Pressure is increasing on businesses to build sustainable supply chains. Today’s big businesses are expected to take responsibility for how their suppliers affect people and the environment.
The list of issues to address can be daunting: from ensuring safe working conditions to paying fair wages; ending child labor to improving product traceability; using water responsibly to avoiding corruption. And there is no shortage of stakeholders ready to hold companies to account for their failings; regulators, journalists, lawyers, customers, consumers, communities and others are all piling on the pressure.
What’s more, building a sustainable supply chain is no easy task. Modern global supply chains are so vast and complex that many companies just don’t know where their inputs come from. Gaining visibility and control can be a problem, as can keeping pace with regulations and industry commitments across multiple jurisdictions.
Five reasons to build a sustainable supply chain:
- Comply with more stringent regulations and more ambitious industry commitments
- Respond to customer demands for better traceability, protect your brand’s reputation and build trust
- Mitigate business disruption and manage increasing costs due to scarcity resulting from climate change
- Investors are increasingly scrutinizing companies due to environmental and social concerns
- Opportunities to build long-term relationships with suppliers, reduce costs and increase productivity
How we can help
Our sustainable supply chain specialists understand the challenges you face and have the knowledge and experience to guide you through the sustainable supply chain journey by:
- Setting strategy and governance structures: To improve a business’s supply chain sustainability, there is no one-size-fits-all solution. With so many global supply chain standards and best practices available, it can be confusing to know where to start. KPMG professionals help clients understand and develop supply chain strategies and governance structures that are tailor-made to their business
- Mapping supply chains and track product ingredients: Many companies lack visibility beyond their direct tier 1 suppliers, which is why KPMG drills down to identify and map your suppliers. KPMG specialists also help companies improve the traceability of their product ingredients from origin to the point of sale.
- Identifying and reducing risks: Supply chains are more geographically dispersed than ever before. This makes them vulnerable to threats such as extreme weather, civil unrest and human rights abuses. KPMG professionals help companies identify and manage these risks.
- Monitoring and improving supplier performance: Analyzing vast amounts of supplier data can be time consuming if a company has not built in strong data management and analytics capabilities. KPMG offers a range of solutions to help companies measure, monitor and report the sustainability performance of their suppliers. KPMG specialists also provide recommendations to help suppliers improve their sustainability performance.
- Strengthening supplier relationships: Building lasting relationships with suppliers is critical to ensuring business continuity. KPMG professionals provide supplier training to build capacity and drive continuous improvement across your global supply chain.
- Sustainable Supply Chain Network: Design of your sustainable supply chain network taking into account social, economic and environmental objectives, including support in evaluating trade-off decisions between total supply chain/logistic costs and carbon offsetting while considering different supply chain operating strategies. Furthermore, KPMG professionals can assess additional decision alternatives, such as supplier and subcontractor selection, product allocation, capacity utilization and transportation configuration and their impact in terms of carbon footprint in sustainable supply chains.
