During the last few years, the role of sustainability has expanded in business settings. What began as a trendy concept followed by a few early adopters has now become a powerful competitive advantage. Companies are increasingly developing and implementing sustainability initiatives to stay ahead of their competitors. Over the past few years, sustainability has been steadily moving from the periphery to the heart of business. Companies are adopting sustainable practices for a host of reasons depending on the industries and locations in which they operate.
Sustainable supply chains
Supply chain activities have not been adverse to this sustainability trend. Companies such as Philips, ASML, Nestle and Walmart that manage large and complex supply chains have adopted sustainability as an intrinsic feature. For instance, Walmart1 has announced an aggressive plan to eliminate 20 million metric tons of Greenhouse gases (GHG) from their global supply chain by the end of 2015. This represents one and a half times their anticipated cumulative carbon footprint growth over the next five years and is equal to GHG emissions from 3.8 million cars during one year.
Nestle, on the other hand, has invested an average of 100 million per year for the protection of the environment through the application of an integrated sustainable approach that combines their raw material supply and their manufacturing process.
It is thought that this challenge needs to be addressed by both practitioners and researchers. The 2011 VLO Conference is an attempt to close the gap between theory and practice through the sharing of knowledge and experience. The aim is to encourage the discussion of real-life issues in the field of logistics instead of promoting a merely theoretical review.
March 17, TUeindhoven
For that reason, we would like to invite you to the forthcoming 2011 VLO Conference to be held in Eindhoven on March 17. The subject of the conference is “The Sustainable Supply Chain: Trend or Necessity?” with special focus on the development and implementation of sustainable strategies throughout the supply chain. Specifically, the objective of the conference is to identify and evaluate high impact sustainability initiatives that drive profitability improvements and supply chain innovations.