hold themselves accountable to the public.
In the same way that Starbucks is trying to innovate to keep its product viable in the face of changing conditions, data can keep your organization one step ahead of possible problems. Predictive analytics can provide decision-makers with the information they need to stay ahead of the many possible issues a supply chain can face, whether that is a winter storm in another part of the world, worker shortages, or something like rising transportation costs that affects a company’s bottom line.
An organization can put all kinds of supply chain goals in place as we turn the calendar page to a new year. But a lot of that is just words on paper without an analytics solution that can turn that organization’s data into insights that will help them achieve their goals.
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