DHL and university act to sustain supply chain

The National University of Singapore (NUS) and DHL have launched Asia's first Sustainable Supply Chain Centre, aimed at providing best practices to achieve sustainability in the supply chain. "The issue of sustainability is very broad.

The centre is focused to take away all that noise and provide simple, usable solutions to achieve sustainability in the supply chain," said Paul Graham, chied executive officer of DHL Supply Chain for Asia Pacific. The US$2.12 million facility is expected to create new tools, best practices and know-how to put the region at the leading edge of sustainability practices through high-level research, surveys, conferences and forums, Graham said. "I believe that the voice of the Asia Pacific region has not been loud enough when it comes to leading the sustainability agenda. We see through the centre the ability to help address that, speaking assuredly about the need to put our development on a sustainable path." Graham believes Asia, which comprises both developed markets such as Singapore and developing markets such as Indonesia, poses unique challenges to sustainability. As such, US and Europe-led sustainability efforts may not be effective if applied wholesale in the Asia markets. Graham said the centre would develop practical solutions tailored to businesses in this market.

Companies from all sectors are expected to benefit from this initiative, especially SMEs (small and medium enterprises), which "may not have technical knowledge" of how to go green in their supply chains, Graham said. Education was identified as one of the key challenges to sustainability in the Asia region, which the centre hopes to correct. Kelvin Wong, director of logistics and urban solutions at the Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB) said: "A lot of sustainable supply chains are really an unknown today. Most companies are really trying to figure out what they should be doing. This centre is about bringing together that group of ideas, that knowledge and putting up a more systematic and structured way to help companies think about sustainability." The facility will also embark on setting industry standards in sustainable logistics solutions, something industry players agree is lacking globally. Graham stressed that the centre is not a DHL initiative, and urged competitor companies, supply chain service providers, customers and related industries to come together and share their expertise. DHL's own supply chain sustainability roadmap outlines a carbon footprint reduction of 10 percent by 2012 across its business, and 30 percent by 2020.
(Source:www.cargonewsasia.com)