Gartner Report
3 Strategies to Integrate Sustainability Into Supply Chain Operating Activities

As per Gartner “As sustainability rises in priority on company agendas, CSCOs will be challenged to transform their supply chains to meet ever-changing business demands, which include the imperative to reduce the environmental impact of the operation, which is no small task. However, sustainability initiatives tend to start small, as centralized efforts with ambitious public goals, and the team may quickly realize it lacks the organizational influence or decision-making rights to drive needed change. With supply chains accounting for upward of 90% of an enterprises greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, CSCOs are optimally positioned to deploy strategies that will balance sustainability goals with optimized business performance. To be successful, sustainability needs to become a common consideration, similar to cost or performance, in everyday business activities.

CSCOs should activate the following integration strategies to enable sustainability to become an active, rather than passive, element in supply chain operations and decisions. These strategies are ideally suited for more-mature sustainability programs that are capable of scaling efforts to achieve greater progress.

Figure 1 outlines the three integration strategies that can operationalize sustainability efforts:

• Establish sustainability resources in key supply chain functions.
• Add sustainability value to the decision-making framework for supply chain portfolio investment.
• Leverage sustainability data in supply chain operations.”