All companies think about sustainability in supply chains. To help stay ahead of the competition. To invest in the future of production and supply of goods. To help protect our businesses and people. And to ultimately increase business growth.
Building a sustainable supply chain and creating supply chain resilience is filled with challenges and complexity, but GHL Procurement is on hand to help.
We believe we all have a duty to consider the future impact of our actions, analysing each stage of the supply chain, looking at where we can make improvements to provide tangible benefits in the short and long term.
Supply chain sustainability
There are three main areas of supply chain sustainability:
Social – this is the moral and ethical expectations that people have of a business. For example, are people throughout the supply chain, from factory workers to delivery drivers, treated fairly? What processes and checks do you have in place to monitor human rights, international labour laws, modern-day slavery policies, etc.
Environmental – how do you protect the environment from harm caused by your business operations, suppliers, and even business partners? It’s essential to understand and know the way your business operations affect the environment.
Financial – how are you meeting the financial needs of the business? Managing shareholders, employees, customers, business partners, financial institutions, and more. You must be compliant with all financial laws and regulations, managing risk and minimising this where possible.
To ensure all areas are covered, you must:
- Map your supply chain
- Communicate your expectations clearly and effectively
- Provide guidance and baselines to monitor and manage supplier performance
- Continually drive performance improvement
- Collaborate with others
- Work with a reliable procurement partner, GHL.
The aim is to create numerous sustainable practices where your global supply chain connects customers with products and services worldwide.
Factors to consider when building sustainable supply chains
There are many things to consider when managing your supply chain. These can range from waste management to protocols in place to reduce carbon footprint, labour conditions, health and safety law management, worker exploitation, and so much more.
To create a sustainable supply chain, you must analyse your entire supply chain, the complex network of people and businesses, focusing on where improvements can be made.
Look to introduce ‘recycling’ and ‘reuse’ as steps within your supply chain. Support and encourage practices that will reduce your carbon footprint, and engage with suppliers and other third parties, strengthening relationships with those who have achieved ISO: 14001 standards.
By putting the right management systems in place from the start, you will be able to identify gaps in your supply chain and make green savings.
How GHL do it
After receiving the statement of work, we get started. Reviewing and searching the right suppliers, all of who are carefully vetted and go through rigorous quality checks by our teams on the ground.
We’ll present you with all of the required information so you can make the most informed decision for your business. Once agreed, we will carry out complete factory audits, move to sample production and reviews, negotiate on price, produce formal agreements, confirm costings, timescales, and more.
From here, we will instruct manufacturing to begin and production to start. Finally, our teams will carry out quality checks on production and carry out a pre-shipment inspection.
Goods will then be shipped and distributed to the end customer.
From start to finish, we manage your supply chain process with full transparency and efficiency.
Benefits of a sustainable supply chain
- Reduced costs due to reduced wastage
- Allows for diversification of your supply chain, avoiding reliance on just one link
- Protects and enhances reputation
- Can lead to more investment opportunities
- Improves customer satisfaction
- Ensures compliance with each country’s industry standards
By building a sustainable supply chain, you can have a more positive impact on your environmental footprint.
To help, you need to work with a procurement partner who can offer you complete visibility and sustainability in abundance—offering you a complete international procurement solution and implementing sustainable practices that your company requires.
At GHL, we have the infrastructure in place to support all your sustainable initiatives – book a call with our team today.
