Tesco, as a single example, is aiming to reduce the amount of carbon used to produce the goods on its shelves by at least 30% by 2020.
As a result, compliance with ISO 14000 and the imminent ISO 26000 – two of the key standards for environmental management – will be increasingly used as criteria against which suppliers will be selected or de-listed by the major multiples.
But how can you prove your adherence to these?
Food and beverage suppliers need to demand their ERP providers are able to provide functionality that tracks and reports carbon usage throughout their own operations, so that they can display evidence to their customers – especially the larger multiples – that they can contribute substantially to carbon reduction targets.
This will include a detailed appreciation of the carbon used to produce and deliver the raw materials and packaging, and then manufacture the end product and transport it to the customer.
This demand on suppliers is coming – it’s unavoidable, and already on its way. Considering new software releases can take up to 18 months to scope out, plan, develop, test and release, then suppliers must challenge their ERP providers and make sure that such a software development is on its way and has been planned in detail, ideally with its customers’ direct involvement.
If not, then it’s quite likely that many food and beverage suppliers will end up caught out with systems that will immediately lose them their biggest contracts.
Andrew Brown is MD of the process manufacturing systems division of Solarsoft.
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