Carbon-to-ServeTM methodology has been developed to generate an end to end supply chain view of the carbon intensity and cost of products of products as they move from source to production. Professor Alan Braithwaite recently presented a paper on the subject to The Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport’s Logistic Research Network Conference. This is an adaptation of the paper.
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The world is now sensitised to global warming and the effect of carbon and other emissions. The national target is to reduce emissions by 60% by 2050. Business and political leaders talk about ‘Plan A because there is no Plan B’. But the unanswered question is: what is Plan A? It will consist of a range of energy-saving and effectiveness measures from technology and operations through to structural changes in the supply chain coming from product design, sourcing and network.
The challenge in defining Plan A is to be able to generate a reliable estimate of the carbon intensity of different end-to-end chains and to be able to model the potential from achieving best in class performance and structural changes from different scenarios. In addition to understanding the carbon impacts of different scenarios, it is important to understand in parallel the cost impacts; sound business will generally be about measures that improve both carbon and cost.
The Carbon-to-ServeTM methodology has been developed to generate an end-to-end supply chain aview of the carbon intensity and cost of products as they move from source to consumption. Building on our existing Cost-to-Serve®, it provides high levels of transparency across supply chain boundaries, enabling parties along the chain to co-operate in making changes that will drive to national targets in a way that is not available by other published methods. While standards are still forming in this area, we believe that our approach is compliant with PAS 2050 from the BSI and adds value by providing a practical toolkit.
