Greening The Supply Chain
As a Transportation and Logistics student, and a person passionate about the environment, I have been wondering about possible ways of greening the supply chain. Cargo Logistics Canada conference that I have attended last week offered a seminar about the Green Transportation Challenge, which introduced me the SmartWay Program that not many companies are aware, or a part of right now, but will be a requirement to be able to do business with big companies such as Nestle in the near future.
The SmartWay program is “an innovative partnership between public and private stakeholders with the shared goal of saving fuel and reducing greenhouse gases and air pollution from the freight transportation supply chain.”
The topic raised a lot of questions during the seminar, and some business professionals in the trucking industry questioned the usefulness of the program. However Greg Kraliz, the leader of national distribution of Nestle Canada, clearly stated that being a part of the SmartWay program is going to be a requirement very soon enough in order to be able to work with Nestle. He also said that their customers demand them to be environmentally conscious, and they will be taking bigger steps towards being more sustainable.
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Nice post, Burak. I definitely have to admit I have a limited understanding of the TLOG side of sustainability.
Do you think that the SmartWay program needs to get regulatory approval in order to be effective? Or can big companies like Nestle enforce them by themselves?
I’ve been working on a consulting project with a legal tech firm recently, and the importance of having the regulatory entity (i.e. bar associations) on their side could not be overstated. It allowed them to gain a whole lot of market share. Similarly, I think that if Nestle cannot get regulatory approval, it will open them up to a whole lot more scrutiny (not that a regulated program wouldn’t get any scrutiny). That being said, if firms like Walmart get on board, their power may very well amount to a quasi-regulatory entity!
Before I begin, the link for the SmartWay program doesn’t work. I was hoping to learn more about the program in this post. Are there any other major companies in the works to implementing the SmartWay program? Where will it become a requirement, just Canada?
I did some research myself, and learned SmartWay is a program by the United States Environmental Protection Agency. 2014 marked SmartWay’s 10th anniversary! (http://www.epa.gov/smartway/about/index.htm) EPA and Natural Resources Canada actually joined forces to administer the SmartWay program in Canada. It would have been great though to see you talk more about the program. I’m not personally much of a t-log person, so your views would be much more insightful than my own. I hope you post another blog about this on the results SmartWay has achieved. Thanks!